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 More Quotes by Ben Okri More Quotes From Ben Okri 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 dream mean reality 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 fathers-day adversity courage 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 hungry rivers world I know that human beings are capable of anything. Ben Okri human-beings humans knows Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our stories Ben Okri mad silence stories 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 reading writing book 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 ghetto character country Creativity is the art of the impossible Ben Okri creativity impossible art 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 kids children If we could be pure dancers in spirit we would never be afraid to love, and we would love with strength and wisdom. Ben Okri afraid-to-love dancer spirit This earth that we live on is full of stories in the same way that, for a fish, the ocean is full of ocean. Some people say when we are born we're born into stories. I say we're also born from stories. Ben Okri ocean stories people Maybe there are only three kinds of stories: those we live, those we tell, and those that help our souls fly upwards to a greater life. Ben Okri three soul stories To sustain your belief through situations that completely undermine it is quite something. Ben Okri situation belief We disliked the rigours of existence, the unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of parents, the fact of dying, and the amazing indifference of the Living in the midst of the simple beauties of the universe. We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see. Ben Okri parent ignorance simple 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. Ben Okri reader writing An inner darkness is darker than an outer darkness. Ben Okri inner-darkness darkness People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Ben Okri healthy stories people 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 important agreement writing 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 stress writing hands When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity's chief instrument. Ben Okri chaos deities eras
