If a writer doesn't do anything but give a new word to his language and, from there, maybe to other languages, I think that writer redefines the world.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
A writer is a tool of the language rather than the other way around.
Writing can't change the world overnight, but writing may have an enormous effect over time, over the long haul.
A writer should care about one thing - the language. To write well - that is his duty. That is his only duty.
There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.
The writer, the poet, the novelist, are all creators. This does not mean that they invent language; it means that they use language to create beauty, ideas, images. This is why we cannot do without them.
I think as the world changes, we have to keep up. We have to note what is happening, and I think writing has always had a powerful corrective influence and possibility. We have to write about what's good, and we also have to write about parts of our culture that are not good, that are not working out. I think it takes a new eye.
I think writing for a world one has invented can be infinitely more interesting than writing for the world we've all inherited.
The writer studies literature, not the world.
As for most writers, language is vital for me: a writer's ability to render a fictional world - characters, landscape, emotions - into something original that alters or deepens my understanding of both literature and life.
A writer is defined by the language in which he writes, and I would stick to that definition.