The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it. Margaret Atwood
About This Quote

The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.

This quote is known as “The Halting Problem” and it has been a matter of controversy for centuries. The question is whether a machine could ever write a sentence without a mistake. It seems impossible, but some theorists claim that a computer can do it if it has enough memory and time to think about every word before it writes out the sentence.

If you were to write a sentence that someone else wanted to read, would they be able to tell if it was written by a computer?

Source: The Blind Assassin

Some Similar Quotes
  1. This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to... - David Levithan

  2. Some moments are nice, some arenicer, some are even worthwritingabout. - Charles Bukowski

  3. Living with him is like being told a perpetual story: his mind is the biggest, most imaginative I have ever met. I could live in its growing countries forever. - Sylvia Plath

  4. There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it. - Shannon L. Alder

  5. When you're missing a peice of yourself, aching, gut wrenching emptiness begins to take over. Until you find the link that completes your very soul, the feeling will never go away. Most people find a way to fill this void, material possessions, a string of... - Jennifer Salaiz

More Quotes By Margaret Atwood
  1. I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.

  2. Falling in love, we said; I fell for him. We were falling women. We believed in it, this downward motion: so lovely, like flying, and yet at the same time so dire, so extreme, so unlikely. God is love, they once said, but we reversed...

  3. How could I be sleeping with this particular man.... Surely only true love could justify my lack of taste.

  4. A truth should exist, it should not be usedlike this. If I love youis that a fact or a weapon?

  5. Hatred would have been easier. With hatred, I would have known what to do. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love.

Related Topics