Quote

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.

Ben Okri

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ben Okri
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: March 15
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Resonance
Pieces
Reaction
Leave
Agreement
Either
Reactions
Felt
Thought
Piece
Important
Mines
Writing
Mine
Even
Writer

More quotes by Ben Okri

Image
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
Image
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
Image
Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression.
Ben Okri
Image
Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.
Ben Okri
Image
One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity.
Ben Okri
Image
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.
Ben Okri
Image
Creativity is the art of the impossible
Ben Okri
Image
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
Image
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.
Ben Okri
Image
To anyone who is homeless, I say, find a home.
Ben Okri
Image
When you stop inventing reality then you see things as they really are.
Ben Okri
Image
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
Image
This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down.
Ben Okri
Image
The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.
Ben Okri
Image
People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
Ben Okri
Image
A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life.
Ben Okri
Image
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.
Ben Okri
Image
I'm conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round to the beginning of my writing cycle. It begins with poetry. There's hardly a day that goes past on which I don't write poetry.
Ben Okri
Image
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
Image
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