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 OKRIOne human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits.
More Ben Okri Quotes
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The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.
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The worst realities of our age are manufactured realities. It is therefore our task, as creative participants in the universe, to re dream our world. The fact of possessing imagination means that everything can be re dreamed. Each reality can have it
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Success will never confuse you of scatter your spirit, but will make you fly higher into the good sunlight. Your life will always surprise you.
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When you stop inventing reality then you see things as they really are.
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Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.
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What you see is what you make. What you see in a people is what you eventually create in them.
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The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing.
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If we could be pure dancers in spirit we would never be afraid to love, and we would love with strength and wisdom.
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If you are working in an office, where do you find the time to write a novel? But you can finish a short story in five pages. Furthermore, a short story is a perfect place to learn the craft
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In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry.
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Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations.
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I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and Shakespeare.
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One way or another we are living the stories planted in us early or along the way, or we are also living the stories we planted – knowingly or unknowingly – in ourselves. We live stories that either give our lives meaning or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives.’
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I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends’ floors, was happy, was miserable.
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I learned that life will go through changes – up and down and up again. It’s what life does.
BEN OKRI