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I’m conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round to the beginning of my writing cycle. It begins with poetry. There’s hardly a day that goes past on which I don’t write poetry.

Ben Okri

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

Art Magic Nothing
We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It’s just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there.
BEN OKRI

Destiny Dream Fate
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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Office Perfect Writing
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
Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression.
BEN OKRI

Enemy Expression Silence
When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity’s chief instrument.
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Chaos Deities Eras
I was going to be a scientist.
BEN OKRI

Dream Going Job Scientist
a dream can be the highest point of a life
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Dream Highest Life
To sustain your belief through situations that completely undermine it is quite something.
BEN OKRI

Belief Quite Situation Something
The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing.
BEN OKRI

Attention Common Magic
This earth that we live on is full of stories in the same way that, for a fish, the ocean is full of ocean. Some people say when we are born we’re born into stories. I say we’re also born from stories.
BEN OKRI

Ocean People Stories
An inner darkness is darker than an outer darkness.
BEN OKRI

Darker Darkness Inner
When you can imagine you begin to create and when you begin to create you realize that you can create a world that you prefer to live in, rather than a world that you’re suffering in.
BEN OKRI

Realizing Suffering World
Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.
BEN OKRI

Inspiring Night Water
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

I’m conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round to the beginning of my writing cycle. It begins with poetry. There’s hardly a day that goes past on which I don’t write poetry.

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I’m conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round to the beginning of my writing cycle. It begins with poetry. There’s hardly a day that goes past on which I don’t write poetry.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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