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.
I saw a man clothed with rags . . . a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back.
Poverty is the worst form of violence.
Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.
It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that, whatever you say to them, they always purr: "If they would only purr for 'yes,' and mew for 'no,; or any rule of that sort," she had said, "so that one could keep up a conversation! But how can you talk with a person if they always say the same thing?
If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable - what then?
Speaking of Self-realizatio n is a delusion. It is only because people have been under the delusion that the non-Self is the Self and the unreal the Real that they have to be weaned out of it by the other delusion called Self-realizatio n; because actually the Self always is the Self and there is no such thing as realizing it.
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