Southerners love a good tale. They are born reciters, great memory retainers, diary keepers, letter exchangers . . . great talkers.
Eudora WeltyRead
Each day the storm clouds were opening like great purple flowers and pouring out their dark thunder. Each nightfall, the storm was laid down on their houses like a burden the day had carried.
Interpretation
This quote poetically illustrates the cyclical nature of storms and their impact on life, likening storms to flowers and burdens.
Eudora Welty's quote uses vivid imagery to convey the duality of storms, suggesting that they can be both beautiful and burdensome. The comparison of storm clouds to purple flowers speaks to the beauty that can be found in temporary chaos, while the notion that the storm lays down like a burden at nightfall reflects the emotional weight of experiences we carry daily.
In practice
A motivational speaker might use this quote to emphasize resilience in the face of adversity.
Southerners love a good tale. They are born reciters, great memory retainers, diary keepers, letter exchangers . . . great talkers.
Writing a story or a novel is one way of discovering sequence in experience, of stumbling upon cause and effect in the happenings of a writer's own life.
A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.
For the source of the short story is usually lyrical. And all writers speak from, and speak to, emotions eternally the same in all of us: love, pity, terror do not show favorites or leave any of us out.
The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order the continuous thread of revelation.
The first act of insight is throw away the labels. In fiction, while we do not necessarily write about ourselves, we write out of ourselves, using ourselves; what we learn from, what we are sensitive to, what we feel strongly about--these become our characters and go to make our plots. Characters in fiction are conceived from within, and they have, accordingly, their own interior life; they are individuals every time.
Geese appear high over us, / pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, / as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear / in the ancient faith: what we need / is here. And we pray, not / for new earth or heaven, but to be / quiet in heart, and in eye, / clear. What we need is here.
My mother early on taught us to respect all animals, and I mean all animals - not just cats and dogs but rats and snakes and spiders and fish and wildlife, so I really grew up believing they are just like us and just as deserving of consideration.
Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse. No more can it be dismissed as science fiction; we are already feeling the effects.
Not blind opposition to progress,but opposition to blind progress.
I thought of the wilderness we had left behind us, open to sea and sky, joyous in its plenitude and simplicity, perfect yet vulnerable, unaware of what is coming, defended by nothing, guarded by no one.
Life is about daring to carry out your ideas. And for me, it always comes back to the wilderness, nature, mountains.
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