By the end, you should be inside your character, actually operating from within somebody else, and knowing him pretty well, as that person knows himself or herself. You're sort of a predator, an invader of people.
William TrevorRead
The capacity you're thinking of is imagination; without it there can be no understanding, indeed no fiction.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Imagination is essential for comprehension and creativity.
In this quote, William Trevor emphasizes the significance of imagination as a fundamental element that allows individuals to understand and interpret the world around them. Without the ability to imagine, one cannot grasp complex ideas or engage in creative expression, which binds us to the realm of fiction and thought.
Themes
ImaginationUnderstandingCreativityFictionThought
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a literary festival discussing the role of imagination in storytelling.
More from William Trevor
All quotes βMy fiction may, now and again, illuminate aspects of the human condition, but I do not consciously set out to do so: I am a storyteller.
William TrevorRead
I read hungrily and delightedly, and have realized since that you canβt write unless you read.
William TrevorRead
People run away to be alone,' he said. Some people had to be alone.
William TrevorRead
Similar quotes
By your own folly you will be brought as low as your worst enemy wishes.
Gautama BuddhaRead
There's a certain kind of research you have to listen to - the factual stuff, not opinion. Facts are facts. Sugar is sweet - it's not a matter of opinion. It just is.
Paul RandRead
I used to be one of those students who needed to see something bigger, and God brought people into my life who gave me a bigger vision than the circumstances that surrounded me.
Tony EvansRead
You are who you are at this moment because of everything that's ever happened to you, everything that you carried forward for yourself.
Oprah WinfreyRead
Light came to me when I realized that I did not have to consider any racial group as a whole. God made them duck by duck and that was the only way I could see them.
Zora Neale HurstonRead
If the average person realized the power he wields over his life and destiny, he would live in a perpetual state of wonder and thanksgiving.
Earl NightingaleRead