One of the great things about books is you can afford to do anything.
George R. R. MartinRead
The odd thing about being a writer is you do tend to lose yourself in your books. Sometimes it seems like real life is flickering by and you're hardly a part of it. You remember the events in your books better than you remember the events that actually took place when you were writing them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writers can become so immersed in their fictional worlds that real life feels distant and less significant.
George R. R. Martin's quote highlights the profound impact of writing on a creator's consciousness. It suggests that the act of writing can lead one to become so absorbed in imaginary narratives that the boundaries between reality and fiction blur, resulting in a sense of detachment from actual life experiences. This phenomenon speaks to the immersiveness of storytelling and the powerful connection between writers and their stories, which can sometimes overshadow their lived experiences.
Themes
WritingFictionImmersionStorytellingBooks
In practice
Example use cases
During a workshop on the creative process, this quote can illustrate how deep immersion in writing may affect a writer's perception of reality.
More from George R. R. Martin
All quotes →I hate outlines. I have a broad sense of where the story is going; I know the end, I know the end of the principal characters, and I know the major turning points and events from the books, the climaxes for each book, but I don't necessarily know each twist and turn along the way. That's something I discover in the course of writing and that's what makes writing enjoyable. I think if I outlined comprehensively and stuck to the outline the actual writing would be boring.
George R. R. MartinRead
There is only one god and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: “Not today.
George R. R. MartinRead
I did not do it. Yet now I wish I had.’ He turned to face the hall, that sea of pale faces. ‘I wish I had enough poison for you all. You make me sorry that I am not the monster you would have me be, yet there it is. I am innocent, but I will get no justice here.
George R. R. MartinRead
But a voice inside her whispered, There are no heroes, and she remembered what Lord Petyr had said to her, here in this very hall. 'Life is not a song, sweetling,' he'd told her, 'You may learn that one day to your sorrow.' In life, the monsters win, she told herself.
George R. R. MartinRead
I write from this tight third-person viewpoint, where each chapter is seen through the eyes of one individual character. When I'm writing that character, I become that character and identify with that character.
George R. R. MartinRead
Similar quotes
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.
Ernest HemingwayRead
Writing keeps me at my desk, constantly trying to write a perfect sentence. It is a great privilege to make one's living from writing sentences. The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordinary strings of words is a marvelous thing. I couldn't ask for anything better. It's as near to godliness as I can get.
John BanvilleRead
Dresses that are truly beautiful are never unfashionable.
Elsa SchiaparelliRead
Though it may not seem like it, I never try to write about a place, per se; it's always, first and last, about story. Story is everything. Story and a bit of attitude.
Martin McdonaghRead
The great thing about using the past is that it gives you the most colossal freedom to invent. The research is necessary, of course, but no one writes a novel to dramatically illustrate what everybody already knows.
Peter CareyRead
I write because to write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger existence and a profound mystery. A thought was not there, then it is. An image, a story, an idea about what it is to be human, did not exist, then it does. With every new poem, an emotion new to the heart, to the world, speaks itself into being.
Jane HirshfieldRead