Fiction, with its preference for what is small and might elsewhere seem irrelevant; its facility for smuggling us into another skin and allowing us to live a new life there; its painstaking devotion to what without it might go unnoticed and unseen; its respect for contingency, and the unlikely and odd; its willingness to expose itself to moments of low, almost animal being and make them nobly illuminating, can deliver truths we might not otherwise stumble on.
Interpretation
Fiction reveals deeper truths through the exploration of seemingly insignificant experiences and perspectives.
This quote highlights the unique power of fiction to immerse readers in diverse experiences and perspectives, allowing them to discover profound truths about life and humanity that may otherwise go unnoticed. Through careful attention to small details and the exploration of the unconventional, fiction transcends mere storytelling to illuminate aspects of existence that resonate on a deeper level, enriching our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
In practice
During a book club meeting discussing the layers of meaning in fiction.
I knew that the world around you is only uninteresting if you can't see what is really going on. The place you come from is always the most exotic place you'll ever encounter because it is the only place where you recognise how many secrets and mysteries there are in people's lives
I want my buildings to take root and look as if they've always been there. It isn't about pastiche or adapting what's already there. It's about trying to blend the future and the past.
Art is something greater and higher than our own skill or knowledge or learning. That art is something which, though produced by human hands, is not wrought by hands alone, but wells up from a deeper source, from a man's soul.
I hope that there are many more women out there writing bits of feminist sci-fi. And men, also - men are allowed to write feminist things.
There is a communication of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine is drunk. And that is my answer when people ask me: Why do you write about hunger, and not wars or love.
Architects work in two ways. One is to respond precisely to a client's needs or demands. Another is to look at what the client asks and reinterpret it.
I always wanted to be an artist, writer and poet since I was seven, and one has to live long enough to evolve as an artist and do one's finest work.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.