Controlled hysteria is what's required. To exist constantly in a state of controlled hysteria. It's agony. But everyone has agony. The difference is that I try to take my agony home and teach it to sing.
Arthur MillerRead
Amos Oz is one of the finest novelists of this entire period. MY MICHAEL is a beautiful work of great depth and in some indescribable way lingers in the mind as a lyric song to his country's people as much as a moving love story.
Interpretation
Arthur Miller praises Amos Oz's novel 'MY MICHAEL' for its depth and emotional resonance.
In this quote, Arthur Miller highlights the exceptional quality of Amos Oz's novel 'MY MICHAEL', describing it as a profound literary work that resonates deeply with readers. He suggests that the novel not only serves as a compelling love story but also reflects the essence of the people of Oz's homeland, elevating it to the status of a beautiful song that lingers in one's thoughts.
In practice
In a literary discussion about the best novels of contemporary literature, one might quote Miller's praise of 'MY MICHAEL'.
Controlled hysteria is what's required. To exist constantly in a state of controlled hysteria. It's agony. But everyone has agony. The difference is that I try to take my agony home and teach it to sing.
The word "now" is like a bomb through the window, and it ticks.
Just remember, kid, you can quicker get back a million dollars that was stole than a word that you gave away.
Oh,Elizabeth, your justice would freeze beer.
The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.
Immortality is like trying to carve your initials in a block of ice in the middle of July.
I know I'm a rare person, a trained scientist who writes fiction, because so few contemporary novelists engage with science.
I don't believe chance can play a role in my literature.
The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print—the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly.
One of my biggest peeves is when the writer hasn't given you enough information to figure everything out. You should be able to go back to the beginning of 'Gone Girl,' after you've already read it and you know everything, and say, 'Check - check - yes, she gave us that information.'
It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming of themselves like grass.
Every great literature has always been allegorical - allegorical of some view of the whole universe. The 'Iliad' is only great because all life is a battle, the 'Odyssey' because all life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is a riddle.
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