A writer's job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories.
John IrvingRead
If watching television doesn't hasten death, it surely manages to make death very inviting; for television so shamelessly sentimentalizes and romanticizes death that it makes the living feel they have missed something - just by staying alive.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques how television portrays death in a glamorous way, making life seem less valuable.
John Irving's quote reflects on the way television often romanticizes death, suggesting that its portrayal can make life feel unfulfilling or mundane by comparison. This sentiment implies that the way media presents death can lead the living to perceive their existence as lacking, overshadowing the value of life itself.
Themes
TelevisionDeathLifeSentimentalizingRomanticizing
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the impact of media on mental health.
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I will tell you what is my overriding perception of the last twenty years: that we are a civilization careening toward a succession of anticlimaxes β toward an infinity of unsatisfying, and disagreeable endings.
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