Ma's still nodding. "You're the one who matters, though. Just you." I shake my head till it's wobbling because there's no just me.
Emma DonoghueRead
A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Memoirs provide a true account of experiences, while novels can explore imaginative depths and various perspectives.
In this quote, Emma Donoghue highlights the distinction between memoirs and novels in storytelling. While memoirs are rooted in reality and offer an authentic representation of experiences, novels provide the freedom to delve into creative spaces, allowing authors to explore characters, emotions, and situations in a way that transcends real life, thereby enriching the reader's understanding through imaginative storytelling.
Themes
MemoirNovelAuthenticityStorytellingCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, as an example of how different narrative forms express truth.
More from Emma Donoghue
All quotes βAh yes, the paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence.
Emma DonoghueRead
At the door, there was one of those moment when two people realize that they like each other more than they know each other. This is nicer than the opposite situation, but more awkward. You try to remember the protocol for touching. You hate to gush, or presume to much, yet you are unwilling to let the moment pass without without some gesture
Emma DonoghueRead
You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well.
Emma DonoghueRead
Books are the air I breathe, so I don't notice the seasons.
Emma DonoghueRead
Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.
Emma DonoghueRead
Similar quotes
Only a literary work that reveals an unknown fragment of human existence has a reason for being.
Milan KunderaRead
It was my father's hope, and it is ours, that the National Gallery would become not a static but a living institution, growing in usefulness and importance to artists, scholars and the general public.
Paul MellonRead
The Heavenly Spheres make music for us,_x000D_ The Holy Twelve dance with us,_x000D_ All things join in the dance!_x000D_ Ye who dance not, know not what we are knowing.
Gustav HolstRead
When I am writing best, I really am lost in my world. I lose track of the outside world. I have a difficult time balancing between my real world and the artificial world.
George R. R. MartinRead
I shall create! If not a note, a hole./If not an overture, a desecration.
Gwendolyn BrooksRead
Emerald as heavy as a golf course, ruby as dark as an afterbirth, diamond as white as sun on the sea.
Anne SextonRead