Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
Walter BenjaminRead
Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed, an architectural one, where it is constructed, and finally a textile one, where it is woven.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A good piece of writing involves harmony, structure, and intricate detail.
Walter Benjamin's quote emphasizes the multifaceted nature of writing. He likens the process to music, architecture, and textiles, suggesting that effective writing requires a melodic flow, careful construction, and a rich layering of themes and ideas, much like the way different threads come together to form a fabric.
Themes
WritingArtCompositionStructureCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
A writer's workshop where participants analyze this quote to deepen their understanding of the writing process.
More from Walter Benjamin
All quotes →The illiterate of the future will not be the man who cannot read the alphabet, but the one who cannot take a photograph.
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If mythic violence is lawmaking, divine violence is law-destroying; if the former sets boundaries, the latter boundlessly destroys them; if mythic violence brings at once guilt and retribution, divine power only expiates; if the former threatens, the latter strikes; if the former is bloody, the latter is lethal without spilling blood
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Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.
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Nothing is poorer than a truth expressed as it was thought. Committed to writing in such cases, it is not even a bad photograph. Truth wants to be startled abruptly, at one stroke, from her self-immersion, whether by uproar, music or cries for help.
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I am unpacking my library. Yes I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order.
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I trust that if God gives me music for someone else, that's what He wants that person to have. I have to trust that that's what they're supposed to do and that's the music that should specifically be released for them and their ministry, for their career and for their audience.
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It's an honor putting art above politics. Politics can be seductive in terms of things reductive to the soul.
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I joyfully hasten to meet death. If it come before I have had opportunity to develop all my artistic faculties, it will come, my hard fate notwithstanding, too soon, and I should probably wish it later - yet even then I shall be happy, for will it not deliver me from a state of endless suffering?
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