And I was afraid. She frightens me because she can knock me down with a word. Because she does not know that writing is walking on a dizzying silence setting one word after the other on emptiness. Writing is miraculous and terrifying like the flight of a bird who has no wings but flings itself out and only gets wings by flying.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the profound impact of writing and the fear that comes with the vulnerability of creative expression.
Helene Cixous articulates the fear and awe associated with writing, describing it as both an act of courage and an act of vulnerability. Writing is portrayed as a miraculous endeavor that involves navigating through silence and emptiness, akin to a bird that must leap into the void without wings, gaining them only through the act of flying. This metaphor highlights the transformative power of words and the inherent risks of expressing oneself creatively.
In practice
During a writing workshop, I shared this quote to encourage participants to embrace their fears.
By writing her self, woman will return to the body which has been more than confiscated from her, which has been turned into the uncanny stranger on display - the ailing or dead figure, which so often turns out to be the nasty companion, the cause and location of inhibitions. Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time. _x000D_ Write your self. Your body must be heard. Only then will the immense resources of the unconscious spring forth.
Writing is the delicate, difficult, and dangerous means of succeeding in avowing the unavowable.
You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing.
Only when you are lost can love find itself in you without losing its way.
We must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing.
If my desire is possible, it means the system is already letting something else through.
The original writer is not he who refrains from imitating others, but he who can be imitated by none.
It is a peculiar part of the good photographer's adventure to know where luck is most likely to lie in the stream, to hook it, and to bring it in without unfair play and without too much subduing it.
Whatever one wishes to say, there is one noun only by which to express it, one verb only to give it life, one adjective only which will describe it. One must search until one has discovered them, this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never rest content with approximations, never resort to trickery, however happy, or to vulgarism, in order to dodge the difficulty.
What we're doing with Band of Brothers is trying to put it into human terms, so it is not just a flickering, black and white myth on a screen, it is a resonant story. I want the audience to recognize themselves in these men. They're not just mythic heroes.
I like ruins because what remains is not the total design, but the clarity of thought, the naked structure, the spirit of the thing.
In architecture it isn't enough to just have the right building that works well. It can also be beautiful. It can also be different. It can create surprise. And surprise is the main thing in a work of art. [] I like and respect Brasília very much. It is a simple city, a rational one. I always defend the urban design of Brasília
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