No, it is not only our fate but our business to lose innocence, and once we have lost that, it is futile to attempt a picnic in Eden.
Elizabeth BowenRead
The writer, like a swimmer caught by an undertow, is borne in an unexpected direction. He is carried to a subject which has awaited him--a subject sometimes no part of his conscious plan. Reality, the reality of sensation, has accumulated where it was least sought. To write is to be captured--captured by some experience to which one may have given hardly a thought.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing can lead an author to unexpected subjects and experiences beyond their original intent.
This quote by Elizabeth Bowen illustrates the unpredictable nature of the writing process, suggesting that writers often find themselves exploring themes and topics that they did not consciously plan to address. It highlights how the essence of writing is driven by deeper, often unconscious experiences and insights that emerge as one engages with their craft, leading to surprising revelations and truths.
Themes
WritingCreativityArtUnexpectedExperience
In practice
Example use cases
In a writer's workshop, I might use this quote to encourage participants to embrace unforeseen topics in their writing.
More from Elizabeth Bowen
All quotes →The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. The friend becomes a traitor by breaking, however unwillingly or sadly, out of our own zone: a hard judgment is passed on him, for all the pleas of the heart.
Elizabeth BowenRead
Dialogue must appear realistic without being so. Actual realism-the lifting, as it were, of passages from a stenographer's take-down of a 'real life' conversation-would be disruptive. Of what? Of the illusion of the novel. In 'real life' everything is diluted; in the novel everything is condensed.
Elizabeth BowenRead
When I read a story, I relive the moment from which it sprang. A scene burned itself into me, a building magnetized me, a mood orseason of Nature's penetrated me, history suddenly appeared to me in some tiny act, or a face had begun to haunt me before I glanced at it.
Elizabeth BowenRead
Habit, of which passion must be wary, may all the same be the sweetest part of love.
Elizabeth BowenRead
One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it.
Elizabeth BowenRead
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