A collection of quotes and thoughts by Ben Okri on life, death, famished, age, magic, poems, road, magician, storytelling, love, perfection, inspiration, art and despair.
29 Famous Quotes By Ben Okri
Quick Facts
Famous As:
Writer, Journalist, Novelist, Author, Poet
Ben Okri is a distinguished Nigerian novelist and poet who is considered as one of the top-notch African authors in the post-colonial and post-modern traditions. He has been compared to authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Salman Rushdie. Okri is considered to be Africa’s ruling writer who shot to with his first novel ‘Flowers And Shadows’. Since then he has risen to international recognition. Some of his notable works include, ‘Songs Of Enchantment’, ‘The Famished Road’, ‘The Infinite Riches’, ‘Dangerous Love’ and ‘The Age of Magic’. His renowned essays, poetries and short-stories include, ‘Birds Of Heaven’, ‘Wild’, ‘Stars Of The New Curfew’, ‘Tales Of Freedom’ amongst others. Following is a corpus of thoughts, viewpoints and opinions that the prolific writer has shared through his writings, novels, poems, essays, novels, work and life. Let us browse through the quotes and sayings by Ben Okri and get a glimpse of his creative mind.
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.
Ben Okri
Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our stories
Who knows, maybe this whole planet is an asylum, a penal realm. A place for hard cases.
Ben Okri
An inner darkness is darker than an outer darkness.
Ben Okri
He had to learn how not to let his eyes be bewildered by manifestations, and thereby learn to treat appearances as signs and codes of the interior.
Ben Okri
A tolerable hell is better than an impossible heaven.
Ben Okri
So long as a canvas is empty its potential is infinite… The empty canvas can become a gateway into the landscape of nightmares or a vision of sensual bliss.
Ben Okri
But to hear Mozart in a bombed city: how much more beautiful it sounds, as if it were composed to somehow soothe the ruins, to promise a wiser future rising from the rubble.
Ben Okri
If I don't say the thought right I might destroy it.
It is easier to get lost within sight of the palace. [...] Hope makes all things near, and so can prove treacherous.
Ben Okri
We ought to step out of our old, hard casing. We think that we are one kind of people, when in fact we are always creating ourselves. We are not fixed. We are constantly becoming, constantly coming into being.
Storytellers ought not be too tame. They ought to be wild creatures who function adequately in society. They are best in disguise. If they lose all their wildness, they cannot give us the truest joys.
Ben Okri
I love your loneliness. It is brave. It makes the universe want to protect you.
