If certain books are to be termed 'immigrant fiction,' what do we call the rest? Native fiction? Puritan fiction? This distinction doesn't agree with me.
Jhumpa LahiriRead
You can't have a hit every time. The main thing is to keep on working and not be afraid to take risks. It's better to do something that's not perfect and successful every time. It's important to be fearless and move forward, to learn from what went wrong.
Interpretation
Embrace imperfection and learn from failure while continuing to take risks.
This quote encourages a mindset of perseverance and courage in the face of challenges and setbacks. It suggests that striving for success does not mean achieving perfection every time, but rather taking calculated risks and learning valuable lessons from failures to grow and improve.
In practice
In a motivational speech to a group of entrepreneurs.
If certain books are to be termed 'immigrant fiction,' what do we call the rest? Native fiction? Puritan fiction? This distinction doesn't agree with me.
When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.
When I am experiencing a complex story or novel, the broader planes, and also details, tend to fall away.
I think each time you start a story or novel or whatever, you are absolutely at the bottom of the ladder all over again. It doesn't matter what you've done before.
The sky was different, without color, taut and unforgiving. But the water was the most unforgiving thing, nearly black at times, cold enough, I knew, to kill me, violent enough to break me apart. The waves were immense, battering rocky beaches without sand. The farther I went, the more desolate it became, more than any place I'd been, but for this very reason the landscape drew me, claimed me as nothing had in a long time.
On the technical side, I hope that my writing is evolving and maturing, ripening, deepening.
People will tell you that writing is too difficult, that it's impossible to get your work published, that you might as well hang yourself. Meanwhile, they'll keep writing and you'll have hanged yourself.
Now is the only time there is. Make your now wow, your minutes miracles, and your days pay. Your life will have been magnificently lived and invested, and when you die you will have made a difference.
So like any football or basketball coach, you always always believe you're going to win.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.
The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.
A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action. You must act as you breathe.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.