“In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.”

— Alexis De Tocqueville

Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville, p. 71 http://books.google.com/books?id=3gtoAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA71&dq=%22most+difficult+part+to+invent+is+the+end%22.
1850s and later

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end." by Alexis De Tocqueville?

Alexis De Tocqueville 135

French political thinker and historian 1805–1859

Related quotes

“The landing approach was, by far, the most difficult and challenging part of the flight.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

Interview at The New Space Race (August 2007) http://library.thinkquest.org/07aug/00861/armstrongiscool.htm
Context: The exciting part for me, as a pilot, was the landing on the moon. That was the time that we had achieved the national goal of putting Americans on the moon. The landing approach was, by far, the most difficult and challenging part of the flight. Walking on the lunar surface was very interesting, but it was something we looked on as reasonably safe and predictable. So the feeling of elation accompanied the landing rather than the walking.

“Writing a novel is not very difficult: you simply write ten pages a day for a month and then you have a novel.”

Henri Peyre (1901–1988) American linguist

Henri Peyre, at Yale, as quoted in Graham, Garrett, The Writer's Voice: Conversations with Contemporary Writers (1973), p. 272

“How to make a list? Collecting the data, that's the easy bit. Sorting it into categories is slightly more difficult. Shortening the list is the most difficult part. That a really difficult problem.”

Joe Armstrong (1950–2019) British computer scientist

The Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science

“For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to invent the reality.”

J. G. Ballard book Crash

"Introduction" to the French edition (1974) of Crash (1973); reprinted in Re/Search no. 8/9 (1984)
Crash (1973)
Context: We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind — mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to invent the reality.

“I love when a crucial novel leaves a trace in my memory. In this, its ending plays a significant part—creating a wake effect that is never erased.”

Maylis de Kerangal (1967) French writer

On the writings that she favors in “Maylis de Kerangal by Jessica Moore” https://bombmagazine.org/articles/maylis-de-kerangal/ in Bomb Magazine (2015 Dec 15)

“People think because a novel's invented, it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Because a novel's invented, it is true. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they can't include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that. The novelist himself lays it down. His decision is binding.”

Anthony Powell A Dance to the Music of Time

Hearing Secret Harmonies (1975), ch. 3.
A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975)

“Most people are much better at saying things in letters than in conversation, and some people can write artistic, inventive letters, but when they try a poem or story or novel they become pretentious.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

“In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Letters and Social Aims, Quotation and Originality
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“In looking back at this turn-of-the-century period, the rise of a worldwide network will be seen as the most significant part of the computer revolution.”

Jef Raskin (1943–2005) American computer scientist

Interview in The Guardian (21 October 2004)
Context: I am only a footnote, but proud of the footnote I have become. My subsequent work — on eliciting principles and developing the theory of interface design, so that many people will be able to do what I did — is probably also footnote-worthy. In looking back at this turn-of-the-century period, the rise of a worldwide network will be seen as the most significant part of the computer revolution.

“This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren't.”

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer

“In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Alexis De Tocqueville 135

Related quotes

Related topics