When I have one martini, I feel bigger, wiser, taller. When I have a second, I feel superlative. When I have more, there's no holding me.
William FaulknerRead
Every man has a different idea of what's beautiful, and it's best to take the gesture, the shadow of the branch, and let the mind create the tree.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Beauty is subjective, and imagination plays a key role in the perception of it.
This quote by William Faulkner emphasizes the idea that beauty is not a universal concept but rather a personal interpretation shaped by one's experiences and imagination. He suggests that rather than focusing on the literal representation of beauty, such as a tree, we should pay attention to the subtleties that inspire creativity in our minds, such as the shadow or gesture.
Themes
BeautySubjectivityImaginationCreativityPerception
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in an art class to inspire students to think about their own interpretations of beauty.
More from William Faulkner
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When grown people speak of the innocence of children, they dont really know what they mean. Pressed, they will go a step further and say, Well, ignorance then. The child is neither. There is no crime which a boy of eleven had not envisaged long ago. His only innocence is, he may not be old enough to desire the fruits of it...his ignorance is, he does not know how to commit it...
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Maybe times are never strange to women: it is just one continuous monotonous thing full of the repeated follies of their menfolks.
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He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that any more than for pride or fear....One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.
William FaulknerRead
Ever since then I have believed that God is not only a gentleman and a sport; he is a Kentuckian too.
William FaulknerRead
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