To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed.
Joan DidionRead
I never had much interest in being a child. As a way of being it seemed flat, failed to engage.
Interpretation
This quote reflects a lack of enthusiasm for childhood and its perceived limitations.
Joan Didion expresses a sentiment that childhood, as she experienced it, felt uninteresting and unsatisfying. She suggests that the typical experiences of being a child were not engaging or fulfilling for her, indicating a preference for deeper, more meaningful experiences that often come with adulthood.
In practice
In a discussion about the responsibilities and joys of adulthood, this quote could illustrate the contrast with childhood.
To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed.
The truth is, it's easier for me to write than talk... to express the state I'm in at any time.
Memories are what you no longer want to remember.
It was clear, for example, in 1988 that the political process had already become perilously remote from the electorate it was meant to represent.
I mean maybe I was holding all the aces, but what was the game?
Do not whine... Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone.
I can see where creation often stops while the body still lives and often does not care to. the death of life before life dies.
What can be seen on earth points to neither the total absence nor the obvious presence of divinity, but to the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this mark.
The time will come when public opinion will no longer tolerate amusements based on the mistreatment and killing of animals. The time will come, but when? When will we reach the point that hunting, the pleasure in killing animals for sport, will be regarded as a mental aberration?
The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension.
Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things To low ambition and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just to look about us, and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan.
People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware.
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