You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions.
Isak DinesenRead
I was young, and by instinct of self-preservation I had to collect my energy on something, if I were not to be whirled away with the dusk on the farm-roads, or the smoke on the plain. I begun in the evenings to write stories, fairy-tales, and romances, that would take my mind a long way off, to other countries and times.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the power of creativity as a means of escape and preservation of self during challenging times.
Isak Dinesen, sharing her youthful experiences, reflects on how she used her instinct for self-preservation to channel her energy into writing. In her moments of solitude, she crafted stories and fairy tales that not only provided her with an escape from her surroundings but also allowed her to embark on imaginative journeys beyond the confines of her reality. Writing became a sanctuary that helped her navigate through uncertainty and find solace in creativity.
Themes
CreativityWritingEscapeSelf-PreservationImagination
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of creativity in education, this quote can inspire students to explore their imagination through writing.
More from Isak Dinesen
All quotes →I do not know if you remember the tale of the girl who saves the ship under mutiny by sitting on the powder barrel with her lighted torch... and all the time knowing that it is empty? This has seemed to me a charming image of the women of my time. There they were, keeping the world in order... by sitting on the mystery of life, and knowing themselves that there was no mystery.
Isak DinesenRead
The lime trees were in bloom. But in the early morning only a faint fragrance drifted through the garden, an airy message, an aromatic echo of the dreams during the short summer night.
Isak DinesenRead
A visitor is a friend, he brings news, good or bad, which is bread to the hungry minds in lonely places. A real friend who comes to the house is a heavenly messenger, who brings the panis angelorum.
Isak DinesenRead
The Cicada sing an endless song in the long grass, smells run along the earth and falling stars run over the sky, like tears over a cheek. You are the privileged person to whom everything is taken. The Kings of Tarshish shall bring gifts.
Isak DinesenRead
through the loveliness and power of her dream world she was now, in her old frock and botched shoes, very likely the loveliest, mightiest and most dangerous person on earth
Isak DinesenRead
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