Our literary culture is marinated in deep traditions of the fantastic and the supernatural, and we export those rich qualities in films and books on a spectacular industrial scale. Graham Joyce More Quotes by Graham Joyce More Quotes From Graham Joyce Why can’t our job here on earth be simply to inspire each other? Graham Joyce earth jobs inspire The bluebells made such a pool that the earth had become like water, and all the trees and bushes seemed to have grown out of the water. And the sky above seemed to have fallen down on to the earth floor; and I didn’t know if the sky was the earth or the earth was water. I had been turned upside down. I had to hold the rock with my fingernails to stop me falling into the sky of the earth or the water of the sky. But I couldn’t hold on. Graham Joyce rocks sky fall The trouble with forgiveness is that some people don't want to be forgiven. Graham Joyce trouble want people What I mean is this: you meet someone, you think about them. You're already changing because of the way you think about them. You meet them again, you think about them some more, you're changing again. And on it goes. You are changing right now. Before my eyes. Graham Joyce eye mean thinking The overintellectualization of surrealism can be a bromide. A dream interpreted is a deflated dream. Graham Joyce surrealism surreal dream If I couldn't get published tomorrow I'd still be writing. It's something to do with feeling so overwhelmed by this experience of life that you have to tell someone about it, and in a way that reorders the experience to make it manageable. Graham Joyce feelings writing way Perhaps writers should never be allowed to get together in a workplace context. It's not like studying computer science, after all. The emotions are at large, and are shared and are questioned. There is a vulnerability. Graham Joyce emotion study together But there are times in life when a door opens and you are offered a glimpse of the light on the water, and you know that if you don't take it, that door slams shut, and maybe forever. Maybe you fool yourself into thinking that you had a choice at all; maybe you were always going to say yes. Maybe refusing was no more a choice than is holding your breath. You were always going to breathe. You were always going to say yes. Graham Joyce light doors thinking Recasting fairy tales has become a publishing sub-genre in itself, and has been done both well and to the point of entropy. More interesting are those works where the structures of fairytales are abandoned but the world of 'fairy' is imported as a delicate spice. Graham Joyce spices fairytale interesting Twenty years is, after all, a long time. We are not the same people we were. Old friends, lovers, even family members: they are strangers who happen to wear a familiar face. We have no right to claim to know anyone after such a distance. Graham Joyce distance long years Every day the eye is subject to a thousand tiny shocks as a thousand industries compete for the eye-kick, the visual hook that will lock the consumer into product for that crucial second where the tiny - or not so tiny - leap of the imagination is made. Graham Joyce tiny eye imagination It is, of course, the first recourse of every elitist to see social barbarism in others. Graham Joyce barbarism social firsts I've been playing 'Doom' for some years. Graham Joyce doom years Rome is a place almost worn out by being looked at, a city collapsing under the weight of reference. Graham Joyce rome weight cities The poetry and transgression that was so much of surrealism's anarchic force has been recruited into mainstream culture. It has been made commonplace by television and magazine merchandising, by computer games and Internet visuals, by film and MTV, by the fashion shoot. Graham Joyce mtv fashion games Fantasy gets a mixed reception - a lot of fantasy is formulaic but most of the award-winning fantasy on the contrary tends to be the stuff at the edges of the genre, rather than swimming in the middle. Graham Joyce swimming awards winning I am less interested in ghosts than in people who see ghosts. Graham Joyce ghost people The thing is, when everyone is trying to persuade you that a thing you know to be true isn't actually true, you start to believe them: not because it is true but because it's easier. It's just the easy way out. Graham Joyce trying believe way The mist hung in the air like a prancing unicorn. Graham Joyce unicorn mist air The modern superstition is that we're free of superstition. Graham Joyce modern superstitions