She liked the way his smile took a long time to arrive and just as long to leave.
Maggie O'FarrellRead
She has spent most of the day reading and is feeling rather out of touch with reality, as if her own life has become insubstantial in the face of the fiction she's been absorbed in.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote illustrates the overwhelming impact of literature on one's perception of reality.
Maggie O'Farrell's quote captures the experience of being so immersed in a fictional world that it can distort one's sense of reality. It reflects the ability of literature to transport readers, sometimes leading them to feel detached from their own lives and experiences, as fiction can often seem more vivid and substantial than real life.
Themes
ReadingFictionRealityLiteratureDetachment
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of reading during a book club meeting.
More from Maggie O'Farrell
All quotes →Listen. The trees in this story are stirring, trembling, readjusting themselves. A breeze is coming in gusts off the sea, and it is almost as if the trees know, in their restlessness, in their head-tossing impatience, that something is about to happen.
Maggie O'FarrellRead
Similar quotes
And let no one suppose that I claim that just living can be taught for, in a word, I hold that there does not exist an art of the kind which can implant sobriety and justice into depraved natures. Nevertheless, I do think that the study of political discourse can help more than any other thing to stimulate and form such qualities of character
IsocratesRead
It was mostly through pop culture, through hip-hop, through Dungeons & Dragons and comic books that I acquired much of my vocabulary.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead
I believe in the power of ideas, I believe in the power of books, but you have to give them time.
Thomas PikettyRead
What enriches language is its being handled and exploited by beautiful minds-not so much by making innovations as by expanding it through more vigorous and varied applications, by extending it and deploying it. It is not words that they contribute: what they do is enrich their words, deepen their meanings and tie down their usage; they teach it unaccustomed rhythms, prudently though and with ingenuity.
Michel De MontaigneRead
If you don't know history, it is as if you were born yesterday.
Howard ZinnRead
For a person whose sole burning ambition is to write - like myself - college is useless beyond the Sophomore year.
William StyronRead