In apartments and cottages, on the street and in the train... I listen... More and more, I turn into one large ear, always turning to another person.
Svetlana AlexievichRead
The subjects I wanted to write about - the mystery of the human soul, evil - didn't interest newspapers, and news reporting bored me.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a disconnect between deeper human experiences and superficial news reporting.
In this quote, Svetlana Alexievich expresses her frustration with traditional journalism, highlighting that the profound themes of the human soul and the nature of evil hold more importance for her than the mundane stories often covered by newspapers. This suggests a yearning for deeper understanding and exploration of what it means to be human, rather than merely reporting the everyday events that may lack significant emotional or philosophical weight.
Themes
Human SoulEvilJournalismPhilosophyReporting
In practice
Example use cases
In a literature class discussing the deep themes of writing, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of exploring profound human experiences.
More from Svetlana Alexievich
All quotes β'Women's' war has its own colors, its own smells, its own lighting, and its own range of feelings. There are no heroes and incredible feats; there are simply people who are busy doing inhumanly human things.
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There is no need to give in to the compromise that totalitarian regimes always count on.
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I've been searching for a genre that would be most adequate to my vision of the world to convey how my ear hears and my eyes see life. I tried this and that, and finally, I chose a genre where human voices speak for themselves. But I don't just record a dry history of events and facts; I'm writing a history of human feelings.
Svetlana AlexievichRead
From the point of view of art, the butcher and the victim are equal as people. You need to see the people.
Svetlana AlexievichRead
Nothing, not even human life, is more precious to us than our myths about ourselves.
Svetlana AlexievichRead
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Don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it'd lose even its imperfection.
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The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed.
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