Previous Quote

Ben Okri Quotes

Next Quote
Image of the quote is loading... SaveSave A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick. - Quote by Ben Okri

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

Ben Okri
Copy LinkCopy Link
Copy QuoteCopy Quote
Copy ImageCopy Image
Download Image of QuoteDownload Image

About The Quote

Related Authors

Related Topics

More Quotes From Ben Okri

Strange things are happening to us.’‘To our children.’‘They sayhe is looking for the spirit of Independence.’‘They say he is looking for himself.’‘For his ownspirit.’‘Which he lost when the white man came.
Ben Okri
I noticed that in a corner, across from where they ate with such innocent relish, sitting forlorn and abandoned, was the ghost of their son. He had lost both of his arms, one side of his face was squashed, and both his eyes had burst. He had bluish wings. He was the saddest ghost in the house.
Ben Okri
The highest kind of writing—which must not be confused withthe most ambitious kind…belongs to the realm of grace. Talent ispart of it, certainly; a thorough understanding of the secret laws,absolutely. But finding the subject and theme which is in perfectharmony with your deepest nature, your forgotten selves, your hiddendreams, and the full unresonated essence of your life—now thatcannot be reached through searching, nor can it be stumbled uponthrough ambition. That sort of serendipity comes upon you on alucky day. It may emerge even out of misfortune or defeat. You mayhappen upon it without realising that this is the work throughwhich your whole life will sing. We should always be ready. Weshould always be humble. Creativity should always be a form ofprayer.
Ben Okri
We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It's just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected.
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 ocean. Some people say when we are born we’re born into stories. I say we’re also born from stories.
Ben Okri
Reading, therefore, is a co-production between writer and reader. The simplicity of this tool is tastounding. So little, yet out of it whole worlds, eras, characters, continents, people never encountered tbefore, people you wouldn’t care to sit next to in a ttrain, people that don’t exist, places you’ve never visited, enigmatic fates, all come to life in the mind, tpainted into existence by the reader’s creative powers. In this way the creativity of the writer calls tup the creativity of the reader. Reading is never passive.
Ben Okri
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. Life would lose it’s moorings or orientation... Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart larger.
Ben Okri
Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.
Ben Okri
Report Quote Report Quote Report Quote Submit Quote Submit Quote Submit Quote