God how I hate new countries: They are older than the old, more sophisticated, much more conceited, only young in a certain puerile vanity more like senility than anything.
D. H. LawrenceRead
I am a man and alive. For this reason I am a novelist. And, being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, te scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog....Only in the novel are all things given full play.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the unique ability of the novel to encompass the entirety of human experience.
D. H. Lawrence claims that being a novelist allows one to capture the complete essence of life, unlike other professions that may only address specific aspects of existence. He believes that novels offer a holistic view of what it means to be human, incorporating all emotions, experiences, and truths into a singular narrative form.
Themes
NovelistHuman ExperienceLifeArtLiterature
In practice
Example use cases
In a book club discussion about the role of literature, this quote could demonstrate the novel's unique power.
More from D. H. Lawrence
All quotes βA young man is afraid of his demon and puts his hand over the demon's mouth sometimes and speaks for him. And the things the young man says are very rarely poetry.
D. H. LawrenceRead
And besides, look at elder flowers and bluebells-they are a sign that pure creation takes place - even the butterfly. But humanity never gets beyond the caterpillar stage -it rots in the chrysalis, it never will have wings.It is anti-creation, like monkeys and baboons.
D. H. LawrenceRead
The Christian fear of the pagan outlook has damaged the whole consciousness of man.
D. H. LawrenceRead
The cosmos is a vast living body, of which we are still parts. The sun is a great heart whose tremors run through our smallest veins. The moon is a great nerve center from which we quiver forever. Who knows the power that Saturn has over us, or Venus? But it is a vital power, rippling exquisitely through us all the time.
D. H. LawrenceRead
... he preferred his own madness, to the regular sanity. He rejoiced in his own madness, he was free. He did not want that old sanity of the world, which was become so repulsive. He rejoiced in the new-found world of his madness. It was so fresh and delicate and so satisfying.
D. H. LawrenceRead
Similar quotes
That powers my desire to write: the sense of how quickly everything on the surface of life can be cut away and you can suddenly be inside the most inner part of the most inner life of a person. What does it feel like there, and what are the regrets and sensations and longings, and what is the music of it?
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I never have searched for a subject. They always just come along. They never come by way of decision-making. They just haunt me. I can't get rid of them. I did not invite them.
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If politicians can't do it, I want to do it. We have to do it. Artists, put it in paintings. Poets, put it in poems, novels. That's what we have to do. And I think it's so important to save the world.
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I always feel that art in general and acting in particular should make the audience a little uncomfortable, to slap them and wake them up.
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Companies that pretend to care about music and really care about other things - whether it be hardware, whether it be advertising - and now they look at music as a loss leader. And we know music isn't a loss leader; music is an important part of our lives.
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Nothing bad can happen to a writer. Everything is material.
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