The notion of sitting down and conjuring up, not only words in which to clothe thoughts but thoughts worthy of being clothed--the whole thing was absurdly beyond his desires.
Interpretation
Fitzgerald reflects on the struggle of expressing profound thoughts through language.
In this quote, F. Scott Fitzgerald discusses the challenging act of articulating deep thoughts in a way that does them justice. He suggests that the task of not only finding suitable words but also generating worthy ideas to express is overwhelming and may exceed one's aspirations or desires. This speaks to the universal struggle of writers and artists trying to capture the essence of their thoughts and emotions artfully.
In practice
A writer might share this quote during a workshop to emphasize the challenges of articulating thoughts.
Don't be so anxious about it,' she laughed. 'I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do; I never got the trick of it.' She looked down at him, shy and fatigued. 'So here we are. I told you years ago that I had the makings of Cinderella.' He took her hand; she drew it back instinctively and then replaced it in his. 'Beg your pardon. Not even used to being touched. But I'm not afraid of you, if you stay quiet and don't move suddenly.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
It was about then [1920] that I wrote a line which certain people will not let me forget: "She was a faded but still lovely woman of twenty-seven."
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
But you can love more than just one person, can't you?
A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.
Any work of architecture that has with it some discussion, some polemic, I think is good. It shows that people are interested, people are involved.
You should go from place to place recovering the poems that have been written for you to which you can affix your signature. Don't discuss these matters with anyone. Retrieve. Retrieve. When the basket is full someone will appear to whom you can present it.
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.
The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.
Somebody said they threw their copy of Dungeons and Dragons into the fire, and it screamed. It's a game! The magic spells in it are as real as the gold. Try retiring on that stuff.
I love this quote uttered by the character Widget in The Night Circus. He credits it to Herr Thiessen but knows it is a literary quote by the another author. "Wine is bottled poetry
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