To starve a child of the spell of the story, of the canter of the poem, oral or written, is a kind of living burial. It is to immure him in emptiness.
George SteinerRead
The most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital.
Interpretation
Learning a beloved poem or piece of prose by heart is the highest form of appreciation.
George Steiner emphasizes the deep connection between a person and a piece of literary art when one commits it to memory. To learn something 'by heart' signifies an emotional and personal engagement with the text, transcending mere intellectual understanding, thus highlighting the transformative power of literature in human experience.
In practice
This quote can inspire students in a poetry class to memorize their favorite poems.
To starve a child of the spell of the story, of the canter of the poem, oral or written, is a kind of living burial. It is to immure him in emptiness.
Every language is a world. Without translation, we would inhabit parishes bordering on silence.
I have every reason to believe that an individual man or woman fluent in several tongues seduces, possesses, remembers differently according to his or her use of the relevant language.
It took 10 months for me to learn to tie a lace; I must have howled with rage and frustration. But one day I could tie my laces. That no one can take from you. I profoundly distrust the pedagogy of ease.
The letter kills the spirit. The written text is mute in the face of responding challenge. It does not admit of inward growth and correction. Text subverts the absolutely vital role of memory.
Books are in no hurry. An act of creation is in no hurry; it reads us, it privileges us infinitely. The notion that it is the occasion for our cleverness fills me with baffled bitterness and anger.
I do feel that I have to use my voice for those that don't have one. I have to do the best I can in my own work to represent my culture, represent the women of my country, of Latin America. What we stand for. What we're made of.
I think the experience of going to a theater and seeing a movie with a lot of people is still part of the transformational power of the film, and it's equivalent to the old shaman telling a story by the campfire to a bunch of people.
Poetry is what makes the invisible appear.
Every time you do something, people are going to like it, people are going to hate it. You tend to make the movies on the basis you are making them for the people who are going to like them and not worrying too much about people who don't like them.
Everyone who makes a film is at the major distributors' mercy.
Music is one of the last elements in the creative process. It can and hopefully should tie a bow around an artistic concept, how a story moves forward, the pace of that storytelling.
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