"My job (as a novelist) is to put myself in other people's shoes - or even under their skin. My driving force is curiosity. This leads me to the prime role of literature in particular and art in general. Their greatest merit is not suggesting social reform or making political critique. The backyards of philosophy and theology are littered with skeletons of novelists and poet who wanted to compete with philosophers and theologians or even prophets. Very few of them succeeded- but that is besides the point. Bad literature can include very important and even positive moral messages- and it would still be bad literature. The defining feature of good literature and art in my view is its ability to open a third eye in our forehead! To make us see shabby old things in a new way. Great literature has entered the shoes and skin of others…strangers….sometimes obnoxious human beings- the don Quixotes, the Iagos, the raskolnikovs of this world. Bad literature will not open a third eye …it will simply repeat what we already know and show us what we have already seen many times.
--Amos Oz
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