In an essay, you have the outcome in your pocket before you set out on your journey, and very rarely do you make an intellectual or psychological discovery. But when you write fiction, you don't know where you are going - sometimes down to the last paragraph - and that is the pleasure of it.
Tags: know, sometimes, you, journey

Other Quotes by "Cynthia Ozick"

I wanted to use what I was, to be what I was born to be - not to have a 'career', but to be that straightforward obvious unmistakable animal, a writer.
Tags: i-was-born, career, born, animal
Profound subject matter can be encompassed in small space - for proof, look at any sonnet by Shakespeare!
Tags: small, space, matter, look
In books, as in life, there are no second chances. On second thought: it's the next work, still to be written, that offers the second chance.
Tags: chance, next, work, life
An article can be timely, topical, engaged in the issues and personalities of the moment; it is likely to be stale within the month. In five years, it may have acquired the quaint aura of a rotary phone. An article is usually Siamese-twinned to its date of birth.
Tags: may, birth, phone, moment
I don't agree with the sentiment 'write what you know.'... I think one should write what one doesn't know. The world is bigger and wider and more complex than our small subjective selves. One should prod, goad the imagination.
Tags: think, imagination, world, you
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