Insomnia is an all-night travel agency with posters advertising faraway places.
Charles SimicRead
Making art in America is about saving one's soul.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the profound personal and spiritual significance of creating art in America.
Charles Simic's quote highlights the idea that the act of making art serves as a vital expression of one's inner self and identity, particularly within the American context. It suggests that, amidst societal challenges and pressures, engaging in art is a way to preserve and nurture one's soul, making it both a personal and cultural necessity.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of art in society, this quote can illustrate how artistic expression serves a deeper purpose.
Insomnia is an all-night travel agency with posters advertising faraway places.
I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!
The plain truth is we are going to die. Here I am, a teeny spec surrounded by boundless space and time, arguing with the whole of creation, shaking my fist, sputtering, growing even eloquent at times, and then-poof! I am gone. Swept off once and for all. I think that is very, very funny.
A poem is an invitation to a voyage. As in life, we travel to see fresh sights.
If I believe in anything, it is in the dark night of the soul. Awe is my religion, and mystery is its church.
We name one thing and then another. That’s how time enters poetry. Space, on the other hand, comes into being through the attention we pay to each word. The more intense our attention, the more space, and there’s a lot of space inside words.
The genuine music lover may accept the carnal husk of opera to get at the kernel of actual music within, but that is no sign that he approves the carnal husk or enjoys gnawing through it.
Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.
As a creative person, you just put something out into the consciousness of the society you live in.
I adore art...when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear.
The creative musician ... is ... the radio receiver, not the broadcasting station. His personal discipline is to improve the quality of the components, the transistors, the speakers, the alloys in the receiver itself, but never to concern himself overmuch with putting out the program. The program is there; all he has to do is receive it as far as possible.
For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.
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