He will wipe the tears from all faces.' It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required
Marilynne RobinsonRead
I did go through graduate school and I like to do research, to create something that has a certain objective solidity. The same thing influences my fiction to some degree, because, you know, my fiction is often based on history that I've read.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the value of research and historical understanding in both academic and creative pursuits.
In this quote, Marilynne Robinson reflects on her background in graduate school and how her academic research shapes her fiction. She suggests that the solidity and objective nature of research influence her creative writing, indicating the importance of grounding fiction in reality and historical context.
Themes
ResearchFictionHistoryEducationCreation
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote at a writing workshop to inspire students to incorporate research into their fiction.
More from Marilynne Robinson
All quotes →It seems to me there is less meanness in atheism, by a good measure. It seems that the spirit of religious self-righteousness this article deplores is precisely the spirit in which it is written. Of course he's right about many things, one of them being the destructive potency of religious self-righteousness. (p. 146)
Marilynne RobinsonRead
A narrow pond would form in the orchard, water clear as air covering grass and black leaves and fallen branches, all around it black leaves and drenched grass and fallen branches, and on it, slight as an image in an eye, sky, clouds, trees, our hovering faces and our cold hands.
Marilynne RobinsonRead
The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of morning. Light within light...It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within that great general light of existence.
Marilynne RobinsonRead
There are worries that seem to me sustained by the love of worry. For example, that people are reading from screens, or listening to recorded books. Why scold the impulse to enjoy language and narrative in whatever form it takes?
Marilynne RobinsonRead
Teaching is a distraction and a burden, but it's also an incredible stimulus. And a reprieve, in a way. When you're trying to work on something and it's not going anywhere, you can go to school and there's a two-and-a-half-hour block of time in which you can accomplish something.
Marilynne RobinsonRead
Similar quotes
First, we parents have to back up school authority and quit making excuses for our kids when they misbehave.
Hillary ClintonRead
I've never let my school interfere with my education.
Mark TwainRead
And suddenly, I realized the system that I was in did not know what intelligence was, didn't know how to identify smart and not smart. They called me the best, when I knew I wasn't, and they called him the worst, when he was the best. I mean, there could be no more antipodal environment. So I began to question: What is intelligence? Who says? Who says you're smart? Who says you're not smart? And what do they mean by that?
Tony BuzanRead
The essence of education is not to transfer knowledge; it is to guide the learning process, to put responsibility for study in the student's own hands...[and] place people on their own path of discovery and invention.
Tsunesaburo MakiguchiRead
One has to grow up with good talk in order to form the habit of it.
Helen HayesRead
Working with great writers can be humbling and frightening, but it can also change you for good, forever.
Zadie SmithRead