The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower.
Interpretation
The quote uses vivid imagery to compare the beauty of a sunset to a predatory flower, evoking both allure and danger.
Roberto Bolano's quote highlights the breathtaking yet potentially ominous beauty of a sunset. By likening the sky to a 'carnivorous flower', he captures the duality of nature's beauty; it can be mesmerizing and captivating, but also possess a raw and almost threatening aspect that demands respect.
In practice
This quote can be used in a creative writing workshop to inspire students about vivid imagery.
Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don't know what they are. Coincidence, if you'll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion.
I'd obviously never heard of the group, but my ignorance in literary matters is to blame for that (every book in the world is out there waiting to be read by me).
Every book in the world is out there waiting to be read by me.
Bright colours in the west, giant butterflies dancing as night crept like a cripple toward the east.
Being alone makes us stronger. Thatβs the honest truth. But itβs cold comfort, since even if I wanted company no one will come near me anymore.
Of all the islands he'd visited, two stood out. The island of the past, he said, where the only time was past time and the inhabitants were bored and more or less happy, but where the weight of illusion was so great that the island sank a little deeper into the river every day. And the island of the future, where the only time was the future, and the inhabitants were planners and strivers, such strivers, said Ulises, that they were likely to end up devouring one another.
but as God said, crossing his legs, I see where I have made plenty of poets but not so very much poetry.
I don't write because there's an audience. I write because there is literature.
If it can affect me, if it has meaning to me, if I feel I can do it well, I will do it and record it and thats why I recorded these songs.
Study, find all the good teachers and study with them, get involved in acting to act, not to be famous or for the money. Do plays. It's not worth it if you are just in it for the money. You have to love it.
In those days it was either live with music or die with noise, and we chose rather desperately to live.
What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That's what their substance is.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.