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It's all real in Outside, everything there is, because I saw an airplane in the blue between the clouds. Ma and me can't go there because we don't know the secret code, but it's real all the same. Before I didn't know to be mad that we can't open Door, my head was too small to have Outside in it.
Emma Donoghue
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote reflects the concept of reality and the limitations of perception.

In this quote, the character expresses a profound realization about the existence of a larger world outside their immediate experience. It touches on the idea that while there are things beyond reach or understanding due to limitations in knowledge or perspective, those things remain real and significant. The mention of the 'secret code' symbolizes the barriers to understanding or accessing broader truths, accentuating the inherent curiosity and wonder about what lies beyond our current understanding.

Themes

RealityPerceptionUnderstandingCuriosityLimitations

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about how children's imagination differs from adults' perceptions, this quote can illustrate the wonder of seeing beyond barriers.

More from Emma Donoghue

Ma's still nodding. "You're the one who matters, though. Just you." I shake my head till it's wobbling because there's no just me.
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At the door, there was one of those moment when two people realize that they like each other more than they know each other. This is nicer than the opposite situation, but more awkward. You try to remember the protocol for touching. You hate to gush, or presume to much, yet you are unwilling to let the moment pass without without some gesture
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You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well.
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Books are the air I breathe, so I don't notice the seasons.
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Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.
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