Ben Okri Quotes
Reading, like writing, is a creative act. If readers only bring a narrow range of themselves to the book, then they'll only see their narrow range reflected in it.
Quotes to Explore
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Writing about the future and the past is less a way of dramatizing change than of showing, by way of contrast, what abides.
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I've got plenty of quirks. I go to an office early in the morning. Early in the morning is really good writing time. I take anywhere between six to eight showers a day. I'm not exaggerating. I'm not a germaphobe: it's all about a fresh start.
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I haven't found it to be particularly enjoyable... ninety percent of the time when I go on dates, I'm thinking, 'I could be reading my book instead.'
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One half who graduate from college never read another book.
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The strongest results were in Florida and Texas. In just one year in a Texas charter school, an average student gained 7 percentile points in math and 8 percentile points in reading, while Florida charter schools improved student performance by 6 percentile points.
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Well, I must tell you I write the scripts very close to the bone. So I'm writing episode seven now and couldn't tell you what happens in episode eight.
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Every book I write, the media just keeps punching me in the face.
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Normally, most writers don't say, 'I'm going into a mild hypnotic trance.' Typically, they don't know how they do it. Most people, when they have a good experience writing, they're well placed in that state, which is also sometimes called a 'flow state.' If you don't have trouble, you don't have to think about it.
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I like to believe, as a writer, that anybody who isn't a reader yet has just not found the right book.
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Now I'm an old Christmas tree, the roots of which have died. They just come along and while the little needles fall off me replace them with medallions.
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I was always more interested in my books and my writing than going out. It's OK to say I'm a nerd. That's me.
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I am a great procrastinator. When the writing is going really well, the laundry piles up.
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Writing is a creative process, and you need to have the doors and windows of your mind open so that you have the possibility of change.
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Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.
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From 1999 on - until 2003 - I covered publishing in a weekly column for Wired.com and wrote for several other publications - altogether writing over 150 articles.
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The greatest pleasure of reading consists in re-reading.
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Whether you want to entertain or to provoke, to break hearts or reassure them, what you bring to your writing must consist of your longings and disappointments.
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A book tour is not a good opportunity to let your mind wander. You have to pay attention, remember salespeople's and interviewers' names, succinctly summarize your book in a 'selling' way, and so on.
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I lose anywhere up to 20 pounds on location with adventurers like Conrad Anker or Brady Robinson. So I need to replace that lost weight and muscle by training hard when I am back in the States between jobs. And as I get older, it is far more important for me to be doing this and taking my conditioning seriously.
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He who does now know evil will fall into it.
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I guess the argument of contextuality is that anything is okay as long as it's done by people who are sufficiently unlike you.
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We all lived in the same house, or most of us did. And as far as I can make out we were confined to the property, because at twenty-four hours' notice we'd have to do a gig somewhere. So you couldn't leave the building for more than twelve hours in case a gig came through.
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Reading, like writing, is a creative act. If readers only bring a narrow range of themselves to the book, then they'll only see their narrow range reflected in it.
