You can't kill the past by denying the past. You can kill it only by making it obsolete. And even in that, you have to find honor in the past. You can't hack off pieces of yourself, and expect them to grow again.
Jeff BuckleyRead
Words are really beautiful, but they're limited. Words are very male, very structured. But the voice is the netherworld, the darkness, where there's nothing to hang onto. The voice comes from a part of you that just knows and expresses and is.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Words can convey beauty but are restrictive, while the voice expresses deeper, unstructured emotions.
In this quote, Jeff Buckley reflects on the limitations of language, suggesting that while words can be beautiful and structured, they cannot fully capture the depth of human emotion and experience. He contrasts this with the voice, which emanates from a more instinctual and mysterious part of ourselves, conveying feelings that transcend mere words and tap into a universal understanding of existence.
Themes
WordsVoiceExpressionEmotionBeautyArt
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the power of art, one could use this quote to highlight the limitations of language in expressing true feelings.
More from Jeff Buckley
All quotes →I became a human jukebox, learning all these songs I'd always known, discovering the basics of what I do. The cathartic part was in the essential act of singing. When is it that the voice becomes an elixir? It's during flirting, courtship, sex. Music's all that.
Jeff BuckleyRead
Critics... They're like traffic cops. They say what they have to say, then leave, and another guy moves in ,and he has his say - and it's often just the opposite. The result is either critical acclaim or critical murder, and neither has any bearing on my music or direction.
Jeff BuckleyRead
Grace is what matters. In anything. Especially life, especially growth, tragedy, pain, love, death. About people, that's what matters. That's a quality I admire very greatly. It keeps you from reaching for the gun too quickly; it keeps you from destroying things too foolishly; it sort of keeps you alive and keeps you open for more understanding.
Jeff BuckleyRead
I've always felt that the quality of the voice is where the real content of a song lies. Words only suggest an experience, but the voice is that experience.
Jeff BuckleyRead
I don't see people. I don't see men and women at all. When I see them, I see... their mothers and fathers. I see how old they are inside. Like when I look at the president, or anybody in a record company, or a store owner, I may see a little boy behind the counter with the face of an old man. And that's who I talk to.
Jeff BuckleyRead
Similar quotes
A folk song is what's wrong and how to fix it or it could be _x000D_ who's hungry and where their mouth is or _x000D_ who's out of work and where the job is or _x000D_ who's broke and where the money is or _x000D_ who's carrying a gun and where the peace is.
Woody GuthrieRead
With stammering lips and insufficient sound I strive and struggle to deliver right the music of my nature.
Elizabeth Barrett BrowningRead
What they don't teach you in art school is how your whole life is about discovering who you already were.
Chuck PalahniukRead
Art has a way of confronting us, of reminding us, of engaging us, in what it means to be human, and what it means to be human is to be flawed, is to be contradictory, is to be often weak, and yet despite all of these what we would consider drawbacks, that we're also quite beautiful. Spin is the opposite.
Junot DiazRead
Early on, a story's meaning and rationale seem pretty obvious, but then, as I write it, I realize that I know the meaning/rationale too well, which means that the reader will also know it - and so things have to be ramped up.
George SaundersRead
In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what's human and magical that still live and glow despite the times' darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it.
David Foster WallaceRead