The more research you do, the more at ease you are in the world you're writing about. It doesn't encumber you, it makes you free.
A. S. ByattRead
If a novelist tells you something she knows or thinks, and you believe her, that is not because either of you think she is God, but because she is doing her work - as a novelist.
Interpretation
A novelist's truth is rooted in their craft, not in divinity.
This quote highlights the idea that the connection and belief readers have with a novelist's work stem from the author's authentic representation of their knowledge and thoughts through storytelling. It emphasizes the role of the novelist as a professional creator rather than a divine figure, suggesting that the value of their work is in their dedication to craft and the truth they convey through it.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of literature, one might use this quote to emphasize the value of the author's perspective.
The more research you do, the more at ease you are in the world you're writing about. It doesn't encumber you, it makes you free.
It's because I'm a feminist that I can't stand women limiting other women's imaginations. It really makes me angry.
Why do we take pleasure in gruesome death, neatly packaged as a puzzle to which we may find a satisfactory solution through clues - or if we are not clever enough, have it revealed by the all-powerful tale-teller at the end of the book? It is something to do with being reduced to, and comforted by, playing by the rules.
Never stop paying attention to things. Never make your mind up finally. Do not hold beliefs.
Only write to me, write to me, I love to see the hop and skip and sudden starts of your ink.
I am a creature of my pen. My pen is the best of me.
All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.
As to the number of novels I've abandoned... I shudder to think. I have thrown away five completed novels, and that's a gruesome enough figure. But not necessarily a waste of effort.
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.
Art, whose honesty must work through artifice, cannot avoid cheating truth.
I do not think writers or anybody would sit down and think they must write about some cause, or theme, or something. If they write about their own experiences, something true is going to emerge.
Art is a spirit seeking flesh but finding words.
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