Well, one hopes that if you're really related to the core of your particular culture, you have profound commitments to it, and that you are aware of how much you can strain it before you do violence to its essential nature.
Chaim PotokRead
I think the hardest part of writing is revising. And by that I mean the following: A novelist has to create the piece of marble and then chip away to find the figure in it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing involves a challenging process of revision to reveal the true essence of the work.
Chaim Potok compares the act of writing to sculpting a piece of marble, suggesting that the initial creation is just the beginning. The true artistry lies in the revision process, where the writer must refine and chip away at their work to uncover the final, polished piece. This metaphor highlights the importance of perseverance and attention to detail in the craft of writing.
Themes
WritingRevisionCreativityArtistryCraft
In practice
Example use cases
During a writing workshop, this quote could inspire participants to embrace the revision process.
More from Chaim Potok
All quotes →… the world will indulge you just so long Asher Lev. Then it will stop. You will simply have to grow accustomed to that truth.
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A life is measured by how it is lived for the sake of heaven.
Chaim PotokRead
A book is sent out into the world, and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare - let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel.
Chaim PotokRead
All of us grow up in particular realities - a home, family, a clan, a small town, a neighborhood. Depending upon how we're brought up, we are either deeply aware of the particular reading of reality into which we are born, or we are peripherally aware of it.
Chaim PotokRead
He taught them that the purpose of a man is to make his life holy--every aspect of his life: eating, drinking praying, sleeping. God is everywhere, he told them, and if it seems at times that He is hidden from us, it is only because we have not yet learned to seek Him correctly.
Chaim PotokRead
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Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist, you have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it.
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There are two moments worthwhile in writing, the one when you start and the other when you throw it in the waste-paper basket.
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