The Monsters We Deserve
Marcus Sedgwick
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Orwell's vision of our terrible future was that world-- the world in which books are banned or burned. Yet it is not the most terrifying world I can think of. I think instead of Huxley-- ...I think of his Brave New World. His vision was the more terrible, especially because now it appears to be rapidly coming true, whereas the world of 1984 did not. What's Huxley's horrific vision? It is a world where there is no need for books to be banned, because no one can be bothered to read one.”
“The binary colour of words on a page give the sense of simplicity and clarity. But life doesn’t work like that. And neither should a good story. A good story ought to leave a little grey behind, I think.”
“That is the power of the book. Immortality, for better, or for worse. It is majestic, in its way, this immortality. And power. Once a story is started, once a lie is told, it is very difficult to un-tell it . . .”
“If what we make comes back to haunt us , to define us and alter us, well, then, hadn't we better be very careful what we create?”
“...people burn books, and that they ban books is, in a way, a good sign. It's a good sign because it means books have power. When people burn books, it's because they're afraid of what's inside them...”
“Orwell's vision of our terrible future was that world - the world in which books are banned or burned. Yet it is not the most terrifying world I can think of. I think instead of Huxley [...] I think of his Brave New World. His vision was the more terrible, especially now because it appears to be rapidly coming true, whereas the world of 1984 did not. What is Huxley's horrific vision? It is a world where there is no need for books to be banned, because no one can be bothered to read one.”
“Yet every writer worth a good-god damn knows this too, for it is graven into each of us: no one cares for beauty. Not in fiction. Not on its own, not pure, untroubled beauty; not in fiction. [...] For here is the only real difference between the life of reality and the life of fiction. Fiction only works when the beauty is tainted by pain. For fiction is not about life; it's about the troubles of life.”
“Who holds the ultimate responsibility for the story? The writer or the reader, the reader or the writer . . .”
“Monsters lurk in every culture’s life blood – the history of the world is as much the history of its monsters as its angels, and who is the more fascinating: Elizabeth Bathory and her blood-bathing, or Mother Teresa and her poor? Vlad Ţepeş and his impalings, or Saint Francis and his birds? I wish I could give you better answers, I really do, but monsters throng about us; they always have.”
“Almost everyone has an inborn need to create; in most people this is thwarted and forgotten, and the drive is pushed into other activities that are less threatening, less difficult, and less rewarding. In some people, that need to create is transmuted into the need to destroy.”
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Book Keywords:
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