One of the great things about books is you can afford to do anything.
George R. R. MartinRead
Give a thing a name and it will somehow come to be.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Naming things gives them power and reality.
This quote suggests that by giving something a name, we are granting it existence and significance in our minds and reality. Naming allows us to conceptualize and communicate about things, influencing our perception and interaction with them.
Themes
NamePowerPerceptionExistenceReality
In practice
Example use cases
In a presentation about creativity, to emphasize the importance of naming in the creative process.
More from George R. R. Martin
All quotes βI hate outlines. I have a broad sense of where the story is going; I know the end, I know the end of the principal characters, and I know the major turning points and events from the books, the climaxes for each book, but I don't necessarily know each twist and turn along the way. That's something I discover in the course of writing and that's what makes writing enjoyable. I think if I outlined comprehensively and stuck to the outline the actual writing would be boring.
George R. R. MartinRead
There is only one god and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: βNot today.
George R. R. MartinRead
I did not do it. Yet now I wish I had.β He turned to face the hall, that sea of pale faces. βI wish I had enough poison for you all. You make me sorry that I am not the monster you would have me be, yet there it is. I am innocent, but I will get no justice here.
George R. R. MartinRead
But a voice inside her whispered, There are no heroes, and she remembered what Lord Petyr had said to her, here in this very hall. 'Life is not a song, sweetling,' he'd told her, 'You may learn that one day to your sorrow.' In life, the monsters win, she told herself.
George R. R. MartinRead
I write from this tight third-person viewpoint, where each chapter is seen through the eyes of one individual character. When I'm writing that character, I become that character and identify with that character.
George R. R. MartinRead
Similar quotes
For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions, and the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything chosen about them.
Albert EinsteinRead
Why don't you think of [God] as the one who is coming, who has been approaching from all eternity... the ultimate fruit of a tree whose leaves we are.
Rainer Maria RilkeRead
Civilizations come and go; they conquer the earth and crumble into dust; but faith survives every desolation.
Will DurantRead
So much of the news was invented for propaganda.
Elsa MoranteRead
Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.
Edgar Allan PoeRead
I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I think my liver is diseased. Then again, I don't know a thing about my illness; I'm not even sure what hurts.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead