No machines will ever truly fully figure the brain out, because the brain's performance is constantly altered or else constrained by this inanimate, rogue artifact you can't control, namely, speech.
Miami is a melting pot in which none of the stones melt. They rattle around.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the diverse and complex nature of Miami's cultural identity.
Tom Wolfe's quote suggests that Miami is a diverse city with many different cultures coexisting, but instead of blending into a single entity, they remain distinct and maintain their individuality, creating a vibrant yet chaotic cultural landscape. The metaphor of stones rattling around implies that while various cultural elements are present, they do not assimilate or lose their uniqueness, highlighting the tension between unity and diversity in urban life.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about cultural diversity in cities, I would reference Wolfe's quote to illustrate Miami's unique cultural landscape.
More from Tom Wolfe
All quotes βAnd - of course! - the Non-people. The whole freaking world was full of people who were bound to tell you they weren't qualified to do this or that but they were determined to go ahead and do just that thing anyway.
The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.
Driving a stock car does not require much handling ability, at least not as compared to Grand Prix racing, because the tracks are simple banked ovals and there is almost no shifting of gears. So, qualifying becomes a test of raw nerve - of how fast a man is willing to take a curve.
I have discovered that for me - now, maybe it doesn't work for everybody - for me, it is much more effective to arrive at any situation as a man from Mars than to try to fit in.
There has been a time on earth when poets had been young and dead and famous - and were men. But now the poet as the tragic child of grandeur and destiny had changed. The child of genius was a woman, now, and the man was gone.
Similar quotes
Hollywood likes to put actors in boxes, and it likes to put Asian actors in really small boxes.
African-Americans are not a monolithic group. So, we tend to talk about the black community, the black culture, the African-American television viewing audience, but there are just as many facets of us as there are other cultures.
We know so much about the European food story, and we're getting to know about the American food story; but we know so little about the African food story.
When the culture is strong, you've got this consistency where black people can grow up in these places with this voice just resonating about our special-ness in the universe. And I always say you're in trouble if you get too far away from that core that grounds you.
Food should be cheap, and labor should be cheap, and everything should be the same no matter where you go; whether it's a McDonald's in Germany or one in California, it should be the same. And this message is destroying cultures around the world. Needless to say, agriculture goes with it.
There are a great many colored people who are ashamed of the cake-walk, but I think they ought to be proud of it.