Between a sign and the thing it signifies there is the fixed, determined relationship of cause and effect. We see this in the case... of the footprint in the sand, the tear on the eyelash, or the trademark of a commercial product. But no matter how closely tied a symbol is to the thing symbolized, the relation is variable, flexible, and free. It is in poetry, however, that the symbolic value of words reaches its apex. The cross has become the symbol of Christianity not because of its form but because the Christians, following St. Paul, at a definite moment in their history, decided to adopt the instrument of Christ's torture as their emblem. Similarly, the relation between a word and its meaning depends on its origin, its history, and its usage.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is never finality in the display terminal's screen, but an irresponsible whimsicality, as words, sentences, and paragraphs a...re negated at the touch of a key. The significance of the past, as expressed in the manuscript by a deleted word or an inserted correction, is annulled in idle gusts of electronic massacre.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Look at this poet William Carlos Williams: he is primitive and native, and his roots are in raw forest and violent places; he is w...ord-sick and place-crazy. He admires strength, but for what? Violence! This is the cult of the frontier mind.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Now you know very well that there are no less than fifty-eight different pieces in a violin. These pieces are strangers to each ot...her, and it takes a century, more or less, to make them thoroughly acquainted. At last they learn to vibrate in harmony, and the instrument becomes an organic whole, as if it were a great seed-capsule which had grown from a garden-bed in Cremona, or elsewhere. Besides, the wood is juicy and full of sap for fifty years or so, but at the end of fifty or hundred years gets tolerably dry and comparatively resonant. Don't you see that all this is just as true of a poem? Counting each word as a piece, there are more pieces in an average copy of verses than in a violin. The poet has forced all these words together, and fastened them, and they don't understand it at first. But let the poem be repeated aloud and murmured over in the mind's muffled whisper often enough, and at length the parts become knit together in such absolute solidarity that you could not change a syllable without the whole world's crying out against you for meddling with the harmonious fabric. Observe, too, how the drying process takes place in the stuff of a poem just as in that of a violin.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, li...ke the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As artists they're rot, but as providers they're oil wells; they gush. Norris said she never wrote a story unless it was fun to do.... I understand Ferber whistles at her typewriter. And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The only chance for victory over the brainwash is the right of every man to have his ideas judged one at a time. You never get cla...rity as long as you have these packaged words, as long as a word is used by twenty-five people in twenty-five different ways. That seems to me to be the first fight, if there is going to be any intellect left.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, "Before the cock crows to...day, you will deny me three times."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The vines of her arms didn't cling to the ends of his clothes,... or did she plant herself in the doorway, hurl herself at his feet, or utter the word "Stay!" But as that fool began to go at the time when it was dark with swarming clouds, the slim girl blocked her lover's way with only a rising river made with her flood of tears.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When her husband clutches at her dress, she lowers her face,... her modesty aroused. When he wants a wild embrace, she shyly secrets away her limbs. She can't say a word and bestows her gaze on her beaming friends. A new wife suffers with shame the first time she makes love.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »