To him the stars seemed like so many musical notes affixed to the sky, just waiting for somebody to unfasten them. Someday the sky would be emptied, but by then the earth would be a constellation of musical scores
Interpretation
The quote portrays the stars as potential musical notes, suggesting a deep connection between the universe and creativity.
Machado De Assis uses the metaphor of stars as musical notes to convey the idea that the universe is full of untapped creativity waiting to be expressed. He suggests that while the sky may eventually be emptied of stars, the earth will remain vibrant with the music of life created from those inspirations, highlighting the relationship between the cosmos and artistic expression.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the importance of artistic expression.
Let Pascal say that man is a thinking reed. He is wrong; man is a thinking erratum. Each period in life is a new edition that corrects the preceding one and that in turn will be corrected by the next, until publication of the definitive edition, which the publisher donates to the worms.
In ordinary life, the action of a third party does not free the contractor from an obligation; but the advantage of making a contract with heaven is that intentions are valid currency.
There is nothing in the world so monstrously vast as our indifference.
Por que bonita, se coxa? Por que coxa, se bonita?
With almost no exceptions, art by men is much more expensive than art by women. Even great women artists, like Louise Bourgeois and Lee Krasner, are only fully embraced very late in their career.
When everything is added up, the frequent blows weighted against the sporadic triumphs, this is I have to say not just a vocation, it's a great gift. But you also know this, for your work, for your passion, every day is a rededication. Painters, dancers, actors, writers, filmmakers. It's the same for all of you, all of us. Every step is a first step. Every brush stroke is a test. Every scene is a lesson. Every shot is a school. So, let the learning continue.
When I make a film I'm always in reality among the trees, and among the people like yourselves. There's no symbolic or conventional filter between me and reality as there is in literature. The cinema is an explosion of my love for reality.
But art is not simply works of art; it is the spirit that knows Beauty, that has music in its soul and the color of sunsets in its headkerchiefs; that can dance on a flaming world and make the world dance, too.
Colour is the touch of the eye, Music to the deaf, A word out of darkness.
Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.
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