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The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.

Ben Okri

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Ben Okri
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: March 15
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Kind
Jazz
Like
Strange
Present
Future
Past
Together
Come
Rough
Thing
Africa

More quotes by Ben Okri

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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.
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The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.
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I held you in the square And felt the evening Re-order itself around Your smile.
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To anyone who is homeless, I say, find a home.
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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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One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us.
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The worst realities of our age are manufactured realities. It is therefore our task, as creative participants in the universe, to re dream our world. The fact of possessing imagination means that everything can be re dreamed. Each reality can have it
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I am not fighting for success, just to get more beauty out of myself and share it with more people.
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There ought to be three traditions in the art of humanity: the realistic, the visionary and the wild.
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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 will.
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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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We have not yet arrived, but every point at which we stop requires a re-definition of our destination.
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To sustain your belief through situations that completely undermine it is quite something.
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This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down.
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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.
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.
Ben Okri
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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.
Ben Okri
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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.
Ben Okri
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When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity's chief instrument.
Ben Okri