Artists and writers have to deal with the element that makes the real real and the dream real while you are dreaming it. That's where stories and poems get their power.
Interpretation
The essence of creativity lies in balancing reality and imagination to create powerful stories.
In this quote, Ben Okri emphasizes the unique ability of artists and writers to navigate between the realms of reality and dreams. He suggests that the most compelling artistic expressions arise from this interplay, as it allows creators to infuse their work with authenticity while still embracing the imaginative aspects of storytelling, ultimately enhancing their emotional and conceptual power.
In practice
This quote is perfect for an artist's workshop to inspire creativity.
One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us.
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.
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 began my writing life as a poet, so poetry has always been fundamental. I evolved from poetry to journalism to stories to novels. But poetry was always there.
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.
We can still astonish the gods in humanity_x000D_ _x000D_ And be the stuff of future legends,_x000D_ _x000D_ If we but dare to be real,_x000D_ _x000D_ And have the courage to see_x000D_ _x000D_ That this is the time to dream_x000D_ _x000D_ The best dream of them all.
Creative non-fiction is such a liberating genre because it allows the non-fiction writer, whether he or she be journalist or essayist, to use all of the techniques of the fiction writer and all of the ideas, creative approaches, that fiction writers get a chance to use, but they have to use it in a true story.
If there is no dance, there is not music.
All I care about these days is painting — photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing.
Music is structure out of Chaos
Botox should be banned for actors, as steroids are for sportsmen. Acting is all about expression; why would you want to iron out a frown?
I'm coming from the notion that acting is an art. It is not a business. It is about building characters, not about selling personalities.
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