Ben Okri quote: "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."

We never think that our mothers will die. It was like suddenly an abyss opened at my feet - I was st...
BEN OKRI

The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from ...
BEN OKRI

The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where the...
BEN OKRI

To poison a nation, poison its stories. A demoralised nation tells demoralised stories to itself. Be...
BEN OKRI

Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.
BEN OKRI

The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, t...
BEN OKRI

We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alter...
BEN OKRI

One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with whic...
BEN OKRI

I don't think I can make people understand what my writing is about. That really belongs to time and...
BEN OKRI

When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity's chief instrument.
BEN OKRI

Literature doesn't have a country. Shakespeare is an African writer. His Falstaff, for example, is v...
BEN OKRI

The worst realities of our age are manufactured realities. It is therefore our task, as creative par...
BEN OKRI

I was told stories, we were all told stories as kids in Nigeria. We had to tell stories that would k...
BEN OKRI

Our time here is magic! It's the only space you have to realize whatever it is that is beautiful, wh...
BEN OKRI

Reading is an act of civilization; it's one of the greatest acts of civilization because it take...
BEN OKRI

Reading, like writing, is a creative act. If readers only bring a narrow range of themselves to the ...
BEN OKRI

I believe in leavening. You can't have words sticking out too much, like promontories. They dist...
BEN OKRI

'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' had a formative effect on me. I think it's one of thos...
BEN OKRI

I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and...
BEN OKRI

Not many artists commit suicide by leaping off the pinnacle of success.
BEN OKRI

Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.
BEN OKRI

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

The greatest religions convert the world through stories.
BEN OKRI

We have fallen into this very mean description of humanity. Naturalism in fiction is too reductive i...
BEN OKRI

I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and...
BEN OKRI

Ghetto-dwellers are the great fantasists. There was an extraordinary vibrancy there, an imaginative ...
BEN OKRI

I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends' floors, was hap...
BEN OKRI

If you are working in an office, where do you find the time to write a novel? But you can finish a s...
BEN OKRI

Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight the heart. And they both...
BEN OKRI

I was born left-handed, but I was made to use my other hand. When I was writing 'Famished Road,&...
BEN OKRI

One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with whic...
BEN OKRI

Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the be...
BEN OKRI

The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and full...
BEN OKRI

Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You dwell in ...
BEN OKRI

Reading, like writing, is a creative act. If readers only bring a narrow range of themselves to the ...
BEN OKRI

This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down.
BEN OKRI

It is not important for me as a writer that you leave a piece of writing of mine with either an agre...
BEN OKRI

Some of my reactions are very Nigerian. I still believe that words are things.
BEN OKRI

I became a sceptic of one way of seeing the world. And I think it is what started me in my awareness...
BEN OKRI

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

Home can be the friend you have been searching for all your life or the person you met once very bri...
BEN OKRI

The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it...
BEN OKRI

You see, I was told stories, we were all told stories as kids in Nigeria. We had to tell stories tha...
BEN OKRI

When I write a poem, I go into a state of self-forgetfulness, and something higher takes over; I lik...
BEN OKRI

Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because th...
BEN OKRI

To anyone who is homeless, I say, find a home.
BEN OKRI

When you can imagine you begin to create and when you begin to create you realize that you can creat...
BEN OKRI

Our time here is magic! It's the only space you have to realize whatever it is that is beautiful...
BEN OKRI

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

This earth that we live on is full of stories in the same way that, for a fish, the ocean is full of...
BEN OKRI

A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can mak...
BEN OKRI

Intelligent people tend to talk about the facts. They don't sit around and call each other names...
BEN CARSON

If we plant the right seeds, tomorrow will be better. If you put out good things, then you'll ge...
BEN VEREEN

You have the ability to choose which way you want to go. You have to believe great things are going ...
BEN CARSON

I mean, there's a sense wherein you skip a part of childhood, too, when you start working at tha...
BEN MENDELSOHN

I basically sat around unemployed in Sydney for three years straight, and the two things that saved ...
BEN MENDELSOHN

The way that actors talk about acting is generally quite punishing, and I think actors want to put f...
BEN MENDELSOHN

My favorite-ever version of 'King Lear' is the 1971 film by Peter Brooks. He has this enormo...
BEN MENDELSOHN

