Let's stop reflexively comparing Chinese writers to Chinese writers, Indian writers to Indian writers, black writers to black writers. Let's focus on the writing itself: the characters, the language, the narrative style.
Celeste NgRead
I think one of the reasons that I like fiction versus nonfiction is that I myself can kind of disappear from the story.
Interpretation
Fiction allows the reader to escape reality and immerse themselves in different stories and perspectives.
In this quote, Celeste Ng expresses a preference for fiction over nonfiction because fiction provides the opportunity for readers to detach from reality and experience stories from various viewpoints. This ability to disappear from the narrative enables a deeper exploration of themes, emotions, and the human experience, making fiction a powerful medium for both escapism and reflection.
In practice
During a book club discussion about favorite genres.
Let's stop reflexively comparing Chinese writers to Chinese writers, Indian writers to Indian writers, black writers to black writers. Let's focus on the writing itself: the characters, the language, the narrative style.
Spend enough time wrangling a toddler, and you get good at being kind but firm. Like your child, you must be doggedly single-minded when it matters.
For me, any story I tackle begins with the human relationships and not the plot.
It's so easy, as a writer, to get stuck in your own head, to live in the little worlds you create. To forget that there are people out there reading your work, people who may be deeply affected by what you do, that you are writing not just for yourself, but for them.
What I remember about race relations in the 1990s is that you showed your awareness by saying you didn't see race, that you were colour-blind.
In fiction you're not often writing about the typical; you are interested in outliers, the points of interest. Part of it comes from feeling I was the only Asian or person of colour... another part comes from my personality: I'm an introvert, and my usual survival mode in a large group is to stand by a wall and watch everybody.
I spent lunchtime in a grave during the filming of 'Bloody Mama.' When you're younger, you feel that's what you need to do to help you stay in character. When you get older, you become more confident and less intense about it - and you can achieve the same effect.
Beauty is a harmonious relation between something in our nature and the quality of the object which delights us.
Writers are in control of editing processes - making a sentence better, cutting out a paragraph. But the initial outpouring has very little to do with conscious control or manipulation.
Do you realize that people don't know how to read Kafka simply because they want to decipher him? Instead of letting themselves be carried away by his unequaled imagination, they look for allegories - and come up with nothing but clichΓ©s: life is absurd (or it is not absurd), God is beyond reach (or within reach), etc. You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.
It was Chicago with its World's Fair which vivified the national desire for civic beauty.
I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names?
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