Does it ever stop? The wanting you?" "Even when I've just left ye. I want you so much my chest feels tight and my fingers ache with wanting to touch ye again.
Diana GabaldonRead
People ask me why I write strong women, and I say, 'Well, I don't like stupid ones.' Who would want to read about weak and whiny women? Are they people who assume women are weak and whiny? If so, why do they think that?
Interpretation
Diana Gabaldon emphasizes the importance of strong female characters in literature.
In this quote, Diana Gabaldon defends her choice to write strong women, questioning societal assumptions that portray women as weak or whiny. She argues that literature should reflect the strength and complexity of women's experiences, challenging stereotypes and encouraging readers to value strong female characters.
In practice
In discussions about character representation in films or books, this quote can highlight the need for strong female roles.
Does it ever stop? The wanting you?" "Even when I've just left ye. I want you so much my chest feels tight and my fingers ache with wanting to touch ye again.
But a man is not forgotten, as long as there are two people left under the sky. One, to tell the story; the other, to hear it.
You are at some point exposed to a wonderful story, and you really want to know what happens next, so you learn to read in order to find out.
There are things that I canna tell you, at least not yet. And I'll ask nothing of ye that ye canna give me. But what I would ask of ye---when you do tell me something, let it be the truth. And I'll promise ye the same. We have nothing now between us, save---respect, perhaps. And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies. Do ye agree?
Conflict and character are the heart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades.
Do you know,' he said again softly, addressing his hands, 'what it is to love someone, and never - never! - be able to give them peace, or joy, or happiness?' He looked up then, eyes filled with pain. 'To know that you cannot give them happiness, not through any fault of yours or theirs, but only because you were not born the right person for them?
the association of children and fairy-stories is an accident of our domestic history. Fairy-stories have in the modern lettered world been relegated to the “nursery,” as shabby or old-fashioned furniture is relegated to the play-room, primarily because the adults do not want it, and do not mind if it is misused.
The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They repeat, they re-arrange, they clarify the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, but with a singular change-that monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, nonce, struck out.
'Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?' 'I read it in a book,' said Alice. 'But I had some poetry repeated to me, much easier than that, by - Tweedledee, I think it was.' 'As to poetry, you know,' said Humpty Dumpty, stretching out one of his great hands, 'I can repeat poetry as well as other folk, if it comes to that - ' 'Oh, it needn't come to that!' Alice hastily said, hoping to keep him from beginning.
Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.
Every individual ought to know at least one poet from cover to cover: if not as a guide through the world, then as a yardstick for the language.
It perhaps might be said--if any one dared--that the most worthless literature of the world has been that which has been written by the men of one nation concerning the men of another.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.