The dimensions of a work of art are seldom realized by the author until the work is accomplished. It is like a flowering dream. Ideas grow, budding silently, and there are a thousand illuminations coming day by day as the work progresses. A seed grows in writing as in nature. The seed of the idea is developed by both labor and the unconscious, and the struggle that goes on between them.
Interpretation
The creative process reveals its true depth only upon completion, much like nature's growth.
This quote by Carson McCullers explores the intricate and often subconscious journey of creating art. The author suggests that a work of art evolves in dimensions and complexity as it is created, akin to the natural growth of a plant from a seed. It emphasizes the importance of both conscious effort and the unconscious inspirations that contribute to artistic expression. The metaphor of a 'flowering dream' illustrates how ideas develop quietly over time, culminating in a rich and nuanced final creation.
In practice
During an art exhibition, one could use this quote to explain the artist's creative process.
Wherever you look there’s meanness and corruption. This room, this bottle of grape wine, these fruits in the basket, are all products of profit and loss. A fellow can’t live without giving his passive acceptance to meanness. Somebody wears his tail to a frazzle for every mouthful we eat and every stitch we wear—and nobody seems to know. Everybody is blind, dumb, and blunt-headed—stupid and mean.
There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.
She was afraid of these things that made her suddenly wonder who she was, and what she was going to be in the world, and why she was standing at that minute, seeing a light, or listening, or staring up into the sky: alone.
The trouble with me is that for a long time I have just been an I person. All people belong to a We except me. Not to belong to a We makes you too lonesome.
Because in some men it is in them to give up everything personal at some time, before it ferments and poisons--throw it to some human being or some human idea. They have to.
Once you have lived with another, it is a great torture to have to live alone.
Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.
I'm a brown girl from a Punjabi pind raised in Toronto. I don't expect literary critics and purists to understand the nuances of my experiences, and the experiences of the people around me... And my tradition holds that there is a magic in the written word. So how I write, what I write of, and why I write all comes naturally.
See, a painting is much cheaper than making a film. And photography is, you know, way cheap. So if I get an idea for a film, there are many ways to get it together and go realise that film. There's really nothing to be afraid of.
I spend a lot of my time talking to the dead, but since I get paid for it, no one thinks I'm mad.
The art of writing fiction is to sail as dangerously close to the truth as possible without sinking the ship
I'm fairly certain when I die that the obituary will say, 'Author of 'Angels in America' dies.' Unless I'm completely forgotten, and then it won't say anything at all.
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