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.
Watch out for music. It should come with a health warning. It can be dangerous. It can make you feel so alive, so connected to the people around you, and connected to what you really are inside. And it can make you think that the world should, and could, be a much better place. And just occasionally, it can make you very, very happy.
I work with few colors, what creates the illusion of quantity is that they fell in the right place.
I think most people gain some sense of how to look at a painting, but no one ever teaches you how to look at a piece of silver.
The reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living.
The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts.
If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life. I mean people are going to say, You're crazy. Plus they're going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that's a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.
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