Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like.
Interpretation
This quote reflects a desire to avoid confronting one's thoughts and the chaos they may bring.
Emile Zola's quote suggests that sometimes it is better to avoid introspection and the potential turmoil that can arise from examining our thoughts. The act of blowing out the candle symbolizes a desire to remain in the dark rather than face the illuminated complexities and harsh realities of one's own mind.
In practice
During a meditation retreat, someone might use this quote to explain the struggle with their inner thoughts.
I believe that all is illusion and vanity outside the treasure of truths slowly accumulated, and which will never again be lost. I believe that the sum of these truths, always increasing, will at last confer on man incalculable power and peace, if not happiness. Yes, I believe in the final triumph of life.
A ruined man fell from her hands like a ripe fruit, to lie rotting on the ground.
Oh, the fools, like a lot of good little schoolboys, scared to death of anything they've been taught is wrong!
Did not one spend the first half of one's days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors?
They dared not peer down into their own natures, down into the feverish confusion that filled their minds with a kind of dense, acrid mist.
If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.
What ought a man be? Well, my short answer is 'himself'.
In this culture, the phrase 'black woman' is not synonymous with 'tender,' or 'gentle.' It's as if those words couldn't possibly speak to the reality of black females.
Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always be seen as untimely. This is because a real writer is always shifting and changing and searching. The world has many labels for him, of which the most treacherous is the label of Success.
When we oppose the hidden conscience, it does us hurt. When we betray it, it judges us.
We think we receive all that we perceive, but in fact, we actually give the sky its colour.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.