The job of the writer is to take a close and uncomfortable look at the world they inhabit, the world we all inhabit, and the job of the novel is to make the corpse stink.
Walter MosleyRead
The life most of us live are lives we are forced to live by immediate needs, influences, and pressures.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights how external factors often dictate how we live our lives rather than our true desires.
Walter Mosley emphasizes that many individuals find themselves living lives that are shaped by immediate needs and societal pressures rather than their own genuine aspirations. This reflects a struggle between personal authenticity and the often overwhelming expectations placed upon us by the world around us.
Themes
LifeAuthenticityPressuresSocietyInfluence
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about living authentically, you might use this quote to illustrate societal influences.
More from Walter Mosley
All quotes βAt one time if you were a black writer you had to be one of the best writers in the world to be published. You had to be great. Now you can be good. Mediocre. And that's good.
Walter MosleyRead
My father cared about the world he lived in, and so he admitted his confusion about his place in America because he didn't want me to make the same mistake in my life.
Walter MosleyRead
Many & most moments go by with us hardly aware of their passage. But love & hate & fear cause time to snag you, to drag you down like a spider's web holding fast to a doomed fly's wings. And when you're caught like that you're aware of every moment & movement & nuance.
Walter MosleyRead
We are not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.
Walter MosleyRead
All writing is that structure of revelation. There's something you want to find out. If you know everything up front in the beginning, you really don't need to read further if there's nothing else to find out.
Walter MosleyRead
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I knew that was really the only purpose of life: to be our self, live our truth, and be the love that we are.
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I loathed the game, and since I could see no pleasure or usefulness in it, it was very difficult for me to show courage at it. Football, it seemed to me, is not really played for the pleasure of kicking a ball about, but is a species of fighting.
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Women, like men, ought to have their youth so glutted with freedom they hate the very idea of freedom.
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