Quote

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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Ben Okri
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: March 15
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Consciousness
Water
Read
Subtly
Tell
Altering
Night
Beware
Stories
Waters
World
Beneath
Inspiring

More quotes by 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.
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When you can imagine you begin to create and when you begin to create you realize that you can create a world that you prefer to live in, rather than a world that you're suffering in.
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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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We have not yet arrived, but every point at which we stop requires a re-definition of our destination.
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I know that human beings are capable of anything.
Ben Okri
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I held you in the square And felt the evening Re-order itself around Your smile.
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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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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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Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression.
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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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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.
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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People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
Ben Okri
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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.
Ben Okri
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Don't neglect the gold in your own back yard.
Ben Okri
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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
Ben Okri
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When you stop inventing reality then you see things as they really are.
Ben Okri
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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.
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
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