By all means continue destroying my possessions. I daresay I have too many.
J. K. RowlingRead
Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.
Interpretation
Rowling reflects on her complex relationship with poetry compared to prose.
In this quote, J.K. Rowling expresses that while she occasionally finds emotional resonance in poetry, she doesn’t seek poetry for comfort or enjoyment as she does with prose. This highlights a distinction in her preferences, suggesting that prose provides her with a deeper sense of solace and engagement than poetry does.
In practice
In a literary discussion about the different impacts of poetry and prose.
By all means continue destroying my possessions. I daresay I have too many.
Where are you heading, if you’ve got the choice?” James lifted an invisible sword. “‘Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!’ Like my dad.” Snape made a small, disparaging noise. James turned on him. “Got a problem with that?” “No,” said Snape, though his slight sneer said otherwise. “If you’d rather be brawny than brainy —” “Where’re you hoping to go, seeing as you’re neither?” interjected Sirius.
Depression isn't just being a bit sad. It's feeling nothing. It's not wanting to be alive anymore.
I tell you, that dragon's the most horrible animal I've ever met, but the way Hagrid goes on about it, you'd think it was a fluffy little bunny rabbit.
Imagine losing fingernails, Harry! That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn't it?
The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.
Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience'. They're talking to a single person all the time.
I know my voice has a limited range of motion; I don't write dramatic monologues and pretend to be other people. But so far, my voice is broad enough to accommodate most of what I want to put into my poetry. I like my persona; I often wish I were him and not me.
Writing is a struggle against silence.
Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.
If you take a few days to write an outline, you're just making up scenes that you think will work, that you think will be interesting. But as you write it, other ideas occur - better ideas that have to do with what you're writing.
Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone.
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