Michaelo El Grando

“The road will never swallow you. The river of destiny will always overcome evil. May you understand your fate. Suffering will never destroy you, but will make you stronger. Success will never confuse you of scatter your spirit, but will make you fly higher into the good sunlight. Your life will always surprise you.”
― Ben Okri, The Famished Road

“We must look at ourselves differently. We are freer than we think. We haven't begun to live yet. The man whose light has come on in his head, in his dormant sun, can never be kept down or defeated. We can redream this world and make the dream real. Human beings are gods hidden from ourselves.”
― Ben Okri, The Famished Road

“He saw the world in which black people always suffered and he didn’t like it. He saw a world in which human beings suffered so needlessly from Antipodes to Equator, and he didn’t like it either. He saw our people drowning in poverty, in famine, drought, in divisiveness and the blood of war. He saw our people always preyed upon by other powers, manipulated by the Western world, our history and achievements rigged out of existence.”
― Ben Okri, The Famished Road

“The spirit of deception, you see,” Father Maximos explained, “has egotism and pride as its primary attribute.”
― Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality