The more research you do, the more at ease you are in the world you're writing about. It doesn't encumber you, it makes you free.
A. S. ByattRead
Coherence and closure are deep human desires that are presently unfashionable. But they are always both frightening and enchantingly desirable. "Falling in love," characteristically, combs the appearances of the word, and of the particular lover's history, out of a random tangle and into a coherent plot.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the human need for coherence in love, despite its complexities.
A. S. Byatt suggests that love has the power to transform chaotic emotions and experiences into a meaningful narrative. It reflects on our innate desire for clarity and closure in relationships, highlighting how love can create a sense of order from life's randomness, even though this desire sometimes appears outdated or challenging to pursue.
Themes
LoveCoherenceRelationshipsDesiresNarrative
In practice
Example use cases
A wedding speech about the beauty of love's narrative power.
More from A. S. Byatt
All quotes →It's because I'm a feminist that I can't stand women limiting other women's imaginations. It really makes me angry.
A. S. ByattRead
Why do we take pleasure in gruesome death, neatly packaged as a puzzle to which we may find a satisfactory solution through clues - or if we are not clever enough, have it revealed by the all-powerful tale-teller at the end of the book? It is something to do with being reduced to, and comforted by, playing by the rules.
A. S. ByattRead
Never stop paying attention to things. Never make your mind up finally. Do not hold beliefs.
A. S. ByattRead
Only write to me, write to me, I love to see the hop and skip and sudden starts of your ink.
A. S. ByattRead
I am a creature of my pen. My pen is the best of me.
A. S. ByattRead
Similar quotes
The truth is, I often like women. I like their unconventionality. I like their completeness. I like their anonymity.
Virginia WoolfRead
Love, however, cannot be forbidden. The more that flame is covered up, the hotter it burns. Also love can always find a way. It was impossible that these two whose hearts were on fire should be kept apart. (Pyramus and Thisbe)
Edith HamiltonRead
I know a man He came from my home town He wore his passion for his woman Like a thorny crown He said "Dolores I live in fear My love for you's so overpowering I'm afraid that I will disappear
Paul SimonRead
It hurts to love. It's like giving yourself to be flayed and knowing that at any moment the other person may just walk off with your skin.
Susan SontagRead
But anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Like being there by that summer ocean on the other side of the island while love was fading out of her, the stars burning so extravagantly those nights that anyone could tell you they would never last.
Jack GilbertRead
But that afternoon he asked himself, with his infinite capacity for illusion, if such pitiless indifference might not be a subterfuge for hiding the torments of love.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezRead