To me, part of the beauty of a comma is that it offers a rest, like one in music: a break that gives the whole piece of music greater shape, deeper harmony. It allows us to catch our breath.
Interpretation
The beauty of a comma lies in its ability to create pauses that enhance the overall structure and harmony of writing, much like music.
In this quote, Pico Iyer likens a comma to a musical rest, suggesting that it serves to create necessary pauses in writing. These pauses not only give readers a moment to reflect but also contribute to the overall flow and depth of the text, much like how rests in music shape the melody and allow for a richer auditory experience.
In practice
A writer might use this quote during a workshop on punctuation to emphasize the importance of rhythm in writing.
Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting-whether a job or a habit-means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your dreams.
I think one reason, obviously, that I spend so much time in one place is that I've been lucky enough to travel a lot, and now there are other different, invisible trains that are more interesting to me.
I've never meditated in my life. I don't practice yoga nor any religion. I'm a tourist on the realm of stillness.
We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate.
I'm no Buddhist monk, and I can't say I'm in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I've written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn't want or need, not all I did.
The one thing perhaps that technology hasn't always given us is a sense of how to make the wisest use of technology.
Everyone is interesting. Everyone has something unexpected to offer and the job of acting is to pull it out of each other.
For me, I really feel like if there's not a real, true connection to the material, I don't need to sing it. I don't need to sing songs just because I like them anymore. I've done that.
I think what people are attracted to about me, if anything, is my passion. People got exposed to my passion through music and song first.
Madness is the absolute break with the work of art; it forms the constitutive moment of abolition, which dissolves in time the truth of the work of art.
It is music that welds spiritual and sensual, that can convey ecstasy free of guilt, faith without dogma, love as homage, and a person at home with nature and the infinite.
I search for different tonalities in my taps. But my greatest pleasure is hearing a note I haven't heard before, hearing a chord that sparks something new.
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