However much, as readers, we lose ourselves in a novel or story, fiction itself is an experience on the order of memory -not on the order of actual occurrence.
Samuel R. DelanyRead
Discourse says, 'You are.' Rhetoric preserves the freedom to say, 'I am not.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote explores the tension between external perceptions and personal identity.
Samuel R. Delany reflects on the distinction between how others define us and our own assertion of self. 'Discourse' refers to the societal or communal narratives that impose identities upon individuals, while 'rhetoric' emphasizes the personal agency and freedom to reject those labels, illustrating the complexity of self-identification in a social context.
Themes
IdentitySelfFreedomDiscourseRhetoric
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about personal identity, I might say, 'As Delany suggests, we have the power to define ourselves against societal discourse.'
More from Samuel R. Delany
All quotes βThe only important elements in any society are the artistic and the criminal, because they alone, by questioning the societyβs values, can force it to change.
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How we treat our invalids - our mad, our physically or mentally compromised family members - does tell you something about who we are politically, historically, culturally.
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It is a magic book. Words mean things. When you put them together they speak. Yes, sometimes they flatten out and nothing they say is real, and that is one kind of magic. But sometimes a vision will rip up from them and shriek and clank wings clear as the sweat smudge on the paper under your thumb. And that is another kind.
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The poems ... are moments when I had the intensity to see, and the energy to build, some careful analog that completed the seeing. ... All I have been left is the exhausting habit of trying to tack up the slack in my life with words.
Samuel R. DelanyRead
I spend a lot of time thinking, if not daydreaming. People think of me as a genre writer, and a genre writer is supposed to be prolific. Since that's how people perceive me, they have to say I'm prolific. But I don't find that either complimentary or accurate.
Samuel R. DelanyRead
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