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

Ben Okri

Politics Art Possible Creativity

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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.

Ben Okri

Act Book Bring Creative

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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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Beautiful Great Magic Potential

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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

Allow Another Dream Everybody

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Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.

Ben Okri

Art Become Hide Magic

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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

Attention Away Both Common

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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

Always Beautiful Because Best

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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

Authentic Capacity Create Endure

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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.

Ben Okri

Artist Failure Fewer Gesture

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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.

Ben Okri

Born Came Change Collapsed

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

Ben Okri

Beauty Fighting More Myself

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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.

Ben Okri

Africa Come Future About

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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.

Ben Okri

Agreement Either Even Felt

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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.

Ben Okri

Absolutely Best Reader Writer

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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

Begin Create Imagine Live

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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

Beginning Begin Circle Come

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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

Adversity Always Bit Bore

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

Ben Okri

Again Change Does Down

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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

Absolute Abyss Bottom Everything

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I began my writing life as a poet, so poetry has always been fundamental. I evolved from poetry to journalism to stories to novels. But poetry was always there.

Ben Okri

Always Been Began Evolved

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I study people all the time. For some reason, we're not very good at seeing what's there or hearing what we're hearing.

Ben Okri

Good Hearing People Reason

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The poem is never complete in the mind. It emerges, and then it's like an act of unveiling. The unveiling is the longest and most difficult part of it.

Ben Okri

Act Complete Difficult Emerges

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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

Artists Deal Dream Dreaming

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When I write a poem, I go into a state of self-forgetfulness, and something higher takes over; I like to call it my best self.

Ben Okri

Best Call Higher Like

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At the heart of 'The Famished Road' is a philosophical conundrum - for me, an essential one: what is reality? Everybody's reality is subjective; it's conditioned by upbringing, ideas, temperament, religion, what's happened to you.

Ben Okri

Conditioned Essential Everybody Happened

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"25 Ben Okri Quotes & Sayings

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

Ben Okri

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

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

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

Ben Okri

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

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

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

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.

Ben Okri

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

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

Ben Okri

The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.

Ben Okri

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ben Okri

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

I began my writing life as a poet, so poetry has always been fundamental. I evolved from poetry to journalism to stories to novels. But poetry was always there.

Ben Okri

I study people all the time. For some reason, we're not very good at seeing what's there or hearing what we're hearing.

Ben Okri

The poem is never complete in the mind. It emerges, and then it's like an act of unveiling. The unveiling is the longest and most difficult part of it.

Ben Okri

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

When I write a poem, I go into a state of self-forgetfulness, and something higher takes over; I like to call it my best self.

Ben Okri

At the heart of 'The Famished Road' is a philosophical conundrum - for me, an essential one: what is reality? Everybody's reality is subjective; it's conditioned by upbringing, ideas, temperament, religion, what's happened to you.

Ben Okri

Ben Okri Quotes & Sayings

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