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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.

Ben Okri

We have not yet arrived, but every point at which we stop requires a re-definition of our destination.
BEN OKRI

Definitions Destination Require Stop
Don’t neglect the gold in your own back yard.
BEN OKRI

Gold Neglect Yards
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
BEN OKRI

Dream Mean Reality
This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down.
BEN OKRI

Down Grows Like
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
We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It’s just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there.
BEN OKRI

Destiny Dream Fate
Reading, therefore, is a co-production between writer and reader. The simplicity of this tool is astounding. So little, yet out of it whole worlds, eras, characters, continents, people never encountered before, people you wouldn’t care to sit next to in a train.
BEN OKRI

Character Creativity Reading
People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
BEN OKRI

Healthy People Stories
The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.
BEN OKRI

Jazz Past Together
To anyone who is homeless, I say, find a home.
BEN OKRI

Anyone Home Homeless
An inner darkness is darker than an outer darkness.
BEN OKRI

Darker Darkness Inner
Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression.
BEN OKRI

Enemy Expression Silence
If we could be pure dancers in spirit we would never be afraid to love, and we would love with strength and wisdom.
BEN OKRI

Afraid Dancer Love Spirit
Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.
BEN OKRI

Fear Heart Telling Stories
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 was told stories, we were all told stories as kids in Nigeria. We had to tell stories that would keep one another interested, and you weren’t allowed to tell stories that everybody else knew. You had to dream up new ones.
BEN OKRI

Children Dream Kids

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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Popular Authors

The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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