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 More Quotes by Ben Okri More Quotes From Ben Okri 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. Ben Okri rocks ocean dream 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 hints perfection facts What you see is what you make. What you see in a people is what you eventually create in them. Ben Okri people I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives. Everyone is looking out of the world through their emotion and history. Nobody has an absolute reality. Ben Okri running life reality 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 despair secret beautiful Destiny plans a different route and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected. Ben Okri childhood destiny dream We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It's just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected. Ben Okri fate destiny dream There is a kind of expressed love which is easy to subvert. When a figure is loved for their deeds, their conquests, their heroism, their goodness, their love of the people, these are easy enough to destroy... But there is a kind of love which is felt for apparently no reason... A love, inspired, it seems, by the gods, which it is impossible to fight, distort, destroy, or weaken. In fact, the attempts to destroy such loves only strengthen them. And to do nothing allows them to continue to grow at their natural pace, inexoribly, till this love becomes a wide and silent adoration. Ben Okri heroism fighting people What hope is there for individual reality or authenticity when the forces of violence and orthodoxy, the earthly powers of guns and bombs and manipulated public opinion make it impossible for us to be authentic and fulfilled human beings? The only hope is in the creation of alternative values, alternative realities. The only hope is in daring to redream one's place in the world - a beautiful act of imagination, and a sustained act of self becoming. Which is to say that in some way or another we breach and confound the accepted frontiers of things. Ben Okri gun beautiful reality The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like. Ben Okri jazz together past It may be that what you could be haunts you. It is real. It is a weight you have to carry around. Each failure to become, to be, is a weight. Each state you could inhabit is a burden as heavy as any physical weight, but more so, because it weighs on your soul. It is the ghost of your possibilities hanging around your neck, an invisible albatros, potentials unknowingly murdered. Ben Okri necks real soul We can redream this world and make the dream come real. Human beings are gods hidden from themselves. Ben Okri real dream world Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide. Ben Okri magic art I held you in the square And felt the evening Re-order itself around Your smile. Ben Okri your-smile squares order The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time. Ben Okri karma simple law Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger. Ben Okri telling-stories fear heart a dream can be the highest point of a life Ben Okri highest dream The greatest religions convert the world through stories. Ben Okri converting stories world It is easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are. They do their work in silence, invisibly. They work with all the internal materials of your mind and self. They become part of you while changing you. Beware the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world. Ben Okri self water night You are a mischievous one. You will cause no end of trouble. You have to travel many roads before you find the river of your destiny. This life of yours will be full of riddles. You will be protected and you will never be alone. Ben Okri destiny causes rivers
