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 OKRIWe can still astonish the gods in humanity And be the stuff of future legends, If we but dare to be real, And have the courage to see That this is the time to dream The best dream of them all.
More Ben Okri Quotes
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Destiny plans a different route and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn’t have expected.
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The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things.
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This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down.
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The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it’s about us, it’s about the reader.
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We are living in enchanted time. With our spirits right.
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To sustain your belief through situations that completely undermine it is quite something.
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Life throws stones at you, but your love and your dream change those stones into the flowers of discovery. Even if you lose, or are defeated by things, your triumph will always be exemplary. And if no one knows it, then there are places that do.
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What hope is there for individual reality or authenticity when the forces of violence and orthodoxy, the earthly powers of guns and bombs and manipulated public opinion make it impossible for us to be authentic and fulfilled human beings?
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The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.
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Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.
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One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits.
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Bad things will happen and good things too. Your life will be full of surprises. Miracles happen only where there has been suffering. So taste your grief to the fullest.
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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.
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A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life.
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I know that human beings are capable of anything.
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People like you enrich the dreams of the worlds, and it is dreams that create history. People like you are unknowing transformers of things, protected by your own fairy-tale, by love.
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Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You dwell in your own enchantment.
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Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.
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When you stop inventing reality then you see things as they really are.
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I learned that life will go through changes – up and down and up again. It’s what life does.
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Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.
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Who knows, maybe this whole planet is an asylum, a penal realm. A place for hard cases.
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The greatest religions convert the world through stories.
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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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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.
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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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