Every aspect of the novel is - or should be - an arrow pointed towards its ultimate meaning, … - C.E. Morgan

Same topic Authors

Quote of the day

Okay," Claire finally said. "I admit, he has significant ninja qualities. " "Booyah. I will summon the ninja. Oh, and take a lunch break while we burgle. " "You’re going too?" "Am I not ninja enough? Are you saying that I lack ninja?

C.E. Morgan

Every aspect of the novel is - or should be - an arrow pointed towards its ultimate meaning, or a multiplicity of possible meanings. But I also value the readers' autonomy, their right to both read and misread.

Arrows, Aspect, Read, Readers, Should, Towards

Same Author Quotes

I think of moral beauty as what is the good and the just - terms perhaps best defined by their opposite: evil. Evil is the willingness to do damage to the other; its maximal expression is murder, but it includes a great deal of subtle and not-so-subtle injuries as it advances to that extreme. Evil acts reduce the other to an object, a being to its component parts, and obliterate subjectivity. Evil's breeding ground is a lack of empathy.

Defined, Empathy, Expression, Obliterate, Opposites, Thinking

Ultimately, I want a peak experience in reading, and that is sometimes difficult to find in contemporary fiction. I'm not interested in books that are just clever and well executed; polish doesn't impress me, and I don't care about a merely capable sentence. Life is short; I want a confrontation with high art. I want soul.

Art, Book, Clever, Confrontation, Merely, Peak

Every single aspect of a text requires very careful choices and rigorous evaluation. Style is employed - or deployed - for a reason. It's purposeful. Form and aesthetics are part of meaning-making. Ideally, a writer would have mastery over a wide variety of rhetorical gestures and tonalities, our lexicon and punctuation system, our grammar, and all the riches of a liberal and literary education.

Choices, Ideally, Riches, Style, Wide, Writer

Humans struggle to remain attuned to one another - they want to turn away because of fear, or ambition, or boredom, or some lure of the ego. It's difficult. It requires radical vulnerability, radical risk.

Ambition, Attuned, Boredom, Humans, Struggle, Turn

I think the primary gift of the animal is offered to writer and non-writer alike; they teach us about love, or attunement, which is love in action. A lot of people have closer relationships with animals than they do with other humans, because real intimacy requires both parties to consistently lean in, and animals are so good at this. They remain consistently, amazingly attuned to us, even when we fail them, and so we stay present, because we sense we're safe.

Animal, Attuned, Party, Real, Relationships