A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick. Without stories we would go mad. … - Ben Okri

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

Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our stories

A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick.

That's the way it is. If you believe in something your very belief renders you unqualified to do it. Your earnestness will come across. Your passion will show. Your enthusiasm will make everyone nervous. And your naivety will irritate. Which means that you will become suspect. Which means you will be prone to disillusionment. Which means that you will not be able to sustain your belief in the face of all the piranha fish which nibble away at your idea and your faith, 'till only the skeleton of your dream is left. Which means that you have to become a fanatic, a fool, a joke, an embarrassment. The world - which is to say the powers that be - would listen to your ardent ideas with a stiff smile on its face, then put up impossible obstacles, watch you finally give up your cherished idea, having mangled it beyond recognition, and after you slope away in profound discouragement it will take up your idea, dust it down, give it a new spin, and hand it over to someone who doesn't believe in it at all.

We have not yet arrived, but every point at which we stop requires a re-definition of our destination.

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