Writing a poem is like having an affair, a one-night stand; a short story is a romance, a relationship; a novel is a marriage-one has to be cunning, devise compromises, and make sacrifices.
Interpretation
Writing varies in engagement and complexity, much like different types of relationships.
In this quote, Amos Oz draws an analogy between the different forms of writing and the nature of relationships. He suggests that the writing of poetry, short stories, and novels reflects varying levels of commitment and complexity, paralleling how romantic relationships range from fleeting encounters to deep, long-lasting bonds that require dedication and compromise.
In practice
A writer might use this quote in a workshop to discuss the commitment needed for different writing forms.
When I was little, my ambition was to grow up to be a book. Not a writer. People can be killed like ants. Writers are not hard to kill either. But not books: however systematically you try to destroy them, there is always a chance that a copy will survive and continue to enjoy a shelf-life in some corner on an out-of-the-way library somehwere in Reykjavik, Valladolid or Vancouver.
Two children of same cruel parent look at one another and see in each other the image of the cruel parent or the image of their past oppressor. This is very much the case between Jew and Arab: It's a conflict between two victims.
If we don't stop somewhere, if we don't accept an unhappy compromise, unhappy for both sides, if we don't learn how to unhappily coexist and contain our burned sense of injustice - if we don't learn how to do that, we end up in a doomed state.
Fundamentalist s live life with an exclamation point. I prefer to live my life with a question mark.
I have seen for the first time in 100 years of conflict, the two peoples - the Israeli people and the Palestinian people - are ahead of their leaderships.
She had not wanted him to but had let him have his way because ever since she was a child she had generally yielded before anyone with strong willpower, especially if it was a man, not because she was naturally submissive, but because strong male willpower gave her a feeling of safety and trust, together with acceptance and a desire to give in.
The pointes for girls, I always say, have to be like an elephant's trunk; strong and yet flexible and soft.
I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, 'No. No, I'm finished. Bye.' And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won't do that.
We make music for a living. Like I've always said, if you like what you're doing, you're halfway there; if someone else likes it, that's even better. If they don't like it, at least you like it. Not to be selfish, but you kind of have to be.
Birds sat on the telegraph wires that spanned the river as the black notes sit on a staff of music.
Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life.
In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation.
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