It’s a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.
Gillian FlynnRead
Writing has certainly helped me explore about 20,000 versions of my authentic self. I suppose that's what most writers discover if they write long enough: there are a lot of selves roaming around in there.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing allows individuals to discover different aspects of their true selves.
In her quote, Gillian Flynn emphasizes the transformative power of writing in uncovering various identities and facets of the self. She suggests that through the act of writing over time, authors often unveil multiple layers of their authentic selves, leading to deeper self-understanding and exploration.
Themes
WritingAuthenticitySelf-DiscoveryIdentityExploration
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, I shared the quote to encourage participants to explore their inner selves.
More from Gillian Flynn
All quotes →Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women all my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, they have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny plastic hip. Women get consumed.
Gillian FlynnRead
I was not a lovable child, and I'd grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it'd be a scribble with fangs.
Gillian FlynnRead
One of my biggest peeves is when the writer hasn't given you enough information to figure everything out. You should be able to go back to the beginning of 'Gone Girl,' after you've already read it and you know everything, and say, 'Check - check - yes, she gave us that information.'
Gillian FlynnRead
I often don't say things out loud, even when I should. I contain and compartmentalize to a disturbing degree: In my belly-basement are hundreds of bottles of rage, despair, fear, but you'd never guess from looking at me.
Gillian FlynnRead
Because I'm a woman writing about women who do bad things, that's somehow very 'other.' When men write that, it's called a novel. It's just a book.
Gillian FlynnRead
Similar quotes
But the cinephile is … a neurotic! (That’s not a pejorative term.) The Bronte sisters were neurotic, and it’s because they were neurotic that they read all those books and became writers. The famous French advertising slogan that says, “When you love life, you go to the movies,” it’s false! It’s exactly the opposite: when you don’t love life, or when life doesn’t give you satisfaction, you go to the movies.
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As for the usefulness of poetry, its uses are many. It is the deification of reality.
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Through a portrait, we can potentially see everything — the history and depth of a person's life, as well as evidence of a primal universal presence. I have dedicated my life and creative energy to capturing these transcendent moments in which a connection is made between the subject, the photographer, and the viewer.
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Street art, of course, is political, because it's illegal, so the very act of doing it is an act of defiance.
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If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.
Emily DickinsonRead