In the marginalia ... we talk only to ourselves; we therefore talk freshly - boldly - originally - with abandonment - without conceit.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that personal notes and thoughts allow for unfiltered and original self-expression.
Edgar Allan Poe's quote highlights the value of writing in the margins of books or recording personal thoughts, which liberates one's creativity and authenticity. In those private moments, the writer speaks directly to themselves, resulting in bold, original ideas free from the constraints of external judgment or conceit. This emphasizes the importance of introspection and personal creativity in artistic expression.
In practice
An artist might use this quote to inspire a workshop on creative writing techniques.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
Until I saw Chardin's painting, I never realized how much beauty lay around me in my parents' house, in the half-cleared table, in the corner of a tablecloth left awry, in the knife beside the empty oyster shell.
Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.
The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.
Why not do something strange and different for once? Artists can do whatever they want!
The score is not a bible, and I am never afraid to dare. The music is behind those dots.
When you stand on the stage you must have a sense that you are addressing the whole world, and that what you say is so important the whole world must listen.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.