Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.
BEN OKRIStories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations.
More Ben Okri Quotes
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People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
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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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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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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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To anyone who is homeless, I say, find a home.
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We are living in enchanted time. With our spirits right.
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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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I am not fighting for success, just to get more beauty out of myself and share it with more people.
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I was going to be a scientist.
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A man’s greatest battles are the ones he fights within himself.
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The Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri says that ‘In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them.
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A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life.
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The worst realities of our age are manufactured realities. It is therefore our task, as creative participants in the universe, to re dream our world. The fact of possessing imagination means that everything can be re dreamed. Each reality can have it
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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.
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Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.
BEN OKRI