But how awful would that be? How terrible to live surrounded by the stark, sharp, hollowness of things that simply were enough?
Patrick RothfussRead
That is how heavy a secret can become. It can make blood flow easier than ink.
Interpretation
Secrets can weigh heavily on a person and affect their emotions more than words can express.
This quote emphasizes the profound impact that secrets can have on an individual. It suggests that the burden of keeping a secret can lead to deep emotional pain, potentially resonating more with the heart than the intellect, thereby illustrating how internal struggles can manifest differently than outward expressions through writing or speech.
In practice
You might use this quote during a discussion about honesty and the impact of keeping secrets.
But how awful would that be? How terrible to live surrounded by the stark, sharp, hollowness of things that simply were enough?
I wanted to tell her that she was the first beautiful thing I had seen in three years. That the sight of her yawning to the back of her hand was enough to drive the breath from me. How I sometimes lost the sense of her words in the sweet fluting of her voice. I wanted to say that if she were with me then somehow nothing could ever be wrong for me again.
Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating ... but there are other ways to understanding.
Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man's will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself.
How odd to watch a mortal kindle / Then to dwindle day by day / Knowing their bright souls are tinder / And the wind will have its way
All the truth in the world is held in stories.
I agree today that a man has no business trying to tell women what their characteristics are, which ones are inborn, which are more admirable, which will be best utilized by what occupations.
Jesus Christ does not save the worthy, but the unworthy. Your plea must not be righteousness but guilt
People in the countryside carry a sense of dignity. They wear it, don't they? Like a badge? I'm being genuine.
The savants will write excellent volumes. There will be laureates. But wars will continue just the same until the forces of the circumstances render them impossible.
Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
Where is the soul? . . . I refuse to believe anything of that kind without proof. The idea that, as soon as a man's breath leaves his body, the soul flops out like a chicken's head and flies off into space to find a lodgment where there [are] harps and haloes. Too much for me.
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