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.
That very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
Nirvana is something within you. It is not an external reality. No god thunders down from the mountaintop. Just as the great mystics in the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths all discovered, God is within the self. God is virtually inseparable from ourselves.
I have a theatrical temperament. I'm not interested in the middle road - maybe because everyone's on it. Rationality, reasonableness bewilder me.
When you are not the doer how can the attachment happen? You do a small thing and you become attached. You say, "I have done this." You would like everybody to know that you have done this and you have done that. This ego is the barrier for the supreme understanding. Drop the doer and let things happen. That's what Tilopa means by being loose and natural.
Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.