Quote

The higher the artist, the fewer the gestures. The fewer the tools, the greater the imagination. The greater the will, the greater the secret failure.

Ben Okri

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Ben Okri
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: March 15
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Failure
Higher
Imagination
Secret
Greater
Artist
Gestures
Fewer
Tools

More quotes by Ben Okri

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This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down.
Ben Okri
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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
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Our time here is magic! It's the only space you have to realize whatever it is that is beautiful, whatever is true, whatever is great, whatever is potential, whatever is rare, whatever is unique, in. It's the only space.
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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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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.
Ben Okri
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Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression.
Ben Okri
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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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Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.
Ben Okri
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The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.
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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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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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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I was born left-handed, but I was made to use my other hand. When I was writing 'Famished Road,' which was very long, I got repetitive stress syndrome. My right wrist collapsed, so I started using my left hand. The prose I wrote with my left hand came out denser, so later on I had to change it.
Ben Okri
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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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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.
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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One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity.
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.
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.
Ben Okri
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People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
Ben Okri