But how awful would that be? How terrible to live surrounded by the stark, sharp, hollowness of things that simply were enough?
Patrick RothfussRead
Then I felt something inside me break and music began to pour out into the quiet. My fingers danced; intricate and quick they spun something gossamer and tremulous into the circle of light our fire had made. The music moved like a spiderweb stirred by a gentle breath, it changed like a leaf twisting as it falls to the ground, and it felt like three years Waterside in Tarbean, with a hollowness inside you and hands that ached from the bitter cold.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses the transformative power of music and creativity as a response to emotional pain.
In this quote, the author illustrates a moment of inspiration where deep feelings and emotional turmoil give rise to a powerful creative expression through music. The imagery used conveys the delicate yet profound nature of artistic creation, likening it to natural phenomena and personal experiences, emphasizing how art can emerge from the depths of one's struggles.
Themes
MusicCreativityArtInspirationEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
In an art class, to inspire students before a project, one might say this quote to emphasize the emotional connection to their creativity.
More from Patrick Rothfuss
All quotes →I wanted to tell her that she was the first beautiful thing I had seen in three years. That the sight of her yawning to the back of her hand was enough to drive the breath from me. How I sometimes lost the sense of her words in the sweet fluting of her voice. I wanted to say that if she were with me then somehow nothing could ever be wrong for me again.
Patrick RothfussRead
Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating ... but there are other ways to understanding.
Patrick RothfussRead
Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man's will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself.
Patrick RothfussRead
How odd to watch a mortal kindle / Then to dwindle day by day / Knowing their bright souls are tinder / And the wind will have its way
Patrick RothfussRead
All the truth in the world is held in stories.
Patrick RothfussRead
Similar quotes
Improvising musicians are musical travelers, voyagers. There is a freedom to wander the musical landscape.
Gary BurtonRead
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
Jeanette WintersonRead
Art supplies constantly to contemplation what nature seldom affords in concrete experience - the union of life and peace.
George SantayanaRead
I started making work that I assumed would be far too garish, far too decadent, far too black for the world to care about. I, to this day, am thankful to whatever force there is out there that allows me to get away with painting the stories of people like me.
Kehinde WileyRead
Oftentimes, especially in the context of an acoustic song, I'm motivated to write by some amount of melancholy.
Chris CornellRead
A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.
Ernest HemingwayRead