“At the heart of 'The Famished Road' is a philosophical conundrum - for...” — Ben Okri Quote

At the heart of 'The Famished Road' is a philosophical conundrum - for me, an essential one: what is reality? Everybody's reality is subjective; it's conditioned by upbringing, ideas, temperament, religion, what's happened to you.

The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it's about us, it's about the reader.

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.

One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity.

We all know we're conditioned from music and television, so for us, we take great privilege in being role models, and having an impressionable audience its important for us to make sure what we're doing is in line with them.

Some scenes cry out for a certain kind of treatment. The kind we're conditioned by years of film-watching to expect.

A person's safety and quality of life should not be conditioned upon who they love or how they identify.

I know what I do for the environment is not enough, I can do so much more but we're so used to and we're so conditioned to certain kind of luxury in our lifestyles, that we kind of disregard the environment at the cost of our future generations.