All Ben Okri Quotes
- When you can imagine you begin to create and when you begin to create you realize that you can create a world that you prefer… Begin
- It is not important for me as a writer that you leave a piece of writing of mine with either an agreement or even a… Agreement
- Ghetto-dwellers are the great fantasists. There was an extraordinary vibrancy there, an imaginative life. When you are that poor, all you've got left is your… All
- When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity's chief instrument. Chaos
- Yes, the highest things are beyond words. That is probably why all art aspires to the condition of wordlessness. When literature works on you, it… Action
- Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way. Artist
- If we are true, if we can love, if we have vision, if we can have courage, we can, we should, we ought to, we… Courage
- Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression. Enemy
- There ought to be three traditions in the art of humanity: the realistic, the visionary and the wild. Art
- The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our… Authentic
- The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing. Attention
- Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret. Always Growing
- Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger. Bigger
- I learned that life will go through changes - up and down and up again. It's what life does. Changes
- 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 great,… Beautiful
- The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell. Fact
- I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends' floors, was happy, was miserable. Floors
- The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like. Africa
- 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. Absolutely
- To sustain your belief through situations that completely undermine it is quite something. Belief