What is remembered is not a deed in stone but a metaphor. Meta = above. Pheren = to carry. That which is carried above the literalness of life. A way of thinking that avoids the problems of gravity. The word won't let me down. The single word that can release me from all that unuttered weight.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the power of language and metaphor in shaping our understanding and experiences beyond the literal.
Jeanette Winterson reflects on the significance of metaphorical language, suggesting that what truly resonates and remains in our memory transcends the physical and literal aspects of existence. Instead, it is the ideas and emotions we carry above the mundane realities, allowing us to navigate life's complexities without the burden of literal interpretations.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the impact of literature on our lives.
Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.
I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.' Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest. Feel for yourself.
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
I cannot assume you will understand me. It is just as likely that as I invent what I want to say, you will invent what you want to hear. Some story we must have. Stray words on crumpled paper. A weak signal into the outer space of each other. The probability of seperate worlds meeting is very small. The lure is immense. We send starships. We fall in love
The faces of most American women over thirty are relief maps of petulant and bewildered unhappiness.
How do you put everyone in the pool, so you have the right to dry yourself in the sun?
Mary's greatness consists in the fact that she wants to magnify God, not herself.
What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another? What broke when he could bring himself to thrust down the knife into the warm flesh, to bring down the axe on the living head, to cleave down between the seeing eyes, to shoot the gun that would drive death into the beating heart?
If you are white, racism is too easily ignored and forgiven, regarded as of burning concern only to the ethnic minorities, and therefore of relatively marginal significance.
Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.
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