Quote

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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Ben Okri
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: March 15
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Bits
Adversity
Unshaken
Greatest
Financial
Unintentionally
Father
Periods
Witnessing
Really
Gave
Tranquil
Always
Completely
Bore
Men
Courage
Bores
Life
Laughing
Challenging
Ebullient
Challenges
Gifts
Jovial

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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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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This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down.
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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.
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To anyone who is homeless, I say, find a home.
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To poison a nation, poison its stories. A demoralised nation tells demoralised stories to itself. Beware of the storytellers who are not fully conscious of the importance of their gifts, and who are irresponsible in the application of their art: they
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A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life.
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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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Don't neglect the gold in your own back yard.
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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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When you stop inventing reality then you see things as they really are.
Ben Okri
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When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity's chief instrument.
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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 resonance with what I have said. What is important is that you leave with the resonance of what you have felt and what you thought in reaction to that.
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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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The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things.
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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.
Ben Okri
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We have not yet arrived, but every point at which we stop requires a re-definition of our destination.
Ben Okri
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Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.
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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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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