The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing.
BEN OKRIThe fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.
More Ben Okri Quotes
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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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To sustain your belief through situations that completely undermine it is quite something.
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An inner darkness is darker than an outer darkness.
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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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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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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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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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There ought to be three traditions in the art of humanity: the realistic, the visionary and the wild.
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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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A man’s greatest battles are the ones he fights within himself.
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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.
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One of the greatest gifts my father gave me – unintentionally – was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity.
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a dream can be the highest point of a life
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We are living in enchanted time. With our spirits right.
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When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity’s chief instrument.
BEN OKRI