QuoteProject
A work of fiction should be, for its author, a journey into the unknown, and the prose should convey the difficulties of the journey.
Anthony Burgess
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

A work of fiction represents the author's exploration of new ideas and experiences, revealing the challenges faced during this creative process.

In this quote, Anthony Burgess emphasizes that creating a fictional work is akin to embarking on an exploration of uncharted territory. The narrative should reflect the struggles and complexities encountered by the author as they navigate through their imaginative journey, thereby enhancing the authenticity and depth of the story.

Themes

FictionJourneyAuthorCreativityChallenges

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a writer's workshop to inspire participants to embrace the unknown in their writing.

More from Anthony Burgess

Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.
Anthony BurgessRead
There is a satisfactory boniness about grammar which the flesh of sheer vocabulary requires before it can become a vertebrate and walk the earth.
Anthony BurgessRead
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening.
Anthony BurgessRead
Violence among young people is an aspect of their desire to create. They don't know how to use their energy creatively so they do the opposite and destroy.
Anthony BurgessRead
Only in England is the perversion of language regarded as a victory for democracy.
Anthony BurgessRead
You needn't take it any further, sir. You've proved to me that all this ultraviolence and killing is wrong, wrong, and terribly wrong. I've learned me lesson, sir. I've seen now what I've never seen before. I'm cured! Praise Bog! I'm cured!
Anthony BurgessRead

Similar quotes

I do not believe in adding enrichment merely for the sake of enrichment. Unless it adds clearness to the enunciation of the theme, it is undesirable, for it is very little understood.
Frank Lloyd WrightRead
Drumming completely eclipsed my life from age 13, when I started drum lessons. Everything disappeared. I'd done well in school up until that time. I was fairly adjusted socially up until that time. And I became completely monomania, obsessed all through my teens. Nothing else existed anymore.
Neil PeartRead
I'm big on having a blistering pace. That's one of the hallmarks of what I do, and that's not easy. I never blow up cars and things like that, so it's something else that keeps the suspense flowing. I try not to write a chapter that isn't going to turn on the movie projector in your head.
James PattersonRead
Shadow is a colour as light is, but less brilliant; light and shadow are only the relation of two tones.
Paul CezanneRead
You're never quite sure where the song is going, because you might not find the word to rhyme with the end of the line. You have to find associative meaning to get you there. So it's rather like doing a crossword puzzle backwards. A kind of strange, three-dimensional, abstract crossword puzzle.
Annie LennoxRead
I think, when I write, one of the things that I'm really attempting to do is I'm attempting to humanize my characters.
Jesmyn WardRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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