As a writer of fiction, I spend my days inventing real lives for make-believe people; what I create can only seem real.
I write because I'm in love with language; because I like working for myself, inside my head; and because it's the only way I know to make a stab at answering the never-ending questions of the heart that arise simply from the everyday living of our lives.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing is a passionate engagement with language that helps explore and answer life's profound questions.
In this quote, Julia Glass expresses her deep love for language and writing as a means to navigate the complexities of human emotion and experience. She suggests that writing is not only a personal endeavor that allows her to work independently and introspectively, but also a way to confront the endless inquiries and feelings that life presents us with daily. This highlights the transformative power of writing as both an art form and a tool for understanding oneself and the heart's desires.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a creative writing workshop, I shared this quote to inspire participants to embrace their love for language.
More from Julia Glass
All quotes βSimilar quotes
If you're going to play human beings, and you're going to play them three-dimensionally, you have to show every side of them.
The first time I started choreographing was in the dark, in my living room, with the lights completely out, to some popular music on the radio. I put the radio on full blast and I started moving. I didn't know what it looked like. I didn't want to see it... I had to start in the dark.
Beauty ...is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.
While writing 'Half of a Yellow Sun,' I enjoyed playing with minor things: inventing a train station in a town that has none, placing towns closer to each other than they are, changing the chronology of conquered cities. Yet I did not play with the central events of that time.
[Lee Morgan] was the only young cat that scared me when he played. He had so much fire and natural feeling. I had more technique, but he had that feeling. People seemed to like him more than they like me at the beginning.
I will turn human anatomy into roses and stars and sea. I will dissect the beloveds body in metaphor.