Ben Okri
Ben Okri
Ben Okri OBE FRSLis a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez...
NationalityNigerian
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth15 March 1959
CountryNigeria
artist imagination secret
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.
beautiful secret despair
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.
secret stories individual
Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations.
reading checks
Don't read what everyone else is reading. Check them out later, cautiously.
eras deities chaos
When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity's chief instrument.
writing agreement important
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.
men able sometimes
A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life.
writing past circles
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.
perfect mind stories
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.
inspirational dream real
We can still astonish the gods in humanity And be the stuff of future legends, If we but dare to be real, And have the courage to see That this is the time to dream The best dream of them all.
asylums cases planets
Who knows, maybe this whole planet is an asylum, a penal realm. A place for hard cases.
power vision should
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...
expression silence enemy
Painters ought to be mute. Speech is the enemy of expression.
miserable homeless wit
I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends' floors, was happy, was miserable.