Artists are not cheerleaders, and we're not the heads of tourism boards. We expose and discuss what is problematic, what is contradictory, what is hurtful and what is silenced in the culture we're in.
Junot DiazRead
What we [writers] do might be done in solitude and with great desperation, but it tends to produce exactly the opposite. It tends to produce community and in many people hope and joy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writers often work alone in struggle, yet their work fosters community and brings hope to others.
Junot Diaz highlights the paradox of writing, where the solitary act of creation, often filled with desperation and isolation, ultimately leads to the formation of a community. Through their words, writers connect with others, instilling hope and joy in the hearts of many, demonstrating the powerful impact of literature on society.
Themes
WritingSolitudeCommunityHopeJoy
In practice
Example use cases
In a creative writing workshop, this quote could inspire participants to share their struggles.
More from Junot Diaz
All quotes →Run a hand through your hair, like the white boys do, even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.
Junot DiazRead
I can see myself watching him shave every morning. And at other time I see us in that house and see how one bright day (or a day like this, so cold your mind shifts every time the wind does) he will wake up and decide it's all wrong. I'm sorry, he'll say. I have to leave now.
Junot DiazRead
Migration gives a blank cheque to put anything you don't feel like addressing in the memory hold. No neighbours can go against the monster narrative of your family.
Junot DiazRead
We all dream dreams of unity, of purity; we all dream that there's an authoritative voice out there that will explain things, including ourselves.
Junot DiazRead
I think 90% of my ideas evaporate because I have a terrible memory and because I seem to be committed to not scribble anything down. As soon as I write it down, my mind rejects it.
Junot DiazRead
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I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us.
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When I write, I don't know what is going to emerge. I begin in a condition of complete unknowing, an utter nakedness of concept or goal. A word appears, another word appears, an image. It is a moving into mystery.
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All the same it is being said everywhere that I played too softly, or rather, too delicately for people used to the piano-pounding of the artists here.
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I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time.
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