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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.
Patrick Rothfuss
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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.

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But how awful would that be? How terrible to live surrounded by the stark, sharp, hollowness of things that simply were enough?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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All the truth in the world is held in stories.
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