It is my feeling that a story is not finished until it is read, and that the reader finishes it through his or her life experience, prejudices, worldview and thoughts.
Annie ProulxRead
We face up to awful things because we can't go around them, or forget them. The sooner you get it over with, the sooner you say 'Yes, it happened, and there's nothing I can do about it,' the sooner you can get on with your own life. You've got children to bring up. So you've got to get over it. What we have to get over, somehow we do. Even the worst things.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We must confront difficult situations instead of avoiding them to move forward in life.
Annie Proulx emphasizes the importance of facing our challenges head-on, rather than trying to escape or forget them. By accepting the reality of our circumstances and acknowledging that tough things happen, we free ourselves to move on and focus on what truly matters in our lives, like raising children and finding joy in the present.
Themes
ConfrontationAcceptanceMoving OnCourageLife
In practice
Example use cases
A motivational speaker might use this quote to inspire people to address their fears.
More from Annie Proulx
All quotes →No wonder, he thought, that the panhandle people were a godly lot, for they lived in sudden, violent atmospheres. Weather kept them humble.
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You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.
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I think it's important to leave spaces in a story for readers to fill in from their own experience.
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If a piece of knotted string can unleash the wind, and if a drowned man can awaken, then I believe a broken man can heal.
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But the only rhyme he could summon for 'out' was 'sauerkraut,' which lacked poetic glory. He let it go. The right line would come in time. That was the thing about poetry. It crept up through the draws and coulees of the brain.
Annie ProulxRead
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