Ben Okri Quotes

Nigerian - Poet Born: March 15, 1959

I learned that life will go through changes - up and down and up again. It's what life does. Ben Okri

Life, Down, Will, Changes, Up And Down

The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering. Ben Okri

Inspirational, Love, Suffering, Create

The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing. Ben Okri

Doing, Attention, Away, Politician, Our

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. Ben Okri

Inspirational, Beautiful, Time, Great

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. Ben Okri

Beautiful, Best, You, Too Much, Growing

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

Perfection, Imperfection, Story, Human

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. Ben Okri

Life, Father, Adversity, Courage, Man

Reading is an act of civilization; it's one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities. Ben Okri

Mind, Reading, Free, Possibilities, Act

I believe in leavening. You can't have words sticking out too much, like promontories. They disturb the density. You have to flatten them, or raise the surrounding terrain. Ben Okri

Words, Believe, You, Too Much, Like, Out

I am not fighting for success, just to get more beauty out of myself and share it with more people. Ben Okri

Beauty, Success, Myself, People, I Am

You cannot come to a Nigerian restaurant without having pepper soup. Ben Okri

Restaurant, Soup, You, Without, Pepper

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

Live, Imagination, Suffering, World, You

You see, I was told stories, we were all told stories as kids in Nigeria. We had to tell stories that would keep one another interested, and you weren't allowed to tell stories that everybody else knew. You had to dream up new ones. Ben Okri

Dream, New, You, See, Tell, Up

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. Ben Okri

World, Police, Law, Wonder, Dislike

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

Change, Stress, Writing, Road, Long

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

Life, Moment, Day, Past, Poetry, Writing

To sustain your belief through situations that completely undermine it is quite something. Ben Okri

Belief, Through, Something, Undermine

We never think that our mothers will die. It was like suddenly an abyss opened at my feet - I was standing on nothing. It was the strangest thing. Her passing away ripped the solidity out of the world. Ben Okri

World, Feet, Think, Die, Her, Never

I am one year older than Nigeria at 51. In a human life, 51 might be old. But it is very young for a nation. By that, I mean a Nigeria conscious of itself as a nation. Ben Okri

Life, I Am, Year, Young, Nation, Mean

Politics is the art of the possible; creativity is the art of the impossible. Ben Okri

Art, Politics, Creativity, Impossible

Artists and writers have to deal with the element that makes the real real and the dream real while you are dreaming it. That's where stories and poems get their power. Ben Okri

Power, Dream, You, Real, Dreaming, Deal

We have fallen into this very mean description of humanity. Naturalism in fiction is too reductive in its definition of human beings. Ben Okri

Humanity, Mean, Human, Fiction, Too

The worst time was 1983. Love and life and everything went wrong. I reached absolute rock bottom. I saw the Minotaur at the bottom of the abyss. I learnt of the harshness of the world and its impartiality to human failure. Ben Okri

Life, Love, Failure, Time, World, Rock

If you are working in an office, where do you find the time to write a novel? But you can finish a short story in five pages. Furthermore, a short story is a perfect place to learn the craft. Ben Okri

Time, Short, Finish, Story, Perfect, You

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

Creative, Book, Writing, Reading, See

I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends' floors, was happy, was miserable. Ben Okri

Happy, Homeless, Friends, Miserable

Biography

Nationality: Nigerian

Type: Poet

Born: March 15, 1959

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