Writing a short story is like having a short intense affair, whereas writing a novel is like a long rich marriage.
Interpretation
Writing short stories offers brief, intense experiences, while novels provide a deeper, longer engagement.
The quote metaphorically compares the experiences of writing short stories and novels to romantic relationships. A short story is quick and impactful, similar to a passionate affair that is exciting yet ephemeral. In contrast, writing a novel is a prolonged process that requires deep commitment and exploration, akin to the complexities and richness of a long-term marriage.
In practice
This quote could be used in a writing workshop to inspire participants to appreciate the form they choose.
Part of life is a quest to find that one essential person who will understand our story. But we choose wrongly so often. Over the ensuing years that person we thought understood us best ends up regarding us with pity, indifference, or active dislike. Those who truly care can be divided into two categories: those who understand us, and those who forgive our worst sins. Rarely do we find someone capable of both.
Dogs are minor angels, and I don't mean that facetiously. They love unconditionally , forgive immediately, are the truest of friends, willing to do anything that makes us happy
I have never heard anyone say This is it. I know right now is the high point of my life. It will never get any better. Only in retrospect do we recognize the best times and of course then it is too late.
When you love someone deeply, you know secrets they haven't told you yet. Or secrets they aren't even aware of themselves. ... She was also the person I wanted to share the trivia of my life with, because that too is part of the magic of concern: Whatever you live is important to them and they will help you through it.
It took me less than half a lifetime to realize that regret is one of the few guaranteed certainties. Sooner or later everything is touched by it, despite our naive and senseless hope that just this time we will be spared its cold hand on our heart.
Real love is always chaotic. You lose control; you lose perspective. You lose the ability to protect yourself. The greater the love, the greater the chaos. It’s a given and that’s the secret.
If someone asked, 'What are your films like?,' the best I can come up with is that they're, like, a fine balance between comedy and drama. And they deal mainly with the clumsiness of humanity.
Art -- the fresh feeling, new harmony, the transforming magic which by means of myth brings back the scattered distracted soul from its modern chaos -- art, not politics, is the remedy.
The great problem was the selection of the readymade. I needed to choose an object without it impressing me: that is to say, without it providing any sort of aesthetic delectation. Moreover, I needed to reduce my own personal taste to absolute zero.
One morning, one of us ran out of the black, it was the birth of Impressionism.
The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.
A lot of people insisted on a wall between modern dance and ballet. I'm beginning to think that walls are very unhealthy things.
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