We need literature because we wouldn’t fully know ourselves without it. We need good literature to be fully human.
Edwidge DanticatRead
When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity. Your fingers have still not perfected the task. Some of the braids are long, others are short. Some are thick, others are thin. Some are heavy. Others are light. Like the diverse women of your family. Those whose fables and metaphors, whose similes and soliloquies, whose diction and je ne sais quoi daily slip into your survival soup, by way of their fingers.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing is a complex process that requires the blending of different thoughts and styles, much like braiding hair.
In this quote, Edwidge Danticat explores the intricate process of writing by comparing it to the art of braiding hair. She emphasizes that just as hair comes in various textures and lengths, writing involves weaving together diverse ideas and experiences, particularly those influenced by the women in her life. The metaphor conveys that writing is not only a craft but also a reflection of one's heritage and personal history, with each strand representing a voice and story that contributes to the final piece.
Themes
WritingCreativityHeritageStorytellingArtistic Process
In practice
Example use cases
During a writing workshop to explain the complexities of creative writing.
More from Edwidge Danticat
All quotes →There is always a place where, if you listen closely in the night, you will hear a mother telling a story and at the end of the tale, she will ask you this question: 'Ou libéré?' Are you free, my daughter?" My grandmother quickly pressed her fingers over my lips. Now," she said, "you will know how to answer.
Edwidge DanticatRead
Misery won't touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of.
Edwidge DanticatRead
Write what haunts you. What keeps you up at night. What you are unable to get out of your mind. Sometimes they are the hardest things to write, but those are often the things that are worth investigating by you specifically. . .
Edwidge DanticatRead
The girl she said, I didn’t tell you this because it was a small thing, but little girls, they leave their hearts at home when they walk outside. Hearts are so precious. They don’t want to lose them.
Edwidge DanticatRead
...women, brave as stars at dawn
Edwidge DanticatRead
Similar quotes
The writer's only responsibility is to his art...If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies.
William FaulknerRead
Weaknesses have a certain function in a poem... some strategy in order to pave the reader's way to the impact of this or that line.
Joseph BrodskyRead
Basically everything I've done in art, I was in possession of when I was 20 years old. I use a waste retrieval method of working. I'll go back and use something that disgusted me 15 years ago but that I had enough sense to think about. Some artists change dramatically. I see my work more like history being written.
Edward RuschaRead
Yellow is capable of charming God.
Vincent Van GoghRead
It's no accident that my first novel was called Americana. This was a private declaration of independence, a statement of my intention to use the whole picture, the whole culture.
Don DelilloRead
I looked at myself, and I just said, 'Well, you know, I can sing, but I'm not the greatest singer in the world. I can play guitar very well, but I'm not the greatest guitar player in the world.' So I said, 'Well, if I'm going to project an individuality, it's going to have to be in my writing.'
Bruce SpringsteenRead