Ben Okri on mad
Ben Okri79 quotes“Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our stories”
More from Ben Okri
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 OkriBen Okri Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.
Ben OkriBen Okri To anyone who is homeless, I say, find a home.
Ben OkriBen Okri I am not fighting for success, just to get more beauty out of myself and share it with more people.
Ben OkriBen Okri The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.
Ben OkriBen Okri 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.
Ben OkriBen Okri There is a kind of expressed love which is easy to subvert. When a figure is loved for their deeds, their conquests, their heroism, their goodness, their love of the people, these are easy enough to destroy… But there is a kind of love which is felt for apparently no reason…
Ben OkriBen Okri a dream can be the highest point of a life
Ben OkriBen Okri I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends’ floors, was happy, was miserable.
Ben OkriBen Okri 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 OkriBen Okri The worst realities of our age are manufactured realities. It is therefore our task, as creative participants in the universe, to re dream our world. The fact of possessing imagination means that everything can be re dreamed. Each reality can have it
Ben OkriBen Okri Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.
Ben OkriBen Okri Don’t neglect the gold in your own back yard.
Ben OkriBen Okri What hope is there for individual reality or authenticity when the forces of violence and orthodoxy, the earthly powers of guns and bombs and manipulated public opinion make it impossible for us to be authentic and fulfilled human beings?
Ben OkriBen Okri I know that human beings are capable of anything.
Ben OkriBen Okri 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.
Ben OkriBen Okri
Original quotes
From our community writers
We were dirt poor but we had each other. We didn’t need much to have a lot.
Brad NeatonBrad Neaton Always show kindness and love to others. Your words might be filling the empty places in someone else heart.
Alexander KandovAlexander Kandov One quick sip of your memory I let it slip, and I go on without you.
Emma SchippersEmma Schippers If the scars on my heart were visible to the naked eye, maybe you’d think twice about inflicting more.
Laura Natoli-KearneyLaura Natoli-Kearney I am getting better at forgetting you. I am slowly but steadily learning the art of forgetting you.
Juana GarciaJuana Garcia Paper and pen petrify me, for they pierce right through me, drawing deep blue blood, leaving me utterly cold.
Shreya JoshiShreya Joshi Spend time with people who get excited over even the smallest victories you earn.
Sonia SabnisSonia Sabnis I wonder if you were the poison or the antidote.
Ginnie BaleGinnie Bale
Meet the writers
More on mad
A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.
Adam SmithAdam Smith Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.
Annie BesantAnnie Besant Never yet has a God been defined in terms which were not palpably self-contradictory and absurd; never yet has a God been described so that a concept of Him was made possible to human thought.
Annie BesantAnnie Besant I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac.
Eric HofferEric Hoffer Anything’s possible in Human Nature …Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy.
Arundhati RoyArundhati Roy Listen; this world is the lunatic’s sphere , Don’t always agree it’s real, Even with my feet upon it And the postman knowing my door My address is somewhere else.
HafezHafez Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner I learned that the world didn’t see the inside of you, that it didn’t care a whit about the hopes and dreams, and sorrows, that lay masked by skin and bone. It was as simple, as absurd, and as cruel as that.
Khaled HosseiniKhaled Hosseini
