I work very deliberately, with a plan. But sometimes I come to a point that I planned as the end and it needs softening. Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep - it can't be done abruptly.
Colm ToibinRead
It really matters to writers to find and treasure readers, all the more when they're on the other side of the world.
Interpretation
Writers value their readers, especially those who are far away, as reading creates a meaningful connection across distances.
This quote emphasizes the deep appreciation that writers have for their readers, underscoring that the act of writing transcends geographical barriers. It highlights the importance of forming connections and the shared experience that literature can provide, allowing the thoughts and emotions of the writer to reach and resonate with individuals around the globe.
In practice
Use this quote in a speech about the importance of literature in connecting cultures.
I work very deliberately, with a plan. But sometimes I come to a point that I planned as the end and it needs softening. Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep - it can't be done abruptly.
You create a world away from home and make new rooms for yourself. But when you arrive back home in your old rooms, the world you've made for yourself ceases to be real. Everything seems to crumble. Anyone who's been sent away to boarding school can understand that.
History is a way of interpreting, rather than, say, knowing, the past. It is usually a set of disputes between those who have access to the same sources. It depends on ideology as much as voting in an election does.
Some of our loves and attachments are elemental and beyond our choosing, and for that very reason they come spiced with pain and regret and need and hollowness and a feeling as close to anger as I will ever be able to manage.
People love talking about writers as storytellers, but I hate being called that: it suggests I got it from my grandmother or something, when my writing really comes out of silence. If a storyteller came up to me, I'd run away.
Everyone who's in America spends the first few years not experiencing it. The person is frightened by the newness of the place and doesn't see things. Her emotional universe becomes the entire universe. And then when she thinks of home, her distance in space can seem like a distance in time.
Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of a human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed
You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world.
Long books, when read, are usually overpraised, because the reader wishes to convince others and himself that he has not wasted his time.
That the question of likability even exists in literary conversations is odd. It implies that we are engaging in a courtship. When characters are unlikable, they don’t meet our mutable, varying standards. Certainly we can find kinship in fiction, but literary merit shouldn’t be dictated by whether we want to be friends or lovers with those about whom we read.
She liked books more than anything else, and was, in fact, always inventing stories of beautiful things and telling them to herself.
I love it when novels contain a broad cast of characters, including queer ones.
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