Artists are not cheerleaders, and we're not the heads of tourism boards. We expose and discuss what is problematic, what is contradictory, what is hurtful and what is silenced in the culture we're in.
Junot DiazRead
We all dream dreams of unity, of purity; we all dream that there's an authoritative voice out there that will explain things, including ourselves.
Interpretation
The quote reflects our desire for understanding and unity in a complex world.
Junot Diaz's quote highlights the common human yearning for clarity and connection in our lives. It speaks to the hopes we have for an external authority or understanding that can elucidate our shared experiences and individual identities, suggesting that amidst the chaos of existence, we seek a coherent narrative that unites us both in our dreams and realities.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of community and shared ideals.
Artists are not cheerleaders, and we're not the heads of tourism boards. We expose and discuss what is problematic, what is contradictory, what is hurtful and what is silenced in the culture we're in.
Run a hand through your hair, like the white boys do, even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.
I can see myself watching him shave every morning. And at other time I see us in that house and see how one bright day (or a day like this, so cold your mind shifts every time the wind does) he will wake up and decide it's all wrong. I'm sorry, he'll say. I have to leave now.
Migration gives a blank cheque to put anything you don't feel like addressing in the memory hold. No neighbours can go against the monster narrative of your family.
I think 90% of my ideas evaporate because I have a terrible memory and because I seem to be committed to not scribble anything down. As soon as I write it down, my mind rejects it.
When I read Toni Morrison and Sandra Cisneros as a freshman at Rutgers, it all clicked - that writing was all I wanted to do. It became my calling.
Few if any seemed to have grasped the Principle of Reality; new knowledge leads always to yet more awesome mysteries. Greater physiological knowledge of the brain makes the existence of the soul less possible yet more probable by the nature of the search.
In South Africa, I feel I am a stranger, at best an animal.
God has put within our lives meanings and possibilities that quite outrun the limits of mortality.
I have to admit that the empty prestige and the stupid glory - yes, the horrible rush, the deadly sense of importance that war brings to life - are hard illusions to shake off. Look at me, a war correspondent.
What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man?
You won't discover the limits of the soul, however far you go.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.