QuoteProject
Prose is not to be read aloud but to oneself alone at night, and it is not quick as poetry but rather a gathering web of insinuations ... Prose should be a long intimacy between strangers with no direct appeal to what both may have known. It should slowly appeal to feelings unexpressed, it should in the end draw tears out of the stone.
Henry Green
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Prose is a deeply personal experience meant to evoke unexpressed emotions over time.

This quote by Henry Green suggests that prose is meant for intimate, solitary reading rather than public performance. It emphasizes the gradual emotional impact that prose can have, allowing readers to connect with hidden feelings and eventually experience profound emotional responses, akin to drawing tears from something seemingly unyielding, like stone.

Themes

ProseEmotionIntimacyReadingExperience

In practice

Example use cases

During a book club discussion, one might say that 'Prose should be a long intimacy between strangers' to highlight the deep connection felt while reading.

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