I can't imagine ever writing anything of any kind on a machine. I never tried to write either poetry or prose on a typewriter. I like to do it on useless paper, scrap paper, because it's of no importance.
W. S. MerwinRead
Sitting over words _x000D_ Very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing _x000D_ Not far _x000D_ Like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark _x000D_ The echo of everything that has ever _x000D_ Been spoken _x000D_ Still spinning its one syllable _x000D_ Between the earth and silence.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the enduring nature of words and their echoes in silence.
W. S. Merwin's quote captures the profound relationship between words and silence, suggesting that every word ever spoken continues to resonate in the quiet spaces of existence. It evokes the idea that language, like the gentle sounds of nature, lingers and echoes in our lives, reminding us of the weight and significance of our communication, even in stillness.
Themes
WordsSilenceEchoLanguageCommunicationNature
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the power of communication during a literary event.
More from W. S. Merwin
All quotes βI think there's a kind of desperate hope built into poetry that one really wants, hopelessly, to save the world. One is trying to say everything that can be said for the things that one loves while there's still time.
W. S. MerwinRead
The kind of writing that matters most to me is something you don't learn about. It's constantly coming out of what I don't know rather than what I do know.
W. S. MerwinRead
I say to my breath once again, little breath come from in front of me, go away behind me, row me quietly now, as far as you can, for I am an abyss that I am trying to cross.
W. S. MerwinRead
Through all of youth I was looking for you_x000D_ without knowing what I was looking for_x000D_ part memory part distance remaining _x000D_ mine in the ways that I learn to miss you_x000D_ from what we cannot hold the stars are made.
W. S. MerwinRead
What I really believe is the only hopeful relation between our life and the whole of life is one of reverence and respect and of feeling at one with it. The other attitude which is the one our society is based on is devastating and it is killing the earth and it is killing us too.
W. S. MerwinRead
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I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel For words, like nature, half reveal And half conceal the soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain A use measured language lie's The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotic's, numbing pain In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er Like coarsest clothes against the cold But large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more.
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The feel of not to feel it, When there is none to heal it Nor numbed sense to steel it.
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Thou has left behind Powers that will work for thee,-air, earth, and skies! There 's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind.
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Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky
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