Ben Okri

I know that human beings are capable of anything.

— Ben Okri

We are living in enchanted time. With our spirits right.

— Ben Okri

Creativity is the art of the impossible

— Ben Okri

We have not yet arrived, but every point at which we stop requires a re-definition of our destination.

— Ben Okri

Politics is the art of the possible; creativity is the art of the impossible.

— Ben Okri

Some of my reactions are very Nigerian. I still believe that words are things.

— Ben Okri

I learned that life will go through changes - up and down and up again. It's what life does.

— Ben Okri

The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.

— Ben Okri

A man's greatest battles are the ones he fights within himself.

— Ben Okri

If we could be pure dancers in spirit we would never be afraid to love, and we would love with strength and…

— Ben Okri

“Will you be at the harvest, Among the gatherers of new fruits?”

— Ben Okri

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

Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the…

— Ben Okri

This earth that we live on is full of stories in the same way that, for a fish, the ocean is full…

— Ben Okri

If you are working in an office, where do you find the time to write a novel? But you can finish a…

— Ben Okri

The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be…

— Ben Okri

Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our…

— Ben Okri

We have fallen into this very mean description of humanity. Naturalism in fiction is too reductive in its definition of human beings.

— Ben Okri

I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and Shakespeare. No,…

— Ben Okri

“Knowledge of self ought to be the great project of our lives. Knowing ourselves we will know others. Only by knowing ourselves…

— Ben Okri

It is easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are. They do their work in silence, invisibly. They work with all…

— Ben Okri

We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our…

— Ben Okri

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

The earliest storytellers were magi, seers, bards, griots, shamans. They were, it would seem, old as time, and as terrifying to gaze…

— Ben Okri

A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick. Without stories we…

— Ben Okri

Bad things will happen and good things too. Your life will be full of surprises. Miracles happen only where there has been…

— Ben Okri

“We are victims of censorship within when we do not let ourselves think the thoughts which our flesh recoils from, or let…

— Ben Okri

“It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love. The heart is bigger than a mountain. One…

— Ben Okri

“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

The Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri says that ‘In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live…

— Ben Okri

What hope is there for individual reality or authenticity when the forces of violence and orthodoxy, the earthly powers of guns and…

— Ben Okri

“He felt as if he hadn't slept because he spent all night wandering through the world looking for a maiden who bore…

— Ben Okri

Destiny plans a different route and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected.

— Ben Okri

Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression.

— Ben Okri

Don't read what everyone else is reading. Check them out later, cautiously.

— Ben Okri

People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.

— Ben Okri

A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life.

— Ben Okri

If we are true, if we can love, if we have vision, if we can have courage, we can, we should, we…

— Ben Okri

Fire is one of my temperaments. It is behind all my work... Fire is a chemical presence.

— Ben Okri

Who knows, maybe this whole planet is an asylum, a penal realm. A place for hard cases.

— Ben Okri