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I was going to be a scientist.

Ben Okri

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.
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Artist Imagination Secret
We have not yet arrived, but every point at which we stop requires a re-definition of our destination.
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Definitions Destination Require Stop
An inner darkness is darker than an outer darkness.
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Darker Darkness Inner
Ghetto-dwellers are the great fantasists. There was an extraordinary vibrancy there, an imaginative life. When you are that poor, all you’ve got left is your belief in the imagination.
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Ghetto Imagination Vibrancy
It is not important for me as a writer that you leave a piece of writing of mine with either an agreement or even a resonance with what I have said. What is important is that you leave with the resonance of what you have felt and what you thought in reaction to that.
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Agreement Important Writing
We have fallen into this very mean description of humanity. Naturalism in fiction is too reductive in its definition of human beings.
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Fiction Humanity Mean
The greatest religions convert the world through stories.
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Converting Stories World
What you see is what you make. What you see in a people is what you eventually create in them.
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Create Eventually Make People
To see the madness and yet walk a perfect silver line. … That’s what the true story-teller should be: a great guide, a clear mind, who can walk a silver line in hell or madness.
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Mind Perfect Story
If we are true, if we can love, if we have vision, if we can have courage, we can, we should, we ought to, we will.
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Power Should Vision
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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Inspiring Night Water
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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Another Ourselves Planted Unknowingly
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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Grief Miracle Suffering
Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.
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Art Magic Nothing
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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Beautiful Gun Reality
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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Dream Flower Strong
I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends’ floors, was happy, was miserable.
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Homeless Miserable Wit
I held you in the square And felt the evening Re-order itself around Your smile.
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Order Smile Squares
Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.
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Art Hide Magic Nothing
I was going to be a scientist.
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Dream Going Job Scientist
Maybe there are only three kinds of stories: those we live, those we tell, and those that help our souls fly upwards to a greater life.
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Soul Stories Three
This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down.
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Down Grows Like
The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.
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Karma Law Simple
The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.
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Facts Hint Perfection
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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Office Perfect Writing
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.
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Book Reading Writing
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
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Art Poison Stories

I was going to be a scientist.

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I was going to be a scientist.

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