Ben Okri Quotes
I began my writing life as a poet, so poetry has always been fundamental. I evolved from poetry to journalism to stories to novels. But poetry was always there.
Quotes to Explore
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It is shallow people who think beauty is frivolous or excessive. If you are bringing beauty and god, you are enriching the country. Rice feeds the body, books feed the mind, beauty feeds the soul. It is one thing I can really be proud of and stand tall in the world.
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Everywhere I go, I will make a good payday. But we got to choose the right opponent and the right time and the right venue.
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When I'm out on the stage, it gives me this rush and anything that's on my mind and everything I'm going through is forgotten about.
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We're dealing with sophisticated customers. What's most important to these women is individuality. I have to create things she'll want to wear, no matter who she is.
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Because the nights bring the threat of invasion and terror to the villages, thousands of children in northern Uganda have become night commuters, leaving the nightmare of capture behind for the safety of the city.
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I am sure I am one of 2,000 film directors in the world that Tarantino admires.
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I've been a victim in every film I have done so far. It would be nice to play someone who doesn't get killed for once. Then again, I am getting really good at screaming and fake tears.
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I don't really do sad, depressing songs.
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My wife and I often visit Rosales and the Ilokos as a matter of habit or whim induced by nostalgia, homesickness - whatever draws pilgrims to worshipped sanctuaries. Or, perhaps, what compels moths to seek the votive flame.
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I never thought about having a daughter, and then I had a daughter, and it was a remarkable thing. It was very different from having a son and your response to it. With a son, it's much more complex. And it's probably because of my stuff in the past. With a daughter, I was surprised at how simple it is.
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The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
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Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough.
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Thanks to my father, we were always in good horses.
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I made nothing happen very slowly.
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And the success of the union movement, historically, has always been to benefit all working men and women - not just people who belong to the union.
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The key is a good story. If you have a good story, you have enough emotional beats that you can hit.
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Obviously I'm not 21 anymore, but I think I can still throw with anybody.
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Women who give up their children for adoption are years and years later talking about how painful it was, much more than women who have abortions.
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And we remember the end of our combat mission and the emergence of a new dawn - the precision of our efforts against al Qaeda in Iraq, the professionalism of the training of Iraqi security forces, and the steady drawdown of our forces. In handing over responsibility to the Iraqis, you preserved the gains of the last four years and made this day possible.
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I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.
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It would have been very easy to drift into writing a non-fiction book so by taking it away from Nottingham I forced myself to imagine much more of it.
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I had gone through a near-death experience, and that gives you an insight into how fleeting life is, and what's important.
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Many people with dyslexia truly suffer, and their lives are worse off for having had that disability.
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I began my writing life as a poet, so poetry has always been fundamental. I evolved from poetry to journalism to stories to novels. But poetry was always there.
