History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.
Hilary MantelRead
The experienced writer says to the anguished novice: 'Just do it; get something, anything, on to the screen or page, just establish a flow of words, and criticise them later.' You give this advice but can't always take it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote encourages writers to start creating without fear of criticism, emphasizing the importance of flow over perfection.
Hilary Mantel's quote highlights the inevitable struggle between creation and self-criticism that many writers face. By advising the novice to prioritize getting words down on the page, she underscores the importance of allowing creativity to flow freely and not being paralyzed by the fear of judgment. This perspective can liberate writers from the constraints of perfectionism, suggesting that producing content is a necessary step before refining and critiquing it.
Themes
WritingCreativityPerfectionismFlowWords
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, to encourage participants to start their projects.
More from Hilary Mantel
All quotes →Why are we so attached to the severities of the past? Why are we so proud of having endured our fathers and our mothers, the fireless days and the meatless days, the cold winters and the sharp tongues? It's not as if we had a choice.
Hilary MantelRead
He is careful to deny responsibility for September, but he does not, you notice, condemn the killings. He also refrains from killing words, sparing Roland and Buzot, as if they were beneath his notice. August 10 was illegal, he says; so too was the taking of the Bastille. What account can we take of that, in revolution? It is the nature of revolutions to break laws. We are not justices of the peace; we are legislators to a new world.
Hilary MantelRead
It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.
Hilary MantelRead
History offers us vicarious experience. It allows the youngest student to possess the ground equally with his elders; without a knowledge of history to give him a context for present events, he is at the mercy of every social misdiagnosis handed to him.
Hilary MantelRead
You can control and censor a child's reading, but you can't control her interpretations; no one can guess how a message that to adults seems banal or ridiculous or outmoded will alter itself and evolve inside the darkness of a child's heart.
Hilary MantelRead
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