Having the urge to write a novel, especially if you've yet to be published, is like having a medical condition impossible to mention in polite company - it's a relief simply to know there are fellow-sufferers out there.
Interpretation
Writing a novel can feel isolating and burdensome, yet knowing others share this struggle can be comforting.
In this quote, Robert Harris compares the desire to write a novel to a discreet medical condition, suggesting that the longing and challenges faced by aspiring authors are often taboo or difficult to discuss openly. The relief of knowing that others experience similar struggles fosters a sense of camaraderie among writers, making the journey feel less lonely and more validating.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a writer's workshop to encourage aspiring authors.
If one tries to think about history, it seems to me - it's like looking at a range of mountains. And the first time you see them, they look one way. But then time changes, the pattern of light shifts. Maybe you've moved slightly, your perspective has changed. The mountains are the same, but they look very different.
To tell a good story and to illuminate the world: the two things are completely linked. That is the point. That is what I've always wanted to do.
I don't want to think that the stories are finite; I want to feel that they can go on forever.
The highest art form of all is a human being in control of himself and his airplane in flight, urging the spirit of a machine to match his own.
When a documentary filmmaker, working in the style that I do, suggests that there has been a shooting ratio of 40 hours to every one hour of finished film, that doesn't mean that the other 39 are bad.
Imagine writing a poem with a sweating, worried-looking boy handing you a different pencil at the end of every word. My golf, you may say, is no poem; nevertheless, I keep wanting it to be one.
I don't want people at my shows to come out and say, 'I just saw a cool show.' I want them to say, 'I had fun at the show.' I want it to be a collaborative thing and be part of the audience and have them be part of me. I try to interact with everyone there and have them be equal to me because they are.
I find in all the artists that I admire most a disturbing element, a distortion, giving evidence of a struggle . . . . In great art, this conflict is hidden, it is unresolved. All that is bursting with energy is disturbing - not perfect.
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