Scarlett Thomas Quotes
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Homeopaths argue that water has a memory.
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Some writers, notably Anton Chekov, argue that all characters must be admirable, because once we've looked at anyone deeply enough and understood their motivation we must identify with them rather than judge them.
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You can't do science in a novel, but you can do philosophy. Or, if you're really lucky, you can manage to pose a question in such a way that other people will take it on.
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In real life nothing means anything. Stuff happens and there just is no structure.
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Real life is physical. Give me books instead. Give me the invisibility of the contents of books, the thoughts, the ideas, the images. Let me become part of a book. . . . an intertextual being: a book cyborg, or, considering that books aren't cybernetic, perhaps a bibliorg.
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I think predictability is built into any good novel in some way - you begin reading Anna Karenina and you know pretty much what's going to happen at the end. But that doesn't mean you know what's going to happen in the middle. For me, it's that sense of what happens in the middle that's important.
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One of the biggest problems for beginning writers is this need to over-explain.
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I hate stereotypes and I hate cliche.
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I pray for meaning. I pray for the limits of reality to become clear. For a world – and a type of being – that makes sense. I pray for a life after death that is not like this life. I pray for the end of mystery. What would a life be like with all the mysteries solved? If there were no questions, there’d be no stories. If there were no stories, there’d be no language. If there was no language there’d be no . . . What?
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Everything I know I imagine everyone else knows as well. And then everything that everyone else knows I imagine they know on top of what I know, so I'm constantly anxious about what everyone else knows.
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Routine kills creative thought.
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If something wants to be a story, it will be.