RICE-WATER, n. A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience.
Interpretation
This quote humorously suggests that a simple beverage is used by writers to enhance creativity and dull their moral judgment.
Ambrose Bierce's quote presents a satirical take on the creative process, implying that successful writers and poets rely on an ordinary substance, rice-water, to fuel their imagination while also numbing their conscience. This playful characterization suggests that the act of creation might require a certain escapism or detachment from reality, highlighting the sometimes absurd nature of artistic inspiration.
In practice
In a discussion about the struggles of a writer at a literary event.
PALM, n. A species of tree . . . of which the familiar "itching palm" ("Palma hominis") is most widely distributed . . . . This noble vegetable exudes a kind of invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to the bark a piece of gold or silver.
Human nature is pretty well balanced; for every lacking virtue there is a rough substitute that will serve at a pinch--as cunning is the wisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward.
Indigestion: A disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of the Western Wild put it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: 'Plenty well, no pray; big belly ache, heap God.'
Disobey n:To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command
NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning - which is a phenomenon.
PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.
Is the chemical aftertaste the reason why people eat hot dogs, or is it some kind of bonus?
I've always said people say on a dramatic show, 'I was crying. It was so emotional when he went and grabbed that little girl from a burning building and handed her over to her mother.' In comedy, the best thing you can say is, 'I think it's funny.'
I quickly laugh at everything for fear of having to cry.
The same ten minutes that magazines urge me to use for sit-ups and triceps dips, I used for sobbing.
Christopher Robin ... just said it had an "x."' 'It isn't their necks I mind,' said Piglet earnestly. 'It's their teeth.
And when we take ourselves too seriously, we are grim about the brothers and sisters, especially the dissenting ones, and there will be no health in us and no healing humor.
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