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.
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time.
It would be beautiful to photograph the winners of everything from Nobel to booby prize, clutching trophy, or money or certificate, solemn or smiling or tear stained or bloody, on the precarious pinnacle of the human landscape.
For me, the 'Three Stoppages' was a first gesture liberating me from the past.
One thing is certain: the arts keep you alive. They stimulate, encourage, challenge, and, most of all, guarantee a future free from boredom. They allow growth and even demand it in that time of life we call maturity but too often enter it with a childish faith that what we learned in youth is sustenance enough for the years when most men are mentally famished but won't admit it—or when they are apt to curb their hunger with the sops of complacency, security, and the assurance of death.
The things we truly love, the things forming the basis and roots of our being, are generally things we never look at. A huge piece of carpeting, empty and naked plains, silent and uninterrupted stretches with nothing to alter the homogeneity of their continuity. I love wide, homogenous worlds, unstaked, unlimited like the sea, like high snows, deserts, and steppes.
Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It's a black wall. It's a thief.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.