More from Ben Okri
Life throws stones at you, but your love and your dream change those stones into the flowers of discovery. Even if you lose, or are defeated by things, your triumph will always be exemplary. And if no one knows it, then there are places that do.
Ben OkriBen Okri Creativity is the art of the impossible
Ben OkriBen Okri 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 OkriBen Okri Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression.
Ben OkriBen Okri To sustain your belief through situations that completely undermine it is quite something.
Ben OkriBen Okri An inner darkness is darker than an outer darkness.
Ben OkriBen Okri Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.
Ben OkriBen Okri 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 OkriBen Okri I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and Shakespeare.
Ben OkriBen Okri The higher the artist, the fewer the gestures. The fewer the tools, the greater the imagination. The greater the will, the greater the secret failure.
Ben OkriBen Okri One of the greatest gifts my father gave me – unintentionally – was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity.
Ben OkriBen Okri The greatest religions convert the world through stories.
Ben OkriBen Okri People like you enrich the dreams of the worlds, and it is dreams that create history. People like you are unknowing transformers of things, protected by your own fairy-tale, by love.
Ben OkriBen Okri We have not yet arrived, but every point at which we stop requires a re-definition of our destination.
Ben OkriBen Okri 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 OkriBen Okri One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits.
Ben OkriBen Okri
Original quotes
From our community writers
And that is how time heals, not by erasing but by blurring all the memories.
VesmirVesmir Let me follow my dream. Let me follow my queen.
Moses AlexanderMoses Alexander Be kind to yourself, the way you would be to someone you love.
Courtney PeppernellCourtney Peppernell We need to surrender ourselves to the water before we can climb the spiral ladder.
Nikol MejdnNikol Mejdn You gave me the courage to rise but my darling robin why did you fly leaving me behind these four walls all alone?
Ophelia ScarlettOphelia Scarlett Giving up your dreams is easy, but ask yourself is it really easy to live without dreams?
Sania AbbasSania Abbas It’s funny how we say a person ‘made’ us when they actually broke us. Sort of like how I say ‘funny’ – but I actually mean sad.
Ranata SuzukiRanata Suzuki You can’t keep living backwards – Reminiscing on what was, And terrified to pursue What could be.
J.S BrownJ.S Brown
Meet the writers
More on nothing
The pleasure of being bored ismooning about and doing nothing.
Aidan ChambersAidan Chambers I don’t care if this is a great cultural event or a national symbol. It has nothing to do with me. It deals with the city.
Ai WeiweiAi Weiwei For me, now, working and children is it. Theres nothing more to life.
Aidan GillenAidan Gillen The white foam knows nothing better than those sands which wait for it , rise to it and suck it in .but what do the waves know of the massed, hot, still sands of the desert just twenty , no , ten feet beyond the scalloped edge ?
Ahdaf SoueifAhdaf Soueif If my art has nothing to do with people’s pain and sorrow, what is ‘art’ for?
Ai WeiweiAi Weiwei Nothing is clear-cut. Perhaps I’ll find my way – or get totally lost.
Ai WeiweiAi Weiwei As you peel it back, in the heart of nothing, that is love. You are what you are seeking. Life is a set up so that each of us can actually see in ourselves the truth for ourselves.
AdyashantiAdyashanti The question of being is everything. Nothing could be more important or consequential-n othing where the stakes run so high.
AdyashantiAdyashanti
