The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn,—not the material of my every-day existence--but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on how the world and dreams shape one's perception of reality.
Edgar Allan Poe expresses the idea that while the external world has an influence on him, it is merely perceived as visions. In contrast, the imaginative ideas from his dreams fundamentally constitute his reality, emphasizing the power of dreams and creativity over mundane material existence.
In practice
A writer could use this quote to emphasize the power of imagination in storytelling.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation.
And if we can accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
To become who we are as creatures made in the image and likeness of God, we have to be nothing and everything at once, since this is what God is. ... If we accept who we are, we are manifesting God and radiating Christ. The latter unfolding of the divine life within us does not need to go anywhere _x000D_ or do anything special.
It is quite possible--overwhelmingly probable, one might guess--that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology
He is one of those who has had the wilderness for a pillow, and called a star his brother. Alone. But loneliness can be a communion.
What was Aristotle’s life?’ Well, the answer lay in a single sentence: ‘He was born, he thought, he died.’ And all the rest is pure anecdote.
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