I don't read reviews because by then it's too late - whatever anyone says, the book won't change. It is written.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the idea that the past cannot be changed, regardless of the opinions expressed after the fact.
Jeanette Winterson's quote emphasizes the futility of seeking validation or criticism through reviews after a work is completed. Once a book is published, the content is fixed, and external opinions cannot alter the author's original creation. This statement serves as a reminder to focus on the creative process rather than be swayed by external judgments that arise afterwards.
In practice
During a panel discussion on the creative process, an author might reference this quote to explain their approach to criticism.
What is remembered is not a deed in stone but a metaphor. Meta = above. Pheren = to carry. That which is carried above the literalness of life. A way of thinking that avoids the problems of gravity. The word won't let me down. The single word that can release me from all that unuttered weight.
Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.
I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.' Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest. Feel for yourself.
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
To grumble about the world and its unhappiness is always easier than to beat one's breast and groan over oneself.
So each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, or at least some remote and distant hope.
This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.
Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate that the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwoβs fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself.
If the philosophy of Christianity were lived, wars would cease, unhappiness would cease, economic problems would be solved, poverty would be wiped from the face of the earth, and man's inhumanity to man would be transmuted into a spirit of mutual helpfulness.
I got a label because I was Hispanic and a woman and [therefore] I had to be liberal.
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