QuoteProject
I write as if to save somebody’s life. Probably my own. Life is a kind of madness that death makes. Long live the dead because we live in them.
Clarice Lispector
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes the therapeutic power of writing and the enduring connection between life and death.

Clarice Lispector reflects on the profound impact that writing can have, suggesting that through her work, she attempts to preserve life and perhaps save her own spirit. The notion of life being intertwined with madness, and the living carrying the essence of the deceased, highlights the complex relationship between existence, creativity, and mortality.

Themes

WritingLifeDeathMadnessCreativity

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the importance of creative expression, one might quote Lispector to underscore writing's power.

More from Clarice Lispector

So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I shall go on writing.
Clarice LispectorRead
A horse is freedom so indominable that it becomes useless to imprison it to serve man: it lets itself be domesticated, but with a simple, rebellious toss of the head-shaking its mane like an abundance of free-flowing hair-it shows that its inner nature is always wild, translucent and free.
Clarice LispectorRead
The mystery of human destiny is that we are fated, but that we have the freedom to fulfill or not fulfill our fate: realization of our fated destiny depends on us. While inhuman beings like the cockroach realize the entire cycle without going astray because they make no choices.
Clarice LispectorRead
Love is now, is always. All that is missing is the coup de grâce- which is called passion.
Clarice LispectorRead
I work only with lost and founds.
Clarice LispectorRead
Ela acreditava em anjo e, porque acreditava, eles existiam" | "She believed in angels, and, because she believed, they existed
Clarice LispectorRead

Similar quotes

The trap into which all writers have, will, or should fall into, of writing The Great American Watchamacallit, is such an uncluttered and inviting one that from time to time I'm sure even the greatest have to pull themselves up short by the Shift key to remind themselves that it is story first that they should write.
Harlan EllisonRead
I think that when we look at something that's well acted and a story that's well told, it allows us to be a mirror of who we are as human beings and as a culture, and offers a glimpse of where we're headed.
Gabriel ByrneRead
Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.
Georgia O'KeeffeRead
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
Khalil GibranRead
When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature.
Robert HenriRead
I find it relatively easy to keep my clothes on because I don't really feel like taking them off. It's not an urge I have. For me, 'risky' is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is. That's putting myself out there, maybe even more than taking my shirt off.
Taylor SwiftRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.