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 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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Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.
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Destiny plans a different route and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn’t have expected.
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When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity’s chief instrument.
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I know that human beings are capable of anything.
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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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I am not fighting for success, just to get more beauty out of myself and share it with more people.
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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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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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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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If we could be pure dancers in spirit we would never be afraid to love, and we would love with strength and wisdom.
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We are living in enchanted time. With our spirits right.
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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…
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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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Don’t neglect the gold in your own back yard.
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Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn’t have expected.
BEN OKRI