Quotes About Expression

Translation is the art of failure.

Rem tene, verba sequentur: grasp the subject, and the words will follow. This, I believe, is the opposite of what happens with poetry, which is more a case of verba tene, res sequenter: grasp the words, and the subject will follow.

The author should die once he has finished writing. So as not to trouble the path of the text.

Two clichés make us laugh. A hundred cliches move us. For we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves , and celebrating a reunion. ( Casablanca, or, The Clichés Are Having a Ball )

but I had also learned that freedom of speech means freedom from rhetoric.

three fingers hold the pen, but the whole body works.

For two years I have refused to answer idle questions on the order of Is your novel an open work or not? How should I know? That is your business, not mine. Or With which of your characters do you identify? For God's sake, with whom does an author identify? With the adverbs, obviously.

A writer writes for writers, a non-writer writes for his next-door neighbor or for the manager of the local bank branch, and he fears (often mistakenly) that they would not understand or, in any case, would not forgive his boldness.

I wrote a novel because I had a yen to do it. I believe this is sufficient reason to set out to tell a story.

When nature fails, we turn to art.

I don't believe one writes for oneself. I think that writing is an act of love- you write in order to give something to someone else. To communicate something. to have other people share your feelings. This problem of how long your work survives is fundamental for a novelist or a poet. One hopes for a sense of continuity.

and I said to him when you learn to read then you learn everything you didnt know before. But when you write you write only what you know allready so patientia Im better off not knowing how to write because the ass is the ass

Hypotyposis is the rhetorical effect by which words succeed in rendering a visual scene.

Rem tene, verba sequentur: grasp the subject, and the words will follow. This, I believe, is the opposite of what happens with poetry, which is more a case of verba tene, res sequentur. grasp the words, and the subject will follow.

William made an ejaculation in his own language that I didn't understand, nor did the abbot understand it, and perhaps it was best for us both, because the word William uttered had an obscene hissing sound.

El autor debería morirse después de haber escrito su obra. Para allanarle el camino al texto.

La seule chose qu'on écrit pour soi, c'est la liste des courses. Elle sert à vous rappeler ce que vous devez acheter, et une fois vos achats accomplis, vous pouvez la jeter car elle ne sert plus à personne. Tout ce que vous écrivez d'autre, vous l'écrivez pour dire quelque chose à quelqu'un.

The Frenchman doesn't really know what he wants, but knows perfectly well that he doesn't want what he has. And the only way he knows of saying it is by singing songs.

Nu înÈ›elegeam niciodat? când glumea. Pe la noi, când se glumeÅŸte, se spune ceva, apoi se râde zgomotos, încât toÈ›i s? poat? lua parte la glum?. Guglielmo râdea, în schimb, numai când spunea lucruri serioase ÅŸi r?mânea foarte serios când de fapt glumea.

There are words that give power, others that make us all the more derelict

The poets did not win; the philosophers surrendered.

Pentru a supravie?ui, trebuie s? spunem pove?ti.

By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something about the world.

Las redes sociales le dan el derecho de hablar a legiones de idiotas que antes hablaban sólo en el bar después de un vaso de vino, sin dañar a la comunidad. Entonces eran rápidamente silenciados, pero ahora tienen el mismo derecho a hablar que un Premio Nobel. Es la invasión de los imbéciles