“Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror."
I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves.
Mephi replied, "History suggests, not until they are made to.”
"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 168 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)
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David Mitchell 68
English novelist 1969Related quotes

Un roman est un miroir qui se promène sur une grande route. Tantôt il reflète à vos yeux l’azur des cieux, tantôt la fange des bourbiers de la route. Et l’homme qui porte le miroir dans sa hotte sera par vous accusé‚ d’être immoral ! Son miroir montre la fange, et vous accusez le miroir! Accusez bien plutôt le grand chemin où est le bourbier, et plus encore l’inspecteur des routes qui laisse l’eau croupir et le bourbier se former.
Vol. II, ch. XIX
Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black) (1830)
“That was what a best friend did: hold up a mirror and show you your heart.”
Source: Firefly Lane
“But what are our stories if not the mirrors we hold up to our fears?”
Source: I Know This Much Is True

Book II
Rebel of the Underground (2013)

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XXIX Precepts of the Painter

“Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.”
Mistakenly attributed to Vladimir Mayakovsky in The Political Psyche (1993) by Andrew Samuels, p. 9; mistakenly attributed to Brecht in Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter (1993) by Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard, p. 80; variant translation: "Art is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it."
First recorded in Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (1924; edited by William Keach (2005), Ch. 4: Futurism, p. 120): "Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes."
Disputed