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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.

Ben Okri

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Ben Okri
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: March 15
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Cannot
Mysteries
Take
Dislike
Made
Accepted
Things
Police
Legislated
World
Mystery
Coded
Wonder
Acknowledged
Law
Legislators
Given
Frontiers

More quotes by Ben Okri

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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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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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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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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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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.
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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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A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life.
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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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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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We have not yet arrived, but every point at which we stop requires a re-definition of our destination.
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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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Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our stories
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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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I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and Shakespeare.
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Don't neglect the gold in your own back yard.
Ben Okri
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I know that human beings are capable of anything.
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One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity.
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I held you in the square And felt the evening Re-order itself around Your smile.
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People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
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