#v

You see, I was told stories, we were all told stories as kids in Nigeria. We had to tell stories that would keep one another interested, and you weren't allowed to tell stories that everybody else knew. You had to dream up new ones. ↗

— Ben Okri

#another #dream #else #everybody #everybody else

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. ↗

— Ben Okri

#book #bring #creative #creative act #like

I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends' floors, was happy, was miserable. ↗

— Ben Okri

#friends #happy #homeless #i #lived

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

#came #change #collapsed #denser #got

My favorite water cooler topic is fantasy football. I used to make fun of friends for doing it and now I'm obsessed. ↗

— John Krasinski

#doing #fantasy #favorite #football #friends

One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity. We had a bit of a rollercoaster life with some really challenging financial periods. He was always unshaken, completely tranquil, the same ebullient, laughing, jovial man. ↗

— Ben Okri

#always #bit #bore #challenging #completely

The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things. ↗

— Ben Okri

#acknowledged #cannot #coded #dislike #frontiers

The greatest religions convert the world through stories. ↗

— Ben Okri

#greatest #religions #stories #through #world

We have fallen into this very mean description of humanity. Naturalism in fiction is too reductive in its definition of human beings. ↗

— Ben Okri

#definition #description #fallen #fiction #human

When you can imagine you begin to create and when you begin to create you realize that you can create a world that you prefer to live in, rather than a world that you're suffering in. ↗

— Ben Okri

#create #imagine #live #prefer #rather