Ben Okri Quotes

Wars are not fought on battlegrounds but in a space smaller than the head of a needle.

It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love.

When we have made an experience or a chaos into a story we have transformed it, made sense of it, transmuted experience, domesticated the chaos.

Beware of the stories you read or tell. Subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.

we need a new miracle of being human.
we need a new miracle of being alive.

I was born not just because I had conceived a notion to stay, but because in between my coming and going the great cycles of time had finally tightened around my neck. I prayed for laughter, a life without hunger. I was answered with paradoxes. It remains an enigma how it came to be that I was born smiling.

Learning what you know is something you have to do every day and every moment.

As he walked though, listening to his happy footfalls, he felt the world telling him to stop looking, for then he would see beyond; to stop thinking, for then he would comprehend; to stop trying to make sense of things, for then he would find the truest grace.

When the candle burned low, and the rats began to eat, I would put out the light and lie awake in the dark. I would listen to Mum and Dad snoring on the bed. Sometimes when I fell asleep a lighter part of me rose up from my body and floated in the dark. A bright light, which I could not see, but which I could feel, surrounded me. I would be lifted out of my body, would find it difficult to get out through the roof, and would be brought down suddenly by the noise of the rats eating. Then I would sleep soundly. One night I managed to lift myself out through the roof. I went up at breathtaking speed and stars fell from me. Unable to control my motion, I rose and fell and went in all directions, spinning through incredible peaks and vortexes. Dizzy and turning, swirling and dancing, the darkness seemed infinite, without signs, without markings. I rose without getting to heaven. I soared blissfully and I understood something of the inhuman exultation of flight.

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.

Because you rejected my love, this is my curse on you. Refusing to love an illusion, you will have to love without illusion.

People who look like human beings are not human beings. Strange people are amongst us. We must be careful. Our lives are changing. Our gods are silent. Our ancestors are silent. A great something is going to come from the sky and change the face of the earth.

The only power poor people have is their hunger.

We must take an interest in politics. We must become spies on behalf of justice.

Will you be at the harvest,
Among the gatherers of new fruits?