. . . money . . . is really the difference between men and animals, most of the things men feel, animals feel, and vice versa, but animals do not know about money.
Gertrude SteinRead
If the communication is perfect, the words have life, and that is all there is to good writing, putting down on the paper words which dance and weep and make love and fight and kiss and perform miracles.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Good writing brings words to life, allowing them to evoke emotions and images.
Gertrude Stein highlights the essence of effective writing as the ability to breathe life into words, enabling them to express a range of human emotions and experiences. This transformative power of language creates an engaging and dynamic connection with readers, illustrating how writing can transcend mere text to become a vivid representation of life itself.
Themes
CommunicationWritingEmotionsLifeWords
In practice
Example use cases
A university professor discussing the qualities of impactful literature.
More from Gertrude Stein
All quotes →The creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic.
Gertrude SteinRead
The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.
Gertrude SteinRead
I simply contend that the middle-class ideal which demands that people be affectionate, respectable, honest and content, that they avoid excitements and cultivate serenity is the ideal that appeals to me, it is in short the ideal of affectionate family life, of honorable business methods.
Gertrude SteinRead
It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes to that siren until she allures us to our death.
Gertrude SteinRead
Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.
Gertrude SteinRead
Similar quotes
I've never been one for keeping a journal, so my songs were my journals. They allowed me to express my feelings and let people know what was going on with me. I knew that somebody would relate.
Janet JacksonRead
Some writers enjoy writing, I am told. Not me. I enjoy having written.
George R. R. MartinRead
One good song with a message can bring a point more deeply to more people than a thousand rallies.
Phil OchsRead
You can't perish because of your own feelings; you have to embrace those things as an actor because it's part of your palette.
Martin LandauRead
Because I don't play guitar any more, African harmonies and rhythms have been an inspiration to me. I love the raw origin of the sound. It complements my voice and words naturally.
Cat StevensRead
Chanting just hits you and you want to be a part of it. That’s the point of this whole thing. That’s what cuts through all the ‘stuff’. You get lit up. You don’t have to know what it means.
Krishna DasRead