Quote

In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry.

Ben Okri

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Ben Okri
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: March 15
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Road
Became
Beginning
Whole
Always
Branched
World
River
Hungry
Rivers

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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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I know that human beings are capable of anything.
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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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Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression.
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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.
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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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We have not yet arrived, but every point at which we stop requires a re-definition of our destination.
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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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One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity.
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Destiny plans a different route and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected.
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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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Literature doesn't have a country. Shakespeare is an African writer. His Falstaff, for example, is very African in his appetite for life, his largeness of spirit. The characters of Turgenev are ghetto dwellers. Dickens characters are Nigerians.
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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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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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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 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 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 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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I held you in the square And felt the evening Re-order itself around Your smile.
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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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