The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it's about us, it's about… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
Literature doesn't have a country. Shakespeare is an African writer. His Falstaff, for example, is very African in his appetite for life,… — 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
This earth that we live on is full of stories in the same way that, for a fish, the ocean is full… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
The Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri says that ‘In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
I was born left-handed, but I was made to use my other hand. When I was writing 'Famished Road,' which was very… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
“The highest kind of writing—which must not be confused with the most ambitious kind…belongs to the realm of grace. Talent is part… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
Artists and writers have to deal with the element that makes the real real and the dream real while you are dreaming… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
Reading, like writing, is a creative act. If readers only bring a narrow range of themselves to the book, then they'll only… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
I began my writing life as a poet, so poetry has always been fundamental. I evolved from poetry to journalism to stories… — 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
It is not important for me as a writer that you leave a piece of writing of mine with either an agreement… — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
To poison a nation, poison its stories. A demoralised nation tells demoralised stories to itself. Beware of the storytellers who are not… — 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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Fire is one of my temperaments. It is behind all my work... Fire is a chemical presence. — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends' floors, was happy, was miserable. — 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 wisdom. — Ben Okri Copy Share Image
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 Image
