Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
A writer lives in awe of words, for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. They pick up flavors and odors like butter in a refrigerator.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Words have powerful emotional impacts and can change in meaning over time.
In this quote, John Steinbeck reflects on the complexity of words and their dual nature. He suggests that writers have a deep respect for words because they hold the potential to evoke a wide range of emotions, from kindness to cruelty, and their meanings can shift unexpectedly. This highlights the writer's responsibility to wield words carefully, as they can influence thoughts and feelings in profound ways.
Themes
WordsPowerEmotionWritingLiterature
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of literature, one could quote Steinbeck to emphasize the impact of words.
More from John Steinbeck
All quotes →At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.
John SteinbeckRead
And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
John SteinbeckRead
The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
John SteinbeckRead
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
John SteinbeckRead
It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
John SteinbeckRead
Similar quotes
If contemporary artists sincerely seek to be original, unique, and new, they should begin by disregarding the notions of originality, individuality, and innovation: they are the cliches of our time.
Octavio PazRead
For Poesy alone can tell her dreams, With the fine spell of words alone can save Imagination from the sable charm And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say, ‘Thou art no Poet may’st not tell thy dreams?’ Since every man whose soul is not a clod Hath visions, and would speak, if he had loved And been well nurtured in his mother tongue. Whether the dream now purpos’d to rehearse Be poet’s or fanatic’s will be known When this warm scribe my hand is in the grave.
John KeatsRead
The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life.
H. P. LovecraftRead
There is absolutely no substitute for the best. Good food cannot be made of inferior ingredients masked with high flavor. It is true thrift to use the best ingredients available and to waste nothing.
James BeardRead
There's nothing prettier in the world than a melody. I can get lost in a song with a melody. A lot of times I have, and the song wasn't that good, but I would get lost in that melody, and I'd want to do the song.
George JonesRead
Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.
Oscar WildeRead