Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor.
Graham GreeneRead
So much in writing depends on the superficiality of one's days.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing is influenced by the daily experiences and trivialities of life.
Graham Greene suggests that the quality and depth of writing are greatly affected by the seemingly mundane and superficial aspects of daily life. The experiences and observations we collect as we go about our days shape our narratives and influence our creativity, highlighting the interconnectedness of life and art.
Themes
WritingDaily LifeCreativitySuperficialityExperience
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, discussing how daily experiences influence one's writing style.
More from Graham Greene
All quotes →It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn’t the test of man have been carried out in fewer years? Couldn’t we have committed our first major sin at seven, have ruined ourselves for love or hate at ten, have clutched at redemption on a fifteen-year-old deathbed?
Graham GreeneRead
God is love. I don't say the heart doesn't feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint pot of ditch-water. We wouldn't recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us - God's love.
Graham GreeneRead
Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.
Graham GreeneRead
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
Graham GreeneRead
Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.
Graham GreeneRead
Similar quotes
My subject matter was a genuine sort of experience that came out of my life, particularly the American world in which I was privileged to be . . . . I would really think of the bakery counters, of the way the counter was lit, where the pies were placed, but I wanted just a piece of the experience. From when I worked in restaurants . . . [it was] always poetic to me.
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A writer's heart, a poet's heart, an artist's heart, a musician's heart is always breaking. It is through that broken window that we see the world.
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A lot of the shadow self is the home of poetry, story, prayer. My deepest understandings are often released from the part of me of which I am least aware most of the time.
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I'm fascinated by musicians who don't completely understand their territory; that's when you do your best work.
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But who is this, what thing of sea or land,- Female of sex it seems,- That so bedeck'd, ornate, and gay, Comes this way sailing Like a stately ship Of Tarsus, bound for th' isles Of Javan or Gadire, With all her bravery on, and tackle trim, Sails fill'd, and streamers waving, Courted by all the winds that hold them play, An amber scent of odorous perfume Her harbinger?
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I've still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, 'You know, that's the truth. I wasn't there, and I wasn't a six-foot black girl, but that's the truth.'
Maya AngelouRead