“Her legend, which would sprout a thousand hallucinations, had been born in our midst – born of stories and rumours which, in… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
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 you are working in an office, where do you find the time to write a novel? But you can finish a… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
We can still astonish the gods in humanity And be the stuff of future legends, If we but dare to be real,… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
I study people all the time. For some reason, we're not very good at seeing what's there or hearing what we're hearing. — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
Our time here is magic! It's the only space you have to realize whatever it is that is beautiful, whatever is true,… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
I'm conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
“After a while, when nothing happened, when no reprisals fell on us, it seemed that nothing significant had happened. Some of us… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
“The intelligence that shaped the universe, shaped you. There is an inner part of us, for ever obscured, for ever mysterious, which… — 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
