Ben Okri Quotes

One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity.

Ben Okri

• Father
• Courage
• Adversity

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Quotes to Explore

• The whole Hollywood thing where people want to put me into this 'quirky-fashionista, daughter of' category makes me mad because it's promoting something that I don't believe in, and it's not who I am.

  

  Zoe Kravitz
  • Hollywood
  • Promoting
  • Fashionista

• Once brave politicians and others explain the war on drugs' true cost, the American people will scream for a cease-fire. Bring the troops home, people will urge. Treat drugs as a health problem, not as a matter for the criminal justice system.

  

  Larry Elder
  • People
  • Home
  • American

• When you're bullied in high school, even if it's the smallest amount, or you're actually tortured, I feel like everybody carries that with them. They always think of that one person who treated them badly in high school.

  

  Odette Annable
  • School
  • Think
  • High

• The McCain-Feingold limit on how much you give a candidate didn't really work because people found ways to get around it.

  

  Foster Friess
  • People
  • Work
  • Limit

• I'm always surprised when an actor goes so deeply into the truth that they shake you to your core.

  

  Forest Whitaker
  • Truth
  • You
  • Actor

• When I see a dolphin, I know it's just as smart as I am.

  

  Captain Beefheart
  • Smart
  • Intelligence
  • Dolphin

• Some of our best journalists take themselves even more seriously than the politicians they write about.

  

  R. W. Apple, Jr.
  • Best
  • Seriously
  • Politicians

• To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace.

  

  Tacitus
  • Peace
  • Wilderness
  • Empire

• I don't really yell at people.

  

  Nancy Reagan
  • People
  • Really
  • Yell

• Never eat spinach just before going on the air.

  

  Dan Rather
  • Never
  • Air
  • Before

• How extraordinary it is that one feels most guilt about the sins one is unable to commit.

  

  V. S. Pritchett
  • Most
  • Guilt
  • Extraordinary

• It is a matter of simple fact that Icelanders have always been notoriously indolent.

  

  Halldor Laxness
  • Simple
  • Always
  • Matter

• Give a talk to children and tell them dinosaurs didn't drag their tails, and you get arguments.

  

  Jack Horner
  • Children
  • You
  • Talk

• Your focus should be on creating an environment where growth can occur and then letting nature take its course.

  

  Patrick Lencioni
  • Nature
  • Focus
  • Environment

• Life rarely presents fully finished photographs. An image evolves, often from a single strand of visual interest - a distant horizon, a moment of light, a held expression.

  

  Sam Abell
  • Life
  • Light
  • Single

• I don't think successful musicians were really put on this planet in order to have a great time, pat themselves on the back and say, 'Oh, what a clever boy I am!' I think that, like most artists, we were put on the planet to suffer just a little. And we do.

  

  Ian Anderson
  • Time
  • Great
  • Boy

• As an actor, I still don't really know exactly what I am doing most of the time.

  

  Sam Riley
  • Time
  • Actor

• I don't ever want to be a person that I'm not. A lot of girls fall into the trap where they are trying to impress other people, and that's the time when they lose themselves.

  

  Kate Upton
  • People
  • Time
  • Trying

• I think democracy's undermined when those who own newspapers fill them with trivia rather than real issues.

  

  Ken Livingstone
  • Real
  • Democracy

• There's a history where, when women get to a certain age in this industry, the roles become strictly the mother, the wife, or the older single woman. There should be more of a variety because there are so many different paths that humans take, and they should be given a platform to be seen.

  

  Dakota Fanning
  • Different
  • Women
  • History

• Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

  

  Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • People
  • Men
  • Thinking

• I'm not a things person. I'm not one to keep much. I do have a small collection of picks from favorite musicians I got to play with, a collection of mementos. I'm kind of the opposite of a hoarder, as I try to get rid of everything.

  

  Chris Wyse
  • Opposite
  • Collection
  • Picks

• I was born in Jerusalem with a religious background and a rabbi as a father... it was rather poor, but what we did have, we did have books.

  

  Ada Yonath
  • Father
  • Religious
  • Born

• One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity.

  

  Ben Okri
  • Father
  • Courage
  • Adversity