I think some of my favorite Australian films were shot by people that are not Australian. And I thin...
BEN MENDELSOHN

Fassbender is fearless; he's a fearless actor.
BEN MENDELSOHN

Typically, I'll wake up at 4:30 in the morning. It's just the continual jet lag residue, jus...
BEN MENDELSOHN

I had a pretty good career at home. What keeps you going is not having a plan B. It's a very goo...
BEN MENDELSOHN

'Star Wars' is populated by so many great types; who wouldn't want to be a Han Solo kind...
BEN MENDELSOHN

The thing about home is that it's a tough place to sustain a career, just by dent of the size of...
BEN MENDELSOHN

I never felt like someone who was boyish and coming to terms with asking girls out or anything like ...
BEN MENDELSOHN

I remember 'The Yearling' was the first film I ever saw, and my mom told me I cried for abou...
BEN MENDELSOHN

The people I've encountered who are really dangerous in my life don't go around with their f...
BEN MENDELSOHN

Before 'Animal Kingdom,' I wasn't particularly thought of in villainous roles.
BEN MENDELSOHN

I like to call up ghosts of things past for myself when I'm working a lot.
BEN MENDELSOHN

'Animal Kingdom' is a significant comet, and it's cast a tail. It's very hard to see...
BEN MENDELSOHN

'Animal Kingdom' is a lot of things, but it's not heartwarming.
BEN MENDELSOHN

The very rough story is this: Melbourne boy, out of both my parents' houses at a young age, live...
BEN MENDELSOHN

Acting is a bit of a heart and soul exercise with me. It's kind of all I've got.
BEN MENDELSOHN

I think now there's much more of a confessional culture. That's not my bag. I come from a sl...
BEN MENDELSOHN

You can certainly extend your adolescence. There's people that are very good at extending it ind...
BEN MENDELSOHN

You think of 'Outlaw Josey Wales,' you immediately think of the old Indian guy, Sondra Locke...
BEN MENDELSOHN

As an outsider in America, you do see the kind of hypocrisy that's rampant there.
BEN MENDELSOHN

It's good to surf whatever waves are going on right there as they're happening.
BEN MENDELSOHN

I don't believe in the transformation myth, where if you have more success, life changes for you...
BEN MENDELSOHN

It took capitalism half a century to come back from the Great Depression.
BEN SHAPIRO

Economic science concerns itself primarily with theoretical and empirical generalizations about the ...
BEN BERNANKE

Each new day has a different shape to it. You just roll with it.
BEN ZOBRIST

People rely on Wikipedia, and a lot of it is wrong. But because there it is on the Internet, they as...
BEN MEZRICH

Science has authority, not because of white coats, or titles, but because of precision and transpare...
BEN GOLDACRE

Journalism is a craft that takes years to learn. It's like golf. You never get it right all the ...
BEN HUH

One of the things I've learned is to be receptive of feedback.
BEN SILBERMANN

No matter how good you are at planning, the pressure never goes away. So I don't fight it. I fee...
BEN CARSON

Here's a nation, one of the founding pillars was freedom of speech and freedom of expression. An...
BEN CARSON

I grew up with an older brother, and the bond between siblings is unlike anything else, and it can b...
BEN SCHNETZER

Distrust of government isn't baseless cynicism. It's realism.
BEN SHAPIRO

I used to collect knick-knacks, like wizards, trolls and little buddhas, and arrange them like preci...
BEN WHISHAW

Entrepreneurs may be brutally honest, but fostering relationships with partners and building endurin...
BEN PARR

Among other objectives, liquidity guidelines must take into account the risks that inadequate liquid...
BEN BERNANKE

Most of these people are not going anywhere, and have nothing meaningful to do. They are zombies see...
BEN HINSON

I was born Moishe Ketzelbourd but the Indians call me Maurice Cougar.
BEN KATCHOR

I studied politics and economics at Bristol, and people always assumed that I'd go into politics...
BEN ELLIOT

Together we were something less, which felt like such a relief, to not be ourselves for a while.
BEN MARCUS

Obama wants to raise the issue of immigration reform so that he can demonize Republicans as anti-His...
BEN SHAPIRO

President Obama has only had two major policy victories during his tenure: the stimulus package and ...
BEN SHAPIRO

