Ben Okri Quotes

What you see is what you make. What you see in a people is what you eventually create in them.

When we yearn, our yearning comes through from deep below. It comes from a deep remembering, from the forgotten dreams of our mingled ancestry. You are my yearning. And this is the night, long ago, when our stars first met. They are together now, in the heavens, shedding a beautiful radiance on this night. They are weaving enchantments for us so that we may step through the invisible mirror in the air and enter the fairy-tale we are meant to live, but which we forgot.

He danced there like an overturned centipede.

It is more difficult to love than to die. It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love. The heart is bigger than a mountain. One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mightly plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls.

That you see a star in the night sky does not mean that the star sees you. The universe does not mirror consciousness. Consciousness mirrors the universe.

People who use only their eyes do not SEE. People who use only their ears do not HEAR. It is more difficult to love than to die. It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love. The heart is bigger than a mountain. One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mightly plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls.

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.

Here are some thoughts to replace the ones that have been knocked away. Do you want to hear them?’
‘Yes.’
The voice coughed and began:
‘Even the good things in life eventually poison you. There are three kinds of sounds, two kinds of shadows, one gourd for every cracked head, and seven boreholes for those that climb too high. There is an acid in the feel of things. There is a fire which does not burn, but which dissolves the flesh like common salt. The bigger mouth eats the smaller head. The wind blows back to us what we have blown away. There are several ways to burn your own fire. There is a particular sound which indicates trouble is coming. And your thoughts are merely the footsteps of you tramping round the disaster area of your own mind.

You are a mischievous one. You will cause no end of trouble. You have to travel many roads before you find the river of your destiny. This life of yours will be full of riddles. You will be protected and you will never be alone.

Apart from a mark on my palm I had managed to avoid being discovered. It may simply have been that I had grown tired of coming and going. It is terrible to forever remain in-between.

Naturally, the quality of language changed. Certain words became suspicious and vanished from public life. Words like 'hope', 'rights', 'truth'. Anyone heard uttering those words found empty spaces around them. It wasn't long before anyone using the word 'freedom' was suspected of harbouring dangerous intentions.

The thoughts converged there from all realms. Ad each thought had infinite possibilities. He could have dwelled in any single one of those magical thoughts for a lifetime and to realised its full potential.

Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You dwell in your own enchantment. Life throws stones at you, but your love and your dream change those stones into the flowers of discovery. Even if you lose, or are defeated by things, your triumph will always be exemplary. And if no one knows it, then there are places that do. People like you enrich the dreams of the worlds, and it is dreams that create history. People like you are unknowing transformers of things, protected by your own fairy-tale, by love.

The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.

Things she had said started to come back to him. How she out-stared a snake in the backyard. How the soldiers would stop buses and commandeer a woman at the slightest whim. How one day, as she was daydreaming in the office, three male-spirits came in through the walls and, with their heads facing backwards, tried to force her to make love to them.