No machines will ever truly fully figure the brain out, because the brain's performance is constantly altered or else constrained by this inanimate, rogue artifact you can't control, namely, speech.
Tom WolfeRead
I used to enjoy using dots where they would be least expected, not at the end of a sentence but in the middle, creating the effect... of a skipped beat. It seemed to me the mind reacted - first!... in dots, dashes, and exclamation points, then rationalized, drew up a brief, with periods.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the uniqueness of artistic expression and how unexpected elements can provoke thought and emotion.
Tom Wolfe's quote explores the idea that unconventional punctuation, like dots in unexpected places, can alter the flow of thought and create emotional pauses in writing. It suggests that the mind processes these artistic choices in a dynamic way, moving from instinctive reactions to structured reasoning, showcasing how creativity can manipulate perception and understanding.
In practice
This quote can be used in a lecture about the importance of creativity in writing.
No machines will ever truly fully figure the brain out, because the brain's performance is constantly altered or else constrained by this inanimate, rogue artifact you can't control, namely, speech.
And - of course! - the Non-people. The whole freaking world was full of people who were bound to tell you they weren't qualified to do this or that but they were determined to go ahead and do just that thing anyway.
The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.
Driving a stock car does not require much handling ability, at least not as compared to Grand Prix racing, because the tracks are simple banked ovals and there is almost no shifting of gears. So, qualifying becomes a test of raw nerve - of how fast a man is willing to take a curve.
I have discovered that for me - now, maybe it doesn't work for everybody - for me, it is much more effective to arrive at any situation as a man from Mars than to try to fit in.
There has been a time on earth when poets had been young and dead and famous - and were men. But now the poet as the tragic child of grandeur and destiny had changed. The child of genius was a woman, now, and the man was gone.
When I perform, I simply follow the music, and my heart; everything comes from me in a very natural way - it's not a show; and I believe in this way, it also touches the hearts of those in the audience.
We figured the audience would want good stories, great art, wonderful characters, people you could fall in love with that we would immediately put through hell.
Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it's just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.
The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.
Writers write because they cannot allow the characters that inhabit them to suffocate them. These characters want to get out, to breathe fresh air and partake of the wine of friendship; were they to remain locked in, they would forcibly break down the walls. It is they who force the writer to tell their stories.
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