Quote

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.

Ben Okri

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Ben Okri
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: March 15
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Growing
Secret
Beautiful
Best
Much
Always
Perish
Things
Destroyed
Despair

More quotes by Ben Okri

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Beware of the stories you read or tell subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.
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To anyone who is homeless, I say, find a home.
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We can still astonish the gods in humanity And be the stuff of future legends, If we but dare to be real, And have the courage to see That this is the time to dream The best dream of them all.
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Don't neglect the gold in your own back yard.
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Reading, like writing, is a creative act. If readers only bring a narrow range of themselves to the book, then they'll only see their narrow range reflected in it.
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The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.
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To see the madness and yet walk a perfect silver line. ... That's what the true story-teller should be: a great guide, a clear mind, who can walk a silver line in hell or madness.
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When you stop inventing reality then you see things as they really are.
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People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
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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.
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Destiny plans a different route and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected.
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The earliest storytellers were magi, seers, bards, griots, shamans. They were, it would seem, old as time, and as terrifying to gaze upon as the mysteries with which they wrestled .. (they) helped the community live though one more darkness, with eyes wide open, and with hearts set alight.
Ben Okri
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I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives. Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history. Nobody has an absolute reality.
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One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity. We had a bit of a rollercoaster life with some really challenging financial periods. He was always unshaken, completely tranquil, the same ebullient, laughing, jovial man.
Ben Okri
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I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and Shakespeare.
Ben Okri
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A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick. Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose it’s moorings or orientation... Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart larger.
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The road will never swallow you. The river of destiny will always overcome evil. May you understand your fate. Suffering will never destroy you, but will make you stronger. Success will never confuse you of scatter your spirit, but will make you fly higher into the good sunlight. Your life will always surprise you.
Ben Okri
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This earth that we live on is full of stories in the same way that, for a fish, the ocean is full of ocean. Some people say when we are born we're born into stories. I say we're also born from stories.
Ben Okri
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This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down.
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I'm conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round to the beginning of my writing cycle. It begins with poetry. There's hardly a day that goes past on which I don't write poetry.
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