"No one in the house had seen books for generations. We didn't even know what they were. We'd only heard that they were poisonous and that they ruine… - Ben Okri

There is a kind of expressed love which is easy to subvert. When a figure is loved for their deeds, their conquests, their heroism, their goodness, their love of the people, these are easy enough to destroy... But there is a kind of love which is felt for apparently no reason... A love, inspired, it seems, by the gods, which it is impossible to fight, distort, destroy, or weaken. In fact, the attempts to destroy such loves only strengthen them. And to do nothing allows them to continue to grow at their natural pace, inexoribly, till this love becomes a wide and silent adoration.

The antimony on their features was set on silvery fire by the intensity of the moon. And their bodies, solid and quivering and half-naked, were like ancient memories of a mystical time without boundaries when it was possible to enter the consciousness of a cornseed and foretell the harvest to come.

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