The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.
Interpretation
Write without the fear of judgment or expectation, focusing solely on expressing truth.
Margaret Atwood's quote emphasizes the idea that true writing comes from a place of authenticity, untainted by the desire for validation or acceptance from others. By conceiving the act of writing as a solitary endeavor, where the writer views their words as ephemeral and subject to erasure, it encourages a form of expression that leads to deeper self-discovery and honesty, free from external influences or self-censorship.
In practice
In a writing workshop, to encourage students to express their raw thoughts without fear of judgment.
If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.
I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even make a good ditch-digger, I'd start tearing apart the sewer-system, trying to pick-axe and unearth all those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave in the paper-mines for all time.
We love each other, that’s true whatever it means, but we aren’t good at it; for some it’s a talent, for others only an addiction.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.
In the great glasshouses streaming with condensation, the children in mourning-dress beheld marvels.
Lord Illingworth told me this morning that there was an orchid there as beautiful as the seven deadly sins.
I wasn't put on this earth to amass money or personal wealth. I was put on this earth to play guitar and write songs.
Acting became more than a profession to me. It became a sort of religion.
I think by shattering it we can create a new form, a new way to look at what is valuable — how we decide what is valuable.
I never step upon a stage without asking myself whether I will succeed in finishing the opera. The fact is that a conscientious singer is never sure of himself or of anything. He is ever in the hands of Destiny.
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