Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.
Some stories are true that never happened.
All that passes is raised to the dignity of expression; all that happens is raised to the dignity of meaning. Everything is either symbol or parable.
Sun-worship and pure forms of nature-worship were, in their day, noble religions, highly allegorical but full of profound truth and knowledge.
Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.
When you describe a character's dream, it has to be sharper than reality in some way and more meaningful. It has to somehow speak to plot, character, and all the rest.
Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere "survivals" - as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.
The thing that makes a great genre movie is one that's not just entertainment, not just horror or sci-fi or whatever. The ones I love are the genre pictures with some subversive message underlying it all.
At the end of the day, it's about the reader's attachment to and belief in the magical elements that make or break magical realism.
