Ben Okri

I seem to make my own misery.

There’s wisdom in repetition, in going to the same place often, seeing the same painting again and again, re-reading a much loved book.’

‘Most people would say repetition is boring.’

‘The young maybe.’

People are afraid of what they dont know.

Some things only become clear much later.

Do you know what the luckiest thing is?

No.

It is to be at home everywhere.

‘I think the first seeing, the first mis-reading is the truest.’

‘Why? You didn’t think so before. You used to say thrice is once.’

‘I still do. But I think something of our deeper selves lives in the magic of first encounters. We try later to recapture that first enchantment, but only rare experiences reawaken it.’

What can you do with all this beauty? The frosted peaks, the silver lake, the light, this dawn?’ Lao asked. ‘It fills my heart, I want to do something with it, and I don’t know what.’

But Omovo knew otherwise; he saw beneath the dignity, the fine clothes, and the feathered hat to the bright crack within and a threatening void

‘I’m happy for you. You have your art. I don’t have anything. Except, maybe, you.’

‘I’m happy for you. You have your art. I don’t have anything. Except, maybe, you.’