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A man’s greatest battles are the ones he fights within himself.

Ben Okri

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.
BEN OKRI

Create History People Protected Transformer
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
A man’s greatest battles are the ones he fights within himself.
BEN OKRI

Battle Fighting Men
I was going to be a scientist.
BEN OKRI

Dream Going Job Scientist
People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
BEN OKRI

Healthy People Stories
One of the greatest gifts my father gave me – unintentionally – was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity.
BEN OKRI

Adversity Father Tranquil
An inner darkness is darker than an outer darkness.
BEN OKRI

Darker Darkness Inner
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
We have fallen into this very mean description of humanity. Naturalism in fiction is too reductive in its definition of human beings.
BEN OKRI

Fiction Humanity Mean
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.
BEN OKRI

Soul Stories Three
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
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.
BEN OKRI

Mind Perfect Story
I’m conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round to the beginning of my writing cycle. It begins with poetry. There’s hardly a day that goes past on which I don’t write poetry.
BEN OKRI

Circles Past Writing
Creativity is the art of the impossible
BEN OKRI

Art Creativity Impossible
There is a kind of expressed love which is easy to subvert. When a figure is loved for their deeds, their conquests, their heroism, their goodness, their love of the people, these are easy enough to destroy… But there is a kind of love which is felt for apparently no reason…
BEN OKRI

Fighting Heroism People
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 man’s greatest battles are the ones he fights within himself.

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A man’s greatest battles are the ones he fights within himself.

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Popular Authors

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