$Ben Okri Quote - The Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri says that ‘In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them.$
$Ben Okri Quote - The Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri says that ‘In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them.$
$Ben Okri Quote - The Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri says that ‘In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them.$
$Ben Okri Quote - The Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri says that ‘In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them.$
$Ben Okri Quote - The Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri says that ‘In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them.$
$Ben Okri Quote - The Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri says that ‘In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them.$

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The Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri says that ‘In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them.

Ben Okri

Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.
BEN OKRI

Art Magic Nothing
Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.
BEN OKRI

Artist Broken Enemy
I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends’ floors, was happy, was miserable.
BEN OKRI

Homeless Miserable Wit
I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and Shakespeare.
BEN OKRI

Country Home Literature
The greatest religions convert the world through stories.
BEN OKRI

Converting Stories World
Literature doesn’t have a country. Shakespeare is an African writer. His Falstaff, for example, is very African in his appetite for life, his largeness of spirit. The characters of Turgenev are ghetto dwellers. Dickens characters are Nigerians.
BEN OKRI

Character Country Ghetto
To poison a nation, poison its stories. A demoralised nation tells demoralised stories to itself. Beware of the storytellers who are not fully conscious of the importance of their gifts, and who are irresponsible in the application of their art: they
BEN OKRI

Art Poison Stories
You are a mischievous one. You will cause no end of trouble. You have to travel many roads before you find the river of your destiny. This life of yours will be full of riddles. You will be protected and you will never be alone.
BEN OKRI

Cause Destiny Rivers
a dream can be the highest point of a life
BEN OKRI

Dream Highest Life
A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life.
BEN OKRI

Able Men Sometimes
Reading, like writing, is a creative act. If readers only bring a narrow range of themselves to the book, then they’ll only see their narrow range reflected in it.
BEN OKRI

Book Reading Writing
Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression.
BEN OKRI

Enemy Expression Silence
The higher the artist, the fewer the gestures. The fewer the tools, the greater the imagination. The greater the will, the greater the secret failure.
BEN OKRI

Artist Imagination Secret
There ought to be three traditions in the art of humanity: the realistic, the visionary and the wild.
BEN OKRI

Art Humanity Three
The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.
BEN OKRI

Facts Hint Perfection
A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick. Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose it’s moorings or orientation… Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart larger.
BEN OKRI

Heart Mad People