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Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.

Ben Okri

I held you in the square And felt the evening Re-order itself around Your smile.
BEN OKRI

Order Smile Squares
Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.
BEN OKRI

Artist Broken Enemy
Don’t despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.
BEN OKRI

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

Jazz Past Together
I was going to be a scientist.
BEN OKRI

Dream Going Job Scientist
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.
BEN OKRI

Hungry Rivers World
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
BEN OKRI

Art Poison Stories
We are living in enchanted time. With our spirits right.
BEN OKRI

Enchanted Spirit Time
What you see is what you make. What you see in a people is what you eventually create in them.
BEN OKRI

Create Eventually Make People
People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
BEN OKRI

Healthy People Stories
Don’t read what everyone else is reading. Check them out later, cautiously.
BEN OKRI

Checks Everyone Read Reading
Creativity is the art of the impossible
BEN OKRI

Art Creativity Impossible
Don’t try and press it down. Don’t hide from it. Don’t escape. It is life too. It is truth. But it will pass and time will put a strange honey in the bitterness. That’s the way life goes.
BEN OKRI

Escape Life Press Strange
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.
BEN OKRI

Individual Secret Stories
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 OKRI

Mind Perfect Story
Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.
BEN OKRI

Art Hide Magic Nothing

Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.

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Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.

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Popular Authors

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