A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick. Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose it’s moorings or orientation… Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart larger.
BEN OKRIThe law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.
More Ben Okri Quotes
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The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it’s about us, it’s about the reader.
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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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I was going to be a scientist.
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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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A man’s greatest battles are the ones he fights within himself.
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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.
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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.
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What you see is what you make. What you see in a people is what you eventually create in them.
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You are a mischievous one. You will cause no end of trouble. You have to travel many roads before you find the river of your destiny. This life of yours will be full of riddles. You will be protected and you will never be alone.
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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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People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
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We can still astonish the gods in humanity And be the stuff of future legends, If we but dare to be real, And have the courage to see That this is the time to dream The best dream of them all.
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Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression.
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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.
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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