Whatever one wishes to say, there is one noun only by which to express it, one verb only to give it life, one adjective only which will describe it. One must search until one has discovered them, this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never rest content with approximations, never resort to trickery, however happy, or to vulgarism, in order to dodge the difficulty.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of finding the precise words to express one's thoughts and emotions.
Guy De Maupassant highlights that effective communication relies on choosing the right words—the noun, verb, and adjective that perfectly encapsulate one's ideas. He urges individuals to invest the effort in searching for these precise words rather than settling for vague or deceptive language, stressing that true expression requires authenticity and clarity.
In practice
During a writing workshop to emphasize the importance of precise language.
Night was a very different matter. It was dense, thicker than the very walls, and it was empty, so black, so immense that within it you could brush against appalling things and feel roaming and prowling around a strange, mysterious horror.
To love very much is to love inadequately; we love-that is all. Love cannot be modified without being nullified. Love is a short word but it contains everything. Love means the body, the soul, the life, the entire being. We feel love as we feel the warmth of our blood, we breathe love as we breathe the air, we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us. Love is not a word; it is a wordless state indicated by four letters.
breathing, sleeping, drinking, eating, working, dreaming, everything we do is dying. to live, in fact, is to die.
There is only one good thing in life, and that is love.
There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. And how you misunderstand it! how you spoil it! You treat it as something solemn like a sacrament, or something to be bought, like a dress.
We live always under the weight of the old and odious customs... of our barbarous ancestors.
Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience.
I don't write for children. I write and someone says it's for children.
My concern has always been with creating images that catch people's eyes, penetrate their minds, warm their hearts and cause them to act.
I started making houses for ants because I thought they needed somewhere to live. Then I made them shoes and hats. It was a fantasy world I escaped to where my dyslexia didn't hold me back and my teachers couldn't criticize me. That's how my career as a micro-sculptor began.
Speaking for myself, art differs from writing in that I never know what I'm going to paint until I paint it, so it's almost like automatic writing. A writer, on the other hand, can't help but know what he's going to write, because the activity demands a degree of premeditation.
Songwriters can’t explain. You get an idea and you don’t know where it’s come from. And if you’re lucky, you have a pencil or pen and can write it down.
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