The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.
BEN OKRIDon’t read what everyone else is reading. Check them out later, cautiously.
More Ben Okri Quotes
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a dream can be the highest point of a life
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People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
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I am not fighting for success, just to get more beauty out of myself and share it with more people.
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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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I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends’ floors, was happy, was miserable.
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Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our stories
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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?
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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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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.
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I’m fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives. Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history. Nobody has an absolute reality.
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Destiny plans a different route and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn’t have expected.
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The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.
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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
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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.
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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