Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
An ecstasy is a thing that will not go into words; it feels like music.
Interpretation
Ecstasy evokes emotions that are too profound for language and are best expressed through music.
In this quote, Mark Twain suggests that the experience of ecstasy transcends verbal expression; it is a profound feeling that cannot be adequately captured in words. Instead, such intense emotions resonate similarly to music, which has the power to convey what mere words often fail to express—allowing for a deeper connection to our feelings and experiences.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the power of art in healing.
Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
The easy part of being an artist is figuring out the message that everyone else is ready to hear. The hard part is waiting for the proper lull to make the announcement.
You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
A beautiful dress may look beautiful on a hanger, but that means nothing. It must be seen on the shoulders, with the movement of the arms, the legs, and the waist.
Players and painted stage took all my love, And not those things that they were emblems of.
I think the first little jolt I got was reading Gerard Manley Hopkins - I liked other poems... but Hopkins was kind of electric for me - he changed the rules with speech, and the whole intensity of the language was there and so on.
The constant fear of a performer is to become what is reflected back at you.
The thing a drama school can't give you is instinct. It can sharpen instinct but that can't be taught, and you have to have intuition. It's an essential ingredient.
And as a writer now, I want to save Linda's life. Not her body--her life.
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