All novelists should live in two different worlds: a real one and an unreal one.
John FowlesRead
Do you know that every great thing in the history of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty or has been caused by feelings that you would call nasty? By passion, by love, by hatred, by truth. Do you know that?
Interpretation
What this quote means
Great art and beauty often stem from intense emotions, including those we may deem negative.
This quote emphasizes that the foundation of beautiful and impactful art, as well as life experiences, frequently arises from powerful emotions like passion, love, and even hatred. It challenges the notion that only positive feelings lead to greatness, suggesting that what we often label as 'nasty' can give rise to profound creative expressions and life forms that reflect the complexity of human experience.
Themes
ArtEmotionBeautyPassionLifeTruthNegativity
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion about the impact of emotions on creativity, you could use this quote to illustrate how negative experiences contribute to artistic expression.
More from John Fowles
All quotes →There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.
John FowlesRead
I love making, I love doing. I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying and dead at heart.
John FowlesRead
The bowed head, the buried face. She is silent, she will never speak, never forgive, never reach a hand, never leave this frozen present tense. All waits, suspended. Suspended the autumn trees, the autumn sky, anonymous people. A blackbird, poor fool, sings out of season from the willows by the lake. A flight of pigeons over the houses; fragments of freedom, hazard, an anagram made flesh. And somewhere the stinging smell of burning leaves.
John FowlesRead
It came to me…that I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world at that moment, that what I was feeling at that moment justified all I had been through, because all I had been through was my being there. I was experiencing…a new self-acceptance, a sense that I had to be this mind and this body, its vices and its virtues, and that I had no other chance or choice.
John FowlesRead
It's like the day you realize dolls are dolls. I pick up my old self and I see it's silly. A toy I've played with too often. It's a little sad, like an old golliwog at the bottom of the cupboard. Innocent and used-up and proud and silly.
John FowlesRead
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