It's only a story, you say. So it is, and the rest of life with it - creation story, love story, horror, crime, the strange story of you and I. The alphabet of my DNA shapes certain words, but the story is not told. I have to tell it myself. What is it that I have to tell myself again and again? That there is always a new beginning, a different end. I can change the story. I am the story. Begin.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of self-creation and the ability to redefine one’s own narrative.
Jeanette Winterson's quote reflects the idea that life is fundamentally a narrative that we have the power to shape and alter. It suggests that while our experiences may be viewed as part of a larger story, it is up to each individual to own and articulate their own story, recognizing that every moment offers an opportunity for a new beginning and a change in direction. This perspective encourages personal growth and the belief that we are not merely products of our circumstances, but active participants in our own life stories.
In practice
During a motivational speech about embracing new opportunities.
What is remembered is not a deed in stone but a metaphor. Meta = above. Pheren = to carry. That which is carried above the literalness of life. A way of thinking that avoids the problems of gravity. The word won't let me down. The single word that can release me from all that unuttered weight.
Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.
I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.' Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest. Feel for yourself.
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
A life without problems or limitations or challenges--life without "opposition in all things," as Lehi phrased it (2 Nephi 2:11)--would paradoxically but in very fact be less rewarding and less ennobling than one which confronts--even frequently confronts--difficulty and disappointment and sorrow.
I do genuinely believe that young people who play sport at a competitive level, sensibly controlled, sensibly organised, that has to be a good thing. It will teach them to win, it will teach them to lose with dignity and magnanimity - all the things you want. It's a pretty good metaphor for life.
I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.
At some point in life, the world's beauty becomes enough.
I didn't appreciate how special and sometimes strange my CIA world was - until it suddenly and spectacularly ended in a newspaper column.
They accepted the pleasures of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten.
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