I just sit here and tell the story as though I can't help it. There's always something in the day that reminds me, that sets me off all hot and guilty and scared and rambling and wistful, like I am now.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the involuntary nature of storytelling and the emotions that fuel it.
Tim Winton's quote suggests that storytelling is an inherent part of human experience, driven by our daily interactions and memories that evoke deep-seated emotions. The storyteller seems to be overwhelmed by feelings of guilt, fear, and nostalgia, which inspire them to share their narratives, highlighting the complexity of human emotions and the urgency of expression in the face of such feelings.
In practice
In a writing workshop, when discussing the role of emotions in storytelling.
When you're surfing you're not thinking about where you parked the car or what you're going to do when you grow up or what you're going to buy when you've got lots of money. You know, you're just there. You're in the moment. And I think in a contemporary world, that's a rare privilege.
I don't believe there's anything cosmic or divine or morally superior about whales and dolphins or sharks or trees, but I do think that everything that lives is holy and somehow integrated; and on cloudy days I suspect that these extraordinary phenomena, and the hundreds of tiny, modest versions no one hears about, are an ocean, an earth, a Creator, something shaking us by the collar, demanding our attention, our fear, our vigilance, our respect, our help.
The night is full of stories. They float up like miasmas, as though the dead leave their dreams in the earth where you bury them, only to have them rise to meet you in sleep. Mostly the scenes are familiar, but sometimes everything is strange, the people unknown.
Hunting and gathering are in my blood. But I've lived long enough to witness a diminution in the seas, and to notice a fragility where once I saw - or assumed - an endless bounty.
Everyone knew there were wolves in the mountains, but they seldom came near the village-the modern wolves were the offspring of ancestors that had survived because they had learned that human meat had sharp edges.
It is not only the living who are killed in war.
No one has the right to be sorry for himself for a misfortune that strikes everyone.
Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal.
The temptation to believe that the Universe is the product of some sort of design, a manifestation of subtle aesthetic and mathematical judgment, is overwhelming. The belief that there is "something behind it all" is one that I personally share with, I suspect, a majority of physicists.
Arms and laws do not flourish together.
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