The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
Don DelilloRead
When birds look into houses, what impossible worlds they see.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the unseen possibilities and worlds that exist within our homes and lives.
Don Delillo's quote suggests that when birds observe human homes, they perceive experiences and worlds beyond our imagination. It highlights the idea that each individual's life is filled with unique stories, dreams, and potential, which may be entirely invisible to others but are rich and complex in their own right. The perspective of the birds symbolizes a form of insight into the myriad realities that intertwine yet remain unknown to most.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about perspective in art and literature.
The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country.
American writers ought to stand and live in the margins, and be more dangerous.
For me, writing is a concentrated form of thinking.
I used to think it was possible for an artist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory.
[I]n the American soul there is a lonely individual standing in a vast landscape. He is either on a horse or driving a car, depending, and either way he’s carrying a gun. This is one of the essential images in American mythology.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.
The spirit of the kingdom undermines its defenses. People will rise against the king. A new peace is made; holy laws deteriorate. Paris has never before found herself in such dire straits.
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
I am still a consumer; the consumer world was the world I emerged into, whose air I breathed for a very long time, and its assumptions still dominate my psyche—but maybe a little less each year....There are times when I can feel the spell breaking in my mind….There are times when I can almost feel myself simply being.
Each man must have his I; it is more necessary to him than bread; and if he does not find scope for it within the existing institutions he will be likely to make trouble.
That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.
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