We burned with love for ourselves, all of us, starters of the fire we suffered- our love was the affliction for which only our love was the cure.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
My greatest fear is feeling like a professional novelist. Somebody who creates characters, who sits down and has pieces of paper taped to the wall - what's going to happen in this scene, or this act. What I like is for it to be a much more scary, sloppy reflection of who I am.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses an artist's fear of conforming to professional standards over authentic expression.
Jonathan Safran Foer highlights his fear of losing genuine creativity by adhering to the structured and often rigid expectations of a professional novelist. He prefers the chaos and rawness of true self-reflection in his work rather than the meticulous planning that can overshadow personal authenticity in storytelling.
Themes
CreativityAuthenticityFearWritingSelf-Reflection
In practice
Example use cases
Encouraging aspiring writers to embrace their messy process.
More from Jonathan Safran Foer
All quotes →Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled. Each second was two hundred yards, to be walked, crawled. You couldn't see the next hour, it was so far in the distance. Tomorrow was over the horizon, and would take an entire day to reach.
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She was not crying Which surprised me very much But I understand now That she had found places For her melancholy That were behind more masks Than only her eyes
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What do babies dream of? She must be dreaming of the before-life, just as I dream of the afterlife.
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A few weeks after the worst day, I started writing lots of letters. I don't know why, but it was one of the only things that made my boots lighter.
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What is being awake if not interpreting our dreams, or dreaming if not interpreting our wake?
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
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The goal of art was the vital expression of self.
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