You want to tell a story? Grow a heart. Grow two. Now, with the second heart, smash the first one into bits.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of empathy and emotional depth in storytelling.
In this quote, Charles Yu suggests that to tell a compelling story, one must not only develop emotional connections (symbolized by growing a heart) but also be ready to confront and deconstruct one's own emotions (smashing the first heart). This duality highlights the intricate and often painful process of storytelling, where personal experiences and emotional truths must be explored and expressed, often through a lens of vulnerability.
In practice
In a writing workshop, this quote can inspire participants to inject more emotion into their characters.
I had forgotten: this is what it feels like to live in time. The lurching forward, the sensation of falling of a cliff into darkness, and then landing abruptly, surprised, confused, and then starting the whole process again in the next moment, doing that over and over again, falling into each instant of time and then climbing back up only to repeat the process.
I am transcribing a book that I have, in a sense, not yet written, and in another sense, have always written, and in another sense, am currently writing, and in another sense, am always writing, and in another sense, will never write.
All of her heart, a meaningless phrase, but correct and precise, too. She used her heart to love him, not her head, and not her words and not her thoughts or ideas or feelings or any other vehicle or object or device people use to deliver love or love-like things.
Enjoy the elastic present, which can accommodate as little or as much as you want to put in there. Stretch it out, live inside of it.
Maybe we spend most of our decades being someone else, avoiding ourselves, maybe a man is only himself, his true self, for a few days in his entire life.
I consider writing practice a true Zen practice because it all comes back at you. You can't fool anyone because it's on the page.
And the marvellous rose became crimson, like the rose of the eastern sky. Crimson was the girdle of petals, and crimson as a ruby was the heart
I feel that buildings often have a workaday aspect that you see during the daylight hours, and a more resplendent side that emerges after dark.
The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute.
I want to see the thirst inside the syllables I want to touch the fire in the sound: I want to feel the darkness of the cry. I want words as rough as virgin rocks.β - Verb.
Art is the child of nature in whom we trace the features of the mothers face.
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