All music is is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments.
Walt WhitmanRead
Comerado, this is no book,Who touches this, touches a man,(Is it night? Are we here alone?)It is I you hold, and who holds you,I spring from the pages into your arms-decease calls me forth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses a deep connection between the reader and the author, emphasizing the intimacy of literature.
In this quote, Walt Whitman conveys the idea that engaging with a book is not merely a solitary activity, but rather a profound interaction between the reader and the author. The phrase 'who touches this, touches a man' suggests that literature is an extension of human experience, capturing the essence of life, emotions, and the shared human condition. Whitman's words invite readers to embrace the personal connection that literature fosters, as if the author is reaching out to them directly, creating a bridge between different lives and experiences.
Themes
LiteratureConnectionBooksHuman ExperienceIntimacy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a book club discussion to express the emotional impact of literature.
More from Walt Whitman
All quotes →Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruit in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between people, and their beliefs - in religion, literature, colleges and schools- democracy in all public and private life.
Walt WhitmanRead
In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word.
Walt WhitmanRead
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
Walt WhitmanRead
Now, dearest comrade, lift me to your face,_x000D_ _x000D_ We must separate awhileHere! take from my lips this kiss._x000D_ _x000D_ Whoever you are, I give it especially to you;_x000D_ _x000D_ So long!And I hope we shall meet again.
Walt WhitmanRead
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.
Walt WhitmanRead
Similar quotes
Dialogue is the place that books are most alive and forge the most direct connection with readers. It is also where we as writers discover our characters and allow them to become real.
Laini TaylorRead
Quite, quite,' she thought with a little sigh. 'It's always like this in their adventures. To save and be saved. I wish somebody would write a story sometime about the people who warm up the heroes afterward.
Tove JanssonRead
There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.
Alexis De TocquevilleRead
I can think of no other writer who so thoroughly embodies the Jamesian spirit as Alison Lurie. Like him she can excavate all the possibilities of a theme. Like his, her books seem long, unbroken threads, seamless progressions of effects.
Edmund WhiteRead
Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.
Stephen KingRead
A novel is not a summary of its plot but a collection of instances, of luminous specific details that take us in the direction of the unsaid and unseen.
Charles BaxterRead