Fiction writing is just an excuse to go discover interesting things.
Interpretation
Fiction writing allows authors to explore and learn about the world creatively.
In this quote, Anthony Doerr suggests that the practice of writing fiction is more than just storytelling; it serves as a gateway for writers to seek out and uncover unique experiences, insights, and knowledge. Writing fiction provides an opportunity to delve into diverse subjects, imagination, and the human experience, thus enriching both the writer's and the reader's understanding of the world.
In practice
During a writing workshop, to inspire participants to embrace the creative process.
The easier an experience, or the more entrenched, or the more familiar, the fainter our sensation of it becomes. This is true of chocolate and marriages and hometowns and narrative structures. Complexities wane, miracles become unremarkable, and if we're not careful, pretty soon we're gazing out at our lives as if through a burlap sack.
Anyone who has spent a few nights in a tent during a storm can tell you: The world doesn't care all that much if you live or die.
I used to think...that I had to be careful with how much I lived. As if life was a pocketful of coins. You only got so much and you didn't want to spend it all in one place...But now I know that life is the one thing in the world that never runs out. I might run out of mine, and you might run out of yours, but the world will never run out of life. And we're all very lucky to be part of something like that.
Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience--buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello--become new all over again.
I don't believe in reincarnation. I feel like we're here for such an appallingly brief period of time. I believe we each get this one trip, and if we're really, really fortunate, maybe we get 70 or 80 years on Earth.
My sister-in-law is a painter, and I'll say, how long did it take you to paint that painting. She'll say, It took me maybe three days, but it took me all my life to get the skills to paint that painting.
Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all.
Robert Rauschenberg was not a giant of American art; he was the giant. No American created so many aesthetic openings for so many artists.
A person who's only suffering can't write a poem. There are choices to be made, and you need to be objective.
The only merit I have is to have painted directly from nature with the aim of conveying my impressions in front of the most fugitive effects.
I like so many different kinds of music that I've never allowed myself the limitations of one particular range.
In Jazz, improvisation isn't a matter of just making any ol' thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammer and vocabulary. There's no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.
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