Words can fall hard like a boulder loosed from a cliff. Words can drift unnoticed like a weed seed on a breeze. Words can sing.
Interpretation
Words can have powerful effects, either positive or negative, depending on how they are used.
This quote highlights the diverse impact that words can have in our lives. Just like a boulder can cause destruction when it falls, words can hurt or damage relationships; conversely, words can also be gentle and uplifting, bringing joy and beauty akin to a song. The metaphor of words drifting like a seed suggests that some messages may go unnoticed yet still have the potential to grow and thrive in someone’s mind or heart.
In practice
In a speech about mental health, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of kind words.
I’ve always believed that as an author, I do 50% of the work of storytelling, and the reader does the other 50%. There’s no way I can control the story you tell yourself from my book. Your own experiences, preferences, prejudices, mood at the moment, current events in your life, needs and wants influence how you read my every word.
The rewrites are a struggle right now. Sometimes I wish writing a book could just be easy for me at last. But when I think about it practically, I am glad it's a struggle. I am (as usual) attempting to write a book that's too hard for me. I'm telling a story I'm not smart enough to tell. The risk of failure is huge. But I prefer it this way. I'm forced to learn, forced to smarten myself up, forced to wrestle. And if it works, then I'll have written something that is better than I am.
Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn't mean anything else.
All communication involves faith; indeed, some linguisticians hold that the potential obstacles to acts of verbal understanding are so many and diverse that it is a minor miracle that they take place at all.
In communications, familiarity breeds apathy.
Language commonly stresses only one side of any interaction.
I like getting to the meat of things. You can't get it in a five-minute interview. I like to hone a person. I like to make eye contact.
Speech is the voice of the heart.
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