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The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.

Ben Okri

We have not yet arrived, but every point at which we stop requires a re-definition of our destination.
BEN OKRI

Definitions Destination Require Stop
A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life.
BEN OKRI

Able Men Sometimes
To sustain your belief through situations that completely undermine it is quite something.
BEN OKRI

Belief Quite Situation Something
If we are true, if we can love, if we have vision, if we can have courage, we can, we should, we ought to, we will.
BEN OKRI

Power Should Vision
People that don’t exist, places you’ve never visited, enigmatic fates, all come to life in the mind, painted into existence by the reader’s creative powers. In this way the creativity of the writer calls up the creativity of the reader. Reading is never passive.
BEN OKRI

Come Creative Mind Pianetd Power
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.
BEN OKRI

Children Dream Kids
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

Afraid Dancer Love Spirit
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.
BEN OKRI

Ghetto Imagination Vibrancy
I was going to be a scientist.
BEN OKRI

Dream Going Job Scientist
Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You dwell in your own enchantment.
BEN OKRI

Dream Flower Strong
Success will never confuse you of scatter your spirit, but will make you fly higher into the good sunlight. Your life will always surprise you.
BEN OKRI

Good Higher Success Surprise
Don’t neglect the gold in your own back yard.
BEN OKRI

Gold Neglect Yards
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.
BEN OKRI

Grief Miracle Suffering
People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
BEN OKRI

Healthy People Stories
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
Our time here is magic! It’s the only space you have to realize whatever it is that is beautiful, whatever is true, whatever is great, whatever is potential, whatever is rare, whatever is unique, in. It’s the only space.
BEN OKRI

Beautiful Space Unique

The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.

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The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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