However much, as readers, we lose ourselves in a novel or story, fiction itself is an experience on the order of memory -not on the order of actual occurrence.
Samuel R. DelanyRead
All too often, when creative people pick out someone else's creative work as an inspiration, what they end up with is very, very far from the original.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Creative inspiration can lead artists to develop work that diverges significantly from the original source.
This quote by Samuel R. Delany highlights the phenomenon where creative individuals, when influenced by someone else's work, often produce results that are drastically different from the inspiration they initially drew from. It suggests that while inspiration is important, the unique interpretation and personal expression of the artist can transform an idea to the extent that it no longer resembles its original form.
Themes
CreativityInspirationArtOriginalityInterpretation
In practice
Example use cases
An art class discussing the influence of famous painters on contemporary artists.
More from Samuel R. Delany
All quotes βThe only important elements in any society are the artistic and the criminal, because they alone, by questioning the societyβs values, can force it to change.
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How we treat our invalids - our mad, our physically or mentally compromised family members - does tell you something about who we are politically, historically, culturally.
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It is a magic book. Words mean things. When you put them together they speak. Yes, sometimes they flatten out and nothing they say is real, and that is one kind of magic. But sometimes a vision will rip up from them and shriek and clank wings clear as the sweat smudge on the paper under your thumb. And that is another kind.
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The poems ... are moments when I had the intensity to see, and the energy to build, some careful analog that completed the seeing. ... All I have been left is the exhausting habit of trying to tack up the slack in my life with words.
Samuel R. DelanyRead
I spend a lot of time thinking, if not daydreaming. People think of me as a genre writer, and a genre writer is supposed to be prolific. Since that's how people perceive me, they have to say I'm prolific. But I don't find that either complimentary or accurate.
Samuel R. DelanyRead
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