The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering. – Ben Okri
I was born left-handed, but I was made to use my other hand. When I was writing Famished Road, which was very long, I got repetitive stress syndrome. My right wrist collapsed, so I started using my left hand. The prose I wrote with my left hand came out denser, so later on I had to change it. – Ben Okri
The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like. – Ben Okri
The higher the artist, the fewer the gestures. The fewer the tools, the greater the imagination. The greater the will, the greater the secret failure. – Ben Okri
Had it not been for you, I should have remained what I was when we first met, a prejudiced, narrow-minded being, with contracted sympathies and false knowledge, wasting my life on obsolete trifles, and utterly insensible to the privilege of living in this wondrous age of change and progress. – Benjamin Disraeli