All novelists should live in two different worlds: a real one and an unreal one.
John FowlesRead
You wish to be liked. I wish simply to be. One day you will know what that means, perhaps. And you will smile. Not against me. But with me.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the difference between seeking validation from others and simply existing in one's true self.
In this quote, John Fowles highlights the contrast between the desire for external approval and the pursuit of authentic existence. The speaker suggests that true contentment comes from being oneself rather than striving for the validation of others. Over time, the listener may come to understand the deeper significance of this perspective, leading to a shared sense of joy and connection.
Themes
AuthenticitySelfValidationConnectionContentment
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about self-acceptance and authenticity.
More from John Fowles
All quotes →There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.
John FowlesRead
I love making, I love doing. I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying and dead at heart.
John FowlesRead
Do you know that every great thing in the history of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty or has been caused by feelings that you would call nasty? By passion, by love, by hatred, by truth. Do you know that?
John FowlesRead
The bowed head, the buried face. She is silent, she will never speak, never forgive, never reach a hand, never leave this frozen present tense. All waits, suspended. Suspended the autumn trees, the autumn sky, anonymous people. A blackbird, poor fool, sings out of season from the willows by the lake. A flight of pigeons over the houses; fragments of freedom, hazard, an anagram made flesh. And somewhere the stinging smell of burning leaves.
John FowlesRead
It came to me…that I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world at that moment, that what I was feeling at that moment justified all I had been through, because all I had been through was my being there. I was experiencing…a new self-acceptance, a sense that I had to be this mind and this body, its vices and its virtues, and that I had no other chance or choice.
John FowlesRead
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What is meaningful cannot in fact be isolated…. We achieve understanding within a circular movement from particular facts to the whole that includes them and back again from the whole thus reached to the particular significant facts.
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