Daily Inspiration Quote by A. B. Yehoshua

Beginnings aren’t hard because writers lack ideas; they’re hard because the beginning is where every possible book is still alive. Yehoshua, a novelist steeped in moral pressure and civic argument, is pointing at the moment when imagination stops being a cloud and becomes a commitment. The first pages don’t just “start the story.” They choose a lens, a tempo, a level of intimacy. They decide what kind of honesty the book can sustain.

Calling the beginning “complicated” also smuggles in a psychological truth: the opening is where the writer’s private confusion meets the reader’s public expectations. A novel’s first sentences carry a disproportionate burden of persuasion. They have to signal authority without sounding preening, invite curiosity without resorting to gimmick, promise meaning without explaining itself. Later, you can revise toward coherence; at the start, you’re drafting a contract you don’t yet know you can fulfill.

Yehoshua’s context matters. As a major Israeli writer, he worked in a culture where narrative is never merely aesthetic; it brushes up against history, politics, identity, and argument. In that atmosphere, the beginning becomes an ethical gate: what do you foreground, what do you omit, which voice gets to sound “normal”? The difficulty is not just craft but responsibility.

His line is quietly consoling, too. If the beginning feels like a wrestling match, that’s not proof you’re failing. It’s proof you’ve reached the part where art becomes irreversible.