We can redream this world and make the dream come real. Human beings are gods hidden from themselves. — 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
I became a sceptic of one way of seeing the world. And I think it is what started me in my awareness… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world. — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
When you can imagine you begin to create and when you begin to create you realize that you can create a world… — 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… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives. Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and… — 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
It is easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are. They do their work in silence, invisibly. They work with all… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
Reading, therefore, is a co-production between writer and reader. The simplicity of this tool is astounding. So little, yet out of it… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
Yes, the highest things are beyond words. That is probably why all art aspires to the condition of wordlessness. When literature works… — 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
What hope is there for individual reality or authenticity when the forces of violence and orthodoxy, the earthly powers of guns and… — 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
