Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.
BEN OKRITo sustain your belief through situations that completely undermine it is quite something.
More Ben Okri Quotes
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Creativity is the art of the impossible
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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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I know that human beings are capable of anything.
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We are living in enchanted time. With our spirits right.
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Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our stories
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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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Who knows, maybe this whole planet is an asylum, a penal realm. A place for hard cases.
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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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The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.
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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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The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things.
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Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations.
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To anyone who is homeless, I say, find a home.
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An inner darkness is darker than an outer darkness.
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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.
BEN OKRI