Chuck Palahniuk

Do you remember when you were 10 or 11 years old and you really thought your folks were the best? They were completely omniscient and you took their word for everything. And then you got older and you went through this hideous age when suddenly they were the devil, they were bullies, and they didn't know anything.

American Novelist

Paul Auster

When you pick up a book, everyone knows it's imaginary. You don't have to pretend it's not a book. We don't have to pretend that people don't write books. That omniscient third-person narration isn't the only way to do it. Once you're writing in the first person, then the narrator is a writer.

American Author

Margo Jefferson

Even criticism is more interesting when the writer's authority does not only come through this omniscient narrator, but through questions, ambivalence, vulnerability. A mind questioning and on the move, not just settling down and declaring - that's one of the most interesting possibilities.

American Critic

Edward Snowden

Perhaps I am naive, but I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents.

American Activist

Penn Jillette

If I had to imagine omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent power in the universe that chose to make my mother suffer, I don't know how I would make that make sense in the universe.

American Entertainer

Patanjali

Knowledge born of the finest discrimination takes us to the farthest shore. It is intuitive, omniscient, and beyond all divisions of time and space.

Ernest Mandel

And you cannot have a socialist revolution commandeered from the top, ordered around by some omniscient leader or group of leaders.

Belgian Author

Tryon Edwards

Mystery is but another name for ignorance; if we were omniscient, all would be perfectly plain!

American Theologian

Paul Sparks

If I was able to be omniscient and look at my career objectively, I'd be very happy.

American Actor

Little Richard

God is omnipotent, He is omniscient, and He is ever present.

American Musician

Used to present an all-knowing viewpoint in stories, allowing insights into characters' minds.

Literary Device

'Omniscient' can describe a narrator who provides more information than any one character could know.

Narrative Voice

Authors use an omniscient viewpoint to build a complex, multi-layered narrative.

Author's Tool

Associated with divine beings who have unlimited knowledge, often in religious texts.

Religious Context

Provokes debate about free will and destiny when discussing an omniscient being's knowledge.

Philosophical Discussions

Different cultures have varying concepts of an omniscient being's role and abilities.

Cultural Interpretation

 photographs, movies, even lectures like this one -- we're very accustomed to this idea of the narrator or the camera position, some kind of omniscient, external body through whose eyes you see the story. We're very used to this. But if you think about real life, it's not like that at all. I mean, in real life, things are much more nuanced and complex,

Jonathan Harris: The web...

 So what are some techniques you can use to achieve this in your own writing? Limit the point of view. Instead of an omniscient narrator who can see and relay everything that happens, tell the story from the perspective of the characters. They may start off knowing just as little as the audience does,

How to make your writing...

 But that can be good for stories where a feeling of distance is important. A third person narrator can be either limited, meaning they stick close to one character’s thoughts and feelings, or they can be omniscient, able to flit between characters’ minds and give the reader more information.

First person vs. Second...

 but also not so far above us that we can't identify with the person. In some sense, there has to be something like us. So as I say, in religious art, you know, God is not glamorous. God cannot be glamorous because God is omnipotent, omniscient -- too far above us.

Virginia Postrel: The...

 and those are defined with respect to some absolute, abstract notions of rights and justice, and so forth, which are independent of what else has happened in the society. Of who else there is, of the history and so forth. There is also an omniscient observer

Lee Smolin: How science...

 And the novel’s omniscient third-person narration allows Hurston to unleash her poetic prose on everything from birdsong, architecture, and fashion, to her characters’ deepest feelings and motivations. Perhaps more than any specific details,

Can love and independence...

 fields either work in one domain or the other but but this world seems to really get insights from both those kinds of approaches i think like you know the overarching lesson here is that um you know we are not omniscient

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein...

 Ishmael becomes more of an omniscient guide for the reader than a traditional character. While Ahab obsesses over revenge and first mate Starbuck tries to reason with him, Ishmael takes us on his own quest for meaning

Why should you read...

 stop that to stop pretending to be omniscient beings politicians also need to learn occasionally to say that certain things that voters want certain things that voters have been

Why democracy matters -...

 Lord Shiva— primordial destroyer of evil, slayer of demons, protector, and omniscient observer of the universe— was testing his wife’s patience.

Omniscient

Literary Device

Narrative Voice

Author's Tool

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