We're the new power, come to replace the old. Cameras in the head, children with microchips, spin doctors rewriting reality as it happens.
Grant MorrisonRead
I thought I could capture the stories of the city on paper. I thought I could write about the horrors of the city. Horror stories you see. I tell you I didn't have to look far for material. Everywhere I looked, there were stories hidden there in the dark corners. . . . I wrote and still there were more. . . . No one would publish them. 'Too horrible,' they said. 'Sick mind,' they said. I thought I could write about the horrors of the city but the horror is too big and it goes on forever.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the struggle of capturing the profound and disturbing realities of urban life through writing.
Grant Morrison's quote delves into the challenges faced by artists and writers when trying to depict the darker aspects of society. It illustrates the abundance of unsettling stories found within the urban landscape, emphasizing that horror is an ongoing presence that often eludes full representation. Despite the writer's unwavering effort to expose these truths, society's unwillingness to accept them can stifle artistic expression, showcasing a tension between creativity and societal norms.
Themes
HorrorCityStoriesWritingArtistic Expression
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about urban challenges, one might refer to this quote to emphasize the untold stories within cities.
More from Grant Morrison
All quotes βA comic will always be more 'personal' than a DVD or CD, both of which require electronic 'players' to decode their content. With comics, the reader is the player so the engagement with the material is always more fundamental and dynamic. Reading comics is a much less passive activity than consuming CDs and DVDs.
Grant MorrisonRead
American writers often say they find it difficult to write Superman. They say he's too powerful; you can't give him problems. But Superman is a metaphor. For me, Superman has the same problems we do, but on a Paul Bunyan scale. If Superman walks the dog, he walks it around the asteroid belt because it can fly in space. When Superman's relatives visit, they come from the 31st century and bring some hellish monster conqueror from the future. But it's still a story about your relatives visiting.
Grant MorrisonRead
Gayness is built into Batman. I'm not using gay in the pejorative sense, but Batman is very, very gay. There's just no denying it. Obviously as a fictional character he's intended to be heterosexual, but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay.
Grant MorrisonRead
I'm the evil mastermind behind the scenes. I'm the wicked puppeteer who pulls the strings and makes you dance. I'm your writer.
Grant MorrisonRead
Adults...struggle desperately with fiction, demanding constantly that it conform to the rules of everyday life. Adults foolishly demand to know how Superman can possibly fly, or how Batman can possibly run a multibillion-dollar business empire during the day and fight crime at night, when the answer is obvious even to the smallest child: because it's not real.
Grant MorrisonRead
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