The gods are fugitive guests of literature.
Roberto CalassoRead
Myth is never a single story. It is always a tree with many branches.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Myth encompasses multiple narratives and interpretations, much like a tree with various branches.
This quote highlights the complexity and richness of myth, suggesting that it cannot be reduced to a singular narrative. Instead, myths are like trees with numerous branches, representing the different stories, perspectives, and meanings that people derive from them, reflecting the diversity of human experience and understanding.
Themes
MythStoriesNarrativeBranchesInterpretation
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about cultural myths, this quote can illustrate how different societies interpret their legends.
More from Roberto Calasso
All quotes βWe establish a connection with the unknown through the act of giving something and, paradoxically, the act of destroying something. That is what is behind sacrifice. What you offer and what you destroy, it is that surplus which is life itself.
Roberto CalassoRead
Whatever else it might be, the divine is certainly the thing that imposes with maximum intensity the sensation of being alive.
Roberto CalassoRead
Stories never live alone; They are the branches of a family that we have to trace back, and forward.
Roberto CalassoRead
The monster does not need the hero. it is the hero who needs him for his very existence. When the hero confronts the monster, he has yet neither power nor knowledge, the monster is his secret father who will invest him with a power and knowledge that can belong to one man only, and that only the monster can give.
Roberto CalassoRead
Similar quotes
Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read
The Gospel is open to all; the most respectable sinner has no more claim on it than the worst.
Martyn Lloyd-JonesRead
In everything that moves through the universe, I see my own body, and in everything that governs the universe, my own soul. All men are my brethren, and all things my companions.
Zhang ZaiRead
If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past or the future.
Blaise PascalRead
We live in a globalising world. That means that all of us, consciously or not, depend on each other. Whatever we do or refrain from doing affects the lives of people who live in places we'll never visit.
Zygmunt BaumanRead
To provide employment for the poor, and support for the indigent, is among the primary, and, at the same time, not least difficult cares of the public authority.
James MadisonRead