The worst time was 1983. Love and life and everything went wrong. I reached absolute rock bottom. I saw the Minotaur at… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
If we could be pure dancers in spirit we would never be afraid to love, and we would love with strength and… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
“I mean we desperately wanted to be in love with something or other. We were lonely people. It seemed more sensible to… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
If we are true, if we can love, if we have vision, if we can have courage, we can, we should, we… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
“It is more difficult to love than to die. It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
We disliked the rigours of existence, the unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
There is a kind of expressed love which is easy to subvert. When a figure is loved for their deeds, their conquests,… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You dwell in your own… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
“It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love. The heart is bigger than a mountain. One… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
We never think that our mothers will die. It was like suddenly an abyss opened at my feet - I was standing on nothing.… — Ben Okri Copy Share
“In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them. One way… — Ben Okri Copy Share
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 Okri Copy Share
Maybe there are only three kinds of stories: those we live, those we tell, and those that help our souls fly upwards to a… — Ben Okri Copy Share
The earliest storytellers were magi, seers, bards, griots, shamans. They were, it would seem, old as time, and as terrifying to gaze upon as… — Ben Okri Copy Share
The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like. — Ben Okri Copy Share
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… — Ben Okri Copy Share
Fire is one of my temperaments. It is behind all my work... Fire is a chemical presence. — Ben Okri Copy Share
I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends' floors, was happy, was miserable. — Ben Okri Copy Share
If we could be pure dancers in spirit we would never be afraid to love, and we would love with strength and wisdom. — Ben Okri Copy Share
Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our stories — Ben Okri Copy Share
Literature doesn't have a country. Shakespeare is an African writer. His Falstaff, for example, is very African in his appetite for life, his largeness… — Ben Okri Copy Share
“So long as a canvas is empty its potential is infinite… The empty canvas can become a gateway into the landscape of nightmares or… — Ben Okri Copy Share
I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and Shakespeare. — Ben Okri Copy Share
