Quote

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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Ben Okri
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: March 15
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
True
Line
Stories
Walk
Great
Walks
Mind
Hell
Teller
Lines
Guide
Clear
Silver
Story
Guides
Perfect
Madness

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Don't neglect the gold in your own back yard.
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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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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.
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The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing.
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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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There ought to be three traditions in the art of humanity: the realistic, the visionary and the wild.
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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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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 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.
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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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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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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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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 despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.
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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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A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life.
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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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Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.
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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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