Same-sex marriage is not the final nail in the coffin for traditional marriage. It is just another r...
BEN SHAPIRO

Hillary Clinton is not that fascinating a person. According to those who have spent time with her, s...
BEN SHAPIRO

The Left despises Texas, with its stellar record of job growth; Texas, with its strong support for t...
BEN SHAPIRO

Selective Biblical quotation is a favorite of leftists who interpret the Bible the same way they do ...
BEN SHAPIRO

President Obama is one of the great political knife-fighters in modern history. He is a failed presi...
BEN SHAPIRO

There are times that everyone hates his or her job. Were they freed from the economic consequences o...
BEN SHAPIRO

I love bummer songs.
BEN GIBBARD

There are a group of people who would like to silence everybody and have everybody go along to get a...
BEN CARSON

I hate the whole reluctant sex-symbol thing. It's such bull. You see these dudes greased up, in ...
BEN AFFLECK

Roy was just another bureaucrat to me, but I realized very soon that without Roy this thing would ha...
BEN SHAHN

The European style of living is seductive: fewer hours worked, more hours at the cafe, less concern ...
BEN SHAPIRO

I certainly want campaign finance reform. I just wish this would do it in a way that would stand up ...
BEN NELSON

From day one, musical theater was my bread and butter.
BEN PLATT

'The Butler' has virtually nothing in common with its source material, the life of White Hou...
BEN SHAPIRO

If you put me in charge of the medical research budget, I would cancel all primary research, I would...
BEN GOLDACRE

We live in a country that used to have a can-do attitude, and now we have a 'what-can-you-do-for...
BEN CARSON

I've finally learnt how to say, 'No comment'. To appear in the tabloids is a real learni...
BEN AFFLECK

Monetary policy is a blunt tool which certainly affects the distribution of income and wealth, altho...
BEN BERNANKE

In our culture, we get very much into shorthanding people. And I got shorthanded as That Guy: Jennif...
BEN AFFLECK

We've turned film into such an industry that we pursue naturalism just by shaking the camera and...
BEN FOSTER

The covetous man never has money. The prodigal will have none shortly.
BEN JOHNSON

When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle t...
BEN HECHT

I want Pinterest to be human. The Internet's still so abstract... To me, boards are a very human...
BEN SILBERMANN

There are millions of Americans who belong by nature in movie theaters as they belong at political r...
BEN HECHT

We are more than just flesh and bones. There's a certain spiritual nature and something of the m...
BEN CARSON

I think I'm more bonded, emotionally and in a craft sense, to films that tell extraordinary stor...
BEN KINGSLEY

This figure that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut, Wherein the graver ha...
BEN JONSON

A third heir seldom profits by ill-gotten wealth.
BEN JONSON

A third Cato has dropped from the skies.
BEN JONSON

A pauper traveller will sing before a beggar.
BEN JONSON

Frugality is the mother of all virtues.
BEN JONSON

It will never come out of the flesh that's bred in the bone.
BEN JONSON

A countenance inconceivably forbidding.
BEN JONSON

'Late bloomer' is another way of saying 'slow learner.'
BEN FOUNTAIN

With every inch of land on Earth now catalogued by our satellites, the stars are the next place we a...
BEN PARR

The decline in home equity makes it more difficult for struggling homeowners to refinance and reduce...
BEN BERNANKE

Banks need to continue to lend to creditworthy borrowers to earn a profit and remain strong.
BEN BERNANKE

Home purchases that are very highly leveraged or unaffordable subject the borrower and lender to a g...
BEN BERNANKE

There are other people in 'Dreamgirls' who are born-again Christians. We have a Bible study ...
BEN HARNEY

Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home Can be contented to applaud myself, . . . with joy ...
BEN JONSON

Since my boyhood, I have sought always to please, but out of a kindness in me, never out of fear or ...
BEN HECHT

Economics is not brain surgery.
BEN CARSON

Happiness is a journey not a destination.
BEN SWEETLAND

You look like gold. I've been fooled before, but now I know I've made the mistake in the pas...
BEN HARPER

If you go and talk to most people, they mean well but they don't have much of a breadth on educa...
BEN CARSON

Success is a journey, not a destination.
BEN SWEETLAND

We must have the courage to allow a little disorder in our lives.
BEN WEININGER

No one will do it for you.
BEN STEIN

I try and reduce myself to an almost blank slate and hope to God that I am creative.
BEN KINGSLEY

