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Ben Okri

"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."

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"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."

Exlpore more Despair quotes

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Donna Grant

"There is nothing at all to be done about it, There is nothing to do about anything."

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Donna Grant

"My body rises with the water. Instead of kicking my feet to stay abreast of it, I push all the air from my lungs and sink to the bottom. The water muffles my ears. I feel its movement over my face. I think about snorting the water into my lungs so it kills me faster, but I can't bring myself to do it. I blow bubbles from my mouth. Relax. I close my eyes. My lungs burn."

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Donna Grant

"You have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace of tears. I suppose then, your heart has been weeping blood?"

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Donna Grant

"After some time he felt for his pipe. It was not broken, and that was something. Then he felt for his pouch, and there was some tobacco in it, and that was something more. Then he felt for matches and he could not find any at all, and that shattered his hopes completely."

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Donna Grant

"It is said that scattered through Despair's domain are a multitude of tiny windows, hanging in the void. Each window looks out onto a different scene, being, in our world, a mirror. Sometimes you will look into a mirror and feel the eyes of Despair upon you, feel her hook catch and snag on your heart. Despair says little, and is patient."

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Donna Grant

"In every way that counted, I was dead. Inside somewhere maybe I was screaming and weeping and howling like an animal, but that was another person deep inside, another person who had no access to the lips and face and mouth and head, so on the surface I just shrugged and smile and kept moving. If I could have physically passed away, just let it all go, like that, without doing anything, stepped out of life as easily as walking through a door I would have done. But I was going to sleep at night and waking in the morning, disappointed to be there and resigned to existence."

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Donna Grant

"Those who commit suicide, pensive, lonely, philosophers, are awake in life, which is a serious crime. In life everybody must be asleep."

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Donna Grant

"Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely. I am often tempted to open a vein, to procure for myself everlasting liberty. Cento volte ho impugnato una lama per conficcarmela nel cuore. Si dice di una nobile razza i cavalli,che quando si sentono accaldati e affaticati, si aprono istintivamente una vena, per respirare piA1 liberamente. Spesso anche io vorrei aprirmi una vena che mi desse libertA eterna."

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Donna Grant

"Hateful bitch of a world, it wouldn't ever last."

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Donna Grant

"Then suddenly you're left all alonewith your body that can't love youand your will that can't save you."

Explore more quotes by Ben Okri

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Ben Okri
"Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide."
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Ben Okri
"Our time here is magic! It's the only space you have to realize whatever it is that is beautiful, whatever is true, whatever is great, whatever is potential, whatever is rare, whatever is unique, in. It's the only space."
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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."
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Ben Okri
"The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell."
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Ben Okri
"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."
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Ben Okri
"The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing."
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Ben Okri
"I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends' floors, was happy, was miserable."
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Ben Okri
"The greatest religions convert the world through stories."
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Ben Okri
"I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and Shakespeare."
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Ben Okri
"Politics is the art of the possible; creativity is the art of the impossible."
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