Belief in one's identity as a poet or writer prior to the acid test of publication is as naive and harmless as the youthful belief in one's immortality... and the inevitable disillusionment is just as painful.
Dan SimmonsRead
Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that we lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortion of reality which language brings.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Words can distort our perception of reality, causing us to live in self-created illusions.
In this quote, Dan Simmons reflects on how language shapes our thoughts and perceptions, often leading us away from objective reality. The imagery of 'brain mansions built of words' suggests that our mental constructs—shaped by language—can trap us in illusions, preventing us from recognizing the true nature of our experiences and the world around us.
Themes
LanguagePerceptionRealityThoughtIllusion
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on communication, one might use this quote to illustrate the complexities of language.
More from Dan Simmons
All quotes →Poetry is only secondarily about words. Primarily, it is about truth. I dealt with the Ding an Sich, the substance behind the shadow, weaving powerful concepts, similes, and connections the way an engineer would raise a skyscraper with the whiskered-alloy skeleton being constructed long before the glass and plastic and chromaluminum appears.
Dan SimmonsRead
I loved you backward and forward in time. I loved you beyond boundaries of time and space.
Dan SimmonsRead
I now understand the need for faith - pure, blind, fly-in-the-face-of-reason faith - as a small life preserver in the wild and endless sea of a universe ruled by unfeeling laws and totally indifferent to the small, reasoning beings that inhabit it.
Dan SimmonsRead
Similar quotes
In all the co-temporary discussions and comments, which the Constitution underwent, it was constantly justified and recommended on the ground, that the powers not given to the government, were withheld from it.
James MadisonRead
What leads us astray is confusing more choices with more control. Because it is not clear that the more choices you have the more in control you feel. We have more choices than we've ever had before.
Sheena IyengarRead
Peace is a very complicated concept. When the lion gobbles up the lamb and wipes his lips, then there's peace. Well, I ain't for that peace at all.
Abbie HoffmanRead
In war, while everything is simple, even the simplest thing is difficult. Difficulties accumulate and produce frictions which no one can comprehend who has not seen war.
Carl Von ClausewitzRead
Mastery of life is not a question of control, but of finding a balance between human and being...Human is form. Being is formless. Human and Being are not separate but interwoven.
Eckhart TolleRead
A bullet can kill the enemy, but a bullet can also produce an enemy, depending on whom that bullet strikes.
Tim O'BrienRead