Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.
W. H. AudenRead
The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Engaging deeply with a story allows for a richer experience and understanding.
W. H. Auden's quote emphasizes that to truly appreciate a fairy tale, one must immerse themselves emotionally and mentally into the narrative. This act of 'throwing yourself in' suggests that the reader's participation and imagination are crucial in bringing the story to life, creating a more profound connection with the themes and characters present in the tale.
Themes
ReadingImaginationStorytellingFairy TalesEngagement
In practice
Example use cases
In a book club, one might share this quote to encourage deeper discussions about the stories they read.
More from W. H. Auden
All quotes βThat the speech of self-disclosure should be translatable seems to me very odd, but I am convinced that it is. The conclusion that I draw is that the only quality which all human being without exception possess is uniqueness: any characteristic, on the other hand, which one individual can be recognized as having in common with another, like red hair or the English language, implies the existence of other individual qualities which this classification excludes.
W. H. AudenRead
Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do; it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless women get it, and men when they retire; it as if there had to be some outlet for their foiled creative fire.
W. H. AudenRead
History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.
W. H. AudenRead
Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
W. H. AudenRead
'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'
W. H. AudenRead
Similar quotes
Literature got me into this mess and literature is going to have to get me out of it.
Philip RothRead
All told, she owned fourteen books, but she saw her story as being made up predominantly of ten of them. Of those ten, six were stolen, one showed up at the kitchen table, two were made for her by a hidden Jew, and one was delivered by a soft, yellow-dressed afternoon.
Markus ZusakRead
If one believes that words are acts, as I do, then one must hold writers responsible for what their words do.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
I noticed in America that if you write a book of any kind, you're made to be the representative of all the issues that might surround it.
Zadie SmithRead
In a memoir, your main contract with the reader is to tell the truth, no matter how bizarre.
Edmund WhiteRead
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.
Robert Louis StevensonRead