It isn't safe to sit in judgment upon another person's illusion when you are not on the inside. While you are thinking it is a dream, he may be knowing it is a planet.
Common sense to one person might be something different to another.
Coming up with a good idea, with an insight into the way the world works that is really new and that you really believe in, is a deeply satisfying experience.
By community I mean that community you have a special vision for, that only you see, that no one else in a room sees. That special community in pain, that through a pain you've suffered, you're able to have that vision, that super-ray vision.
There is no such thing as a weird human being, It's just that some people require more understanding than others.
If you're going to have more than one person read your book, they're going to have totally different opinions and responses. No person - no two people - read the same book.
People think they know the mystery of living in your skin. They don't. There's no one who knows except the person who carts it around her own self.
That's the magic of books. They're never quite the same for any two people. When you read one, you automatically make it your own.
There are paths and ruts in the spirit world as there are in the physical and mental world. One must take the tools of the spirit world and make one's own path rather than exactly follow the paths of those who once were . . . You must not seek their path and their understanding, but you must seek your own. The ruts of the spirit are trying to follow others and it cannot be done.
You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not of the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace you yourself." "Hang on, can I write this down?" said Arthur, excitedly fumbling in his pocket for a pencil.
I mean, if you've ever spoken to someone with two heads, you know they know something you don't.
The things that Picasso and I said to one another during those years will never be said again, and even if they were, no one would understand them anymore. It was like being roped together on a mountain.
A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books.
There can be many opinions on a thing, but there is only one truth." Vashet smiled lazily. "And if the pursuit of the truth was my goal, that would concern me." She gave a long yawn, stretching like a happy cat. "Instead I will focus on the joy in my heart, [...}
The stranger might laugh and seem to enjoy the writing, but you hug to yourself the thought that they didn't quite understand its force and quality the way you do - just as your friends (thank heavens) don't also fall in love with the person you are going on and on about to them.
Reading is one of the most individual things that happens. So every reader is going to read a piece in a slightly different way, sometimes a radically different way.
I do think you fall in love when you feel that something of your story is being listened to for the first time, or you feel someone else is hearing it as no one else has ever done.
No one knows you like a person with whom you've shared a childhood. No one will ever understand you in quite the same way.
Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way.
Each reader projects their own version of the experience inside their skull as they go along. It's probably true that no two people read exactly the same book.
It was their secret, a secret meant for just the two of them, and she'd never been able to imagine how it would sound coming from someone else. But, somehow, Logan made it sound just right.
He shook his head. “No. Because there's no one else out there who understands you like I do.” I waited for more. “That's it? You're not going to elaborate on what that means?” Those green eyes held me. “I don't think I need to.
We all have one idea of what the color blue is, but pressed to describe it specifically, there are so many ways: the ocean, lapis lazuli, the sky, someone's eyes. Our definitions are as different as we are ourselves.
It is my feeling that a story is not finished until it is read, and that the reader finishes it through his or her life experience, prejudices, worldview and thoughts.
I think maybe writers come from different planets. I mean, not in any sense as extravagant as Baryshnikov. But there are some writers who understand each other this way and others who understand each other that way. Then there's this great herd, the "herd of independent minds."
