Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Elaine Castillo

Quote by Elaine Castillo

“[T]he idea that some of us can simply opt out of politics—the idea that politics is something one chooses as a vocation, rather than something we have whether we choose it or not; something that encompasses the inevitable material realities that shape every atom of our lives: where we live, how we work, our relationship to justice—is a fantasy of epic proportions. This kind of nonpolitical storytelling—and the stunted readership it demands—asks us to uphold the lie that certain bodies, certain characters, certain stories, remain depoliticized, neutral, and universal.”

Quote by Elaine Castillo

Work

How to Read Now

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Elaine Castillo

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Elaine Castillo. more

You May Also Like

“About the author: Sean Michael Norris believes that this book serves as a sort of autobiography. Despite the fact that this story is a fictional product of his imagination, he feels that it represents a true portrait of his experience — that it honestly depicts how a younger, more vulnerable version of himself saw the world. And if he’s right about that, then to read this book is to learn about its author at a deeper level than any list of biographical facts could ever enable you to reach.”

“I realize now that being an unexpected reader has turned out to be the most valuable gift of my intellectual life. The fact that I was an unexpected reader—an interloper, in so many worlds—meant that I was very rarely in any assumed complicity with a writer or the world she created. It meant that I was almost always lost, and always foreign, and always had to make my way through with the only tool I had: continuing to read.”