I lost my own son (Steven) at 18, five years ago, in a car accident, so I can really sympathize with...
BEN HECHT

People's sex habits are as well known in Hollywood as their political opinions, and much less critic...
BEN HECHT

I have written a raucous valentine to a poet's dream and agony.
BEN HECHT

In Hollywood, a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a bro...
BEN HECHT

Prejudice is a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety
BEN HECHT

Chicago is a sort of journalistic Yellowstone Park, offering haven to a last herd of fantastic bravo...
BEN HECHT

Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.
BEN HECHT

Whoever controls the media--the images--controls the culture.
BEN HECHT

Prejudice is a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety.
BEN HECHT

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the...
BEN HECHT

There is no sudden leap into the stratosphere. There is only advancing step by step, slowly and tort...
BEN STEIN

I was tempted to tell her it was because we were British and actually had a sense of humour, but I t...
BEN AARONOVITCH

But I do hate him as I hate the devil.
BEN JONSON

You can do what you think you can do and you cannot do what you think you cannot
BEN STEIN

If he were To be made honest by an act of parliament I should not alter in my faith of him.
BEN JONSON

Laugh, and be fat, sir, your penance is known. They that love mirth, let them heartily drink, ...
BEN JONSON

Genius without education is like silver in the mine. -Ben Franklin.
BEN FRANKLIN

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
BEN FRANKLIN

It's just kind of surreal. We're trying not to think too far ahead but we know we have a lot of work...
BEN LINDSEY

than any other man who ever ran for office in Denver.
BEN LINDSEY

Trouble is, kids feel they have to shock their elders and each generation grows up into something ha...
BEN LINDSEY

Trouble is, kids feel they have to shock their elders and each generation grows up into something h...
BEN LINDSEY

Do your best and let God do the rest.
BEN CARSON

Force works on servile natures, not the free.
BEN JOHNSON

Opportunities pop up for everybody all of the time. It's the way that we progress. It's whether or n...
BEN BROWN

We want books that make our hearts beat harder... that relieve us of the agonizing burden of everyda...
BEN OLIVEIRA

Happiness doesn't result from what we get, but from what we give.
BEN CARSON

'Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to beg...
BEN JONSON

Bad people excuse their faults; wise people leave them.
BEN JOHNSTON

Wonder if there is life on another planet? Let's suppose there is. Suppose further, that only one st...
BEN SWEETLAND

The greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become.
BEN HERBSTER

Somewhere there is a map of how it can be done.
BEN STEIN

In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace.
BEN HECHT

You've got to make haste while it's still light of day. My godmother used to say, I don't want to ru...
BEN VEREEN

Language most shows a man, speak that I may see thee.
BEN JOHNSON

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may ...
BEN JOHNSON

He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity
BEN JONSON

I think it's probably honest to say that there's a certain powerful stillness that I remember admiri...
BEN KINGSLEY

I play golf with friends sometimes, but there are never friendly games.
BEN HOGAN

Running for money doesn't make you run fast. It makes you run first.
BEN JIPCHO

We are persons of quality, I assure you, and women of fashion, and come to see and to be seen.
BEN JONSON

He threatens many that hath injured one.
BEN JONSON

No collection of people who are all waiting for the same thing are capable of holding a natural conv...
BEN ELTON

It is amazing how quickly the kids learn to drive a car, yet are unable to understand the lawnmower,...
BEN BERGOR

A good poet's made as well as born.
BEN JOHNSON

Art has an enemy called ignorance.
BEN JOHNSON

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the t...
BEN HECHT

Commerce is one of the daughters of Fortune, inconsistent and deceitful as her mother. she chooses h...
BEN JOHNSTON

A new disease? I know not, new or old, but it may well be called poor mortals plague for, like a pes...
BEN JONSON

There's a thing that keeps surprising you about stormy old friends after they die; their silence.
BEN BECHT

Much more frequent in Hollywood than the emergence of Cinderella is her sudden vanishing. At our par...
BEN HECHT

The world is full of abundance and opportunity, but far too many people come to the fountain of life...
BEN SWEETLAND

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.

Copied!

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

Share:

Related

More Ben Okri