Ben Okri Quotes

The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it's about us, it's about the reader.

Ben Okri

• Writing

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Quotes to Explore

• When you're a child, it's easy to see school as the worst thing in the world. It's only later in life you realise what a wonderful time it was. Looking back, I can't believe I even wanted to leave.

  

  Ian Beattie
  • Life
  • Time
  • World

• When I was about four, people used to walk up to my mom and say I should be in commercials.

  

  Zachary Gordon
  • People
  • Up
  • Mom

• In real life, I'm gorgeous, beautiful.

  

  Rachel Dratch
  • Life
  • Real
  • Beautiful

• The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • More
  • Fortune
  • Pity

• During my childhood, I was surrounded by actors, and all I remember is they were fun to be around. That kind of sticks.

  

  Jack Davenport
  • Remember
  • Fun
  • Childhood

• I have never thought of a full-fledged career in Bollywood because boxing has never left my mind. But you never know.

  

  Vijender Singh
  • Mind
  • Career
  • Thought

• Human faces shouldn't get lost amid the statistics.

  

  Brown Campbell
  • Lost
  • Human
  • Statistics

• It is standard practice for corrupt leaders who are seeking a certain political outcome to hype or manipulate a terror threat or a threat of violent domestic subversion. While sometimes the threat is manufactured, frequently the hyped threat is based on a real danger.

  

  Naomi Wolf
  • Real
  • Political
  • Practice

• Frankly speaking, it's only the script that matters to me the most. If I like the script, then I just commit to myself and go ahead with it. But I also look at the commitment and confidence of the director of the film because it's him who will shape the film.

  

  Vidya Balan
  • Film
  • Confidence
  • Commitment

• The E.U. intends to be one of the biggest humanitarian donors on the Syrian crisis.

  

  Federica Mogherini
  • Crisis
  • Humanitarian
  • Syrian

• You think you're looking at things all the time, but you're not looking at things, you're looking at what your brain is interpreting through light and color. And who knows what everybody else sees?

  

  Fiona Apple
  • Time
  • Light
  • Brain

• Personal responsibility is not only recognizing the errors of our ways. Personal responsibility lies in our willingness and ability to correct those errors individually and collectively.

  

  Yehuda Berg
  • Responsibility
  • Lies
  • Ability

• You have to protect yourself at all times. What goes around comes around.

  

  Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
  • You
  • Yourself
  • Protect

• I'll talk about these things, but it's just, you know, you only get so much time and I'm much more interested in what I'm going to be doing next year than in something I did 10 years ago.

  

  Walter Hill
  • Time
  • Know
  • Year

• The first, or theoretic branch, that which explains the nature, production, and distribution of wealth, will be found to rest on a very few general propositions, which are the result of observation, or consciousness.

  

  Nassau William Senior
  • Nature
  • Rest
  • Wealth

• Any beast can cry over the misfortunes of its own child. It takes a mensch to weep for others' children.

  

  Sam Levenson
  • Children
  • Child
  • Beast

• There's good and bad in everybody. I wasn't looking for the good, or looking for the bad. This is a man who signed his pact with the devil 20 years ago, and he's learned to live with it. He's tried to protect his family from it.

  

  Sam Mendes
  • Good
  • Live
  • Family

• Anyone who thus looks up has some chance of becoming worthy to be looked up to in turn.

  

  Irving Babbitt
  • Up
  • Chance
  • Looks

• I'd begun to realize that there was an unspoken predjudice among book-learned people, a secret conviction they all seemed to share, that life as we know it is an imperfect vision of reality, and that only art, like a pair of reading glasses can correct it.

  

  Ian Caldwell
  • People
  • Life
  • Art

• 'Alice in Wonderland' has been done a million times; why do it again? Nerve's answer is that Alice is Everyman and Everywoman, going through the stages of life.

  

  Kathe Koja
  • Life
  • Done
  • Why

• I'm a conductor of revivals. The only minister in the whole package. Little Richard, the evangelist.

  

  Little Richard
  • Minister
  • Conductor
  • Evangelist

• Saying the words that come from knowledge is no sign of having it.

  

  Aristotle
  • Words
  • Knowledge
  • Come

• Our work is really about taking the best of what is in a place and working that into a project. We'd like to take your vision and goals and weave that into all the bricks and mortar and steel and glass put together, along with all the functional things that we need to make the airport work better.

  

  Curtis W. Fentress
  • Work
  • Best
  • Vision

• The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it's about us, it's about the reader.

  

  Ben Okri
  • Writing