The Art of Noticing

From How Fiction Works, by James Wood:

"Literature differs from life in that life is amorphously full of detail, and rarely directs us toward it, whereas literature teaches us to notice...

This tutoring is dialectical. Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better reader of details in literature; which in turn makes us better of readers of life. And so on and on."