Ben Okri

“Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.”

“I am not fighting for success, just to get more beauty out of myself and share it with more people.”

“Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.”

“The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.”

“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.”

“I'm conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round to the beginning of my writing cycle. It begins with poetry. There's hardly a day that goes past on which I don't write poetry.”

“Politics is the art of the possible creativity is the art of the impossible.”