The experienced writer says to the anguished novice: 'Just do it; get something, anything, on to the screen or page, just establish a flow of words, and criticise them later.' You give this advice but can't always take it.
Hilary MantelRead
When narratives fracture, when words fail, I take consolation from the part of my life that always works: the stationery order. The mail-order stationery people supply every need from royal blue Quink to a dazzling variety of portable hard drives.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on finding comfort in small, reliable details during chaotic or uncertain times.
In this quote, Hilary Mantel expresses the idea that amidst the chaos and breakdown of communication, there are still tangible sources of reassurance and stability in life. The act of ordering stationery becomes a metaphor for seeking solace in the mundane and reliable aspects of existence, which provide a sense of order when everything else feels fractured. It illustrates how people find comfort in routine and the persistence of certain elements in life, even as other significant narratives collapse.
Themes
NarrativeComfortReliabilityStationeryChaos
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a discussion about coping mechanisms during stressful times.
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Why are we so attached to the severities of the past? Why are we so proud of having endured our fathers and our mothers, the fireless days and the meatless days, the cold winters and the sharp tongues? It's not as if we had a choice.
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He is careful to deny responsibility for September, but he does not, you notice, condemn the killings. He also refrains from killing words, sparing Roland and Buzot, as if they were beneath his notice. August 10 was illegal, he says; so too was the taking of the Bastille. What account can we take of that, in revolution? It is the nature of revolutions to break laws. We are not justices of the peace; we are legislators to a new world.
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It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.
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History offers us vicarious experience. It allows the youngest student to possess the ground equally with his elders; without a knowledge of history to give him a context for present events, he is at the mercy of every social misdiagnosis handed to him.
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