It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.
Ezra PoundRead
This is no book. Whoever touches this touches a man.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the deep connection between literature and the human experience.
Ezra Pound's quote reflects the idea that literature is not merely a collection of written words; it is a dynamic and profound expression of human thoughts, emotions, and experiences. By interacting with a book, one engages with the author's insights and, consequently, with the essence of humanity itself. The act of reading transcends the physical object of the book, highlighting a relationship between the reader and the writer as they share a moment of understanding and empathy.
Themes
LiteratureHuman ExperienceReadingBooksArt
In practice
Example use cases
During a book club meeting to discuss the interactions between characters in a novel.
More from Ezra Pound
All quotes βThe ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man Made courage, or made order, or made grace, Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down. Learn of the green world what can be thy place In scaled invention or true artistry, Pull down thy vanity, Paquin pull down! The green casque has outdone your elegance.
Ezra PoundRead
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever.
Ezra PoundRead
Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.
Ezra PoundRead
In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.
Ezra PoundRead
The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting.
Ezra PoundRead
Similar quotes
Directing is creating a whole. You're able to combine different elements and create a film that is unique and true to your vision.
Tim RobbinsRead
With vocal and choral music, first and foremost, it's the text. Not only do I need to serve the text, but the text - when I'm doing it right - acts as the perfect 'blueprint', and all the architecture is there. The poet has done the heavy lifting, so my job is to find the soul of the poem and then somehow translate that into music.
Eric WhitacreRead
There's no retirement for an artist,its your way of living so theres no end to it.
BonoRead
A young man is afraid of his demon and puts his hand over the demon's mouth sometimes and speaks for him. And the things the young man says are very rarely poetry.
D. H. LawrenceRead
I believe in poetry as a way of surviving the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions and traumatic events that come with being alive.
Gregory OrrRead
Fanfiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker. They don't do it for money. That's not what it's about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They're fans, but they're not silent, couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language.
Lev GrossmanRead