QuoteProject
It is a magic book. Words mean things. When you put them together they speak. Yes, sometimes they flatten out and nothing they say is real, and that is one kind of magic. But sometimes a vision will rip up from them and shriek and clank wings clear as the sweat smudge on the paper under your thumb. And that is another kind.
Samuel R. Delany
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote emphasizes the power of words and their ability to convey both reality and imagination.

Samuel R. Delany's quote reflects on the dual nature of language, highlighting how words can create meaningful expressions or fall flat. He suggests that while some combinations of words may lack authenticity, others can evoke vivid imagery and profound emotions, showcasing the transformative power of literature and storytelling.

Themes

WordsLanguageImaginationExpressionArt

In practice

Example use cases

In a literary analysis essay, one might cite this quote to discuss the importance of language in storytelling.

More from Samuel R. Delany

However much, as readers, we lose ourselves in a novel or story, fiction itself is an experience on the order of memory -not on the order of actual occurrence.
Samuel R. DelanyRead
The only important elements in any society are the artistic and the criminal, because they alone, by questioning the society’s values, can force it to change.
Samuel R. DelanyRead
How we treat our invalids - our mad, our physically or mentally compromised family members - does tell you something about who we are politically, historically, culturally.
Samuel R. DelanyRead
The poems ... are moments when I had the intensity to see, and the energy to build, some careful analog that completed the seeing. ... All I have been left is the exhausting habit of trying to tack up the slack in my life with words.
Samuel R. DelanyRead
I spend a lot of time thinking, if not daydreaming. People think of me as a genre writer, and a genre writer is supposed to be prolific. Since that's how people perceive me, they have to say I'm prolific. But I don't find that either complimentary or accurate.
Samuel R. DelanyRead
All too often, when creative people pick out someone else's creative work as an inspiration, what they end up with is very, very far from the original.
Samuel R. DelanyRead

Similar quotes

Creating a poem is a continual process of re-creating your ignorance, in the sense of not knowing what's coming next.
Derek WalcottRead
Every device there is in language is there to be used, if you will. Poets have got to enjoy themselves sometimes, and the twistings and convolutions of words, the inventions and contrivances, are all part of the joy that is part of the painful, voluntary work.
Dylan ThomasRead
Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.
Ludwig Van BeethovenRead
Something in me knows where I’m going, and - well, painting is a state of being. ... Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.
Jackson PollockRead
Music is emotional, and you may catch a musician in a very unemotional mood or you may not be in the same frame of mind as the musician. So a critic will often say a musician is slipping.
Nat King ColeRead
Right now a moment of time is fleeting by! Capture its reality in paint! To do that we must put all else out of our minds. We must become that moment, make ourselves a sensitive recording plate...Give the image of what we actually see, forgetting everything that has been seen before our time.
Paul CezanneRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.