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There ought to be three traditions in the art of humanity: the realistic, the visionary and the wild.

Ben Okri

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Ben Okri
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: March 15
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Three
Visionaries
Traditions
Realistic
Wild
Tradition
Ought
Humanity
Art
Visionary

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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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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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Beware of the stories you read or tell subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.
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This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down.
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To anyone who is homeless, I say, find a home.
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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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Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression.
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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.
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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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People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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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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Wholeness is the enemy of the artist. We ought to be broken, ruined in some way.
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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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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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