Whatever is felt upon the page without being specifically named there — that, one might say, is created. It is the inexplicable presence of the thing not named, of the overtone divined by the ear but not heard by it, the verbal mood, the emotional aura of the fact or the thing or the deed, that gives high quality to the novel or the drama, as well as to poetry itself.
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"The Novel Démeublé" ~ Originally published in The New Republic (1922)Willa Cather
It is easy to understand that the best deed is well done: and so well as the best deed is done — the highest — so well is the least deed done; and all thing in its property and in the order that our Lord hath ordained it to from without beginning. For there is no doer but He.
I saw full surely that he changeth never His purpose in no manner of thing, nor never shall, without end. For there was no thing unknown to Him in His rightful ordinance from without beginning. And therefore all-thing was set in order ere anything was made, as it should stand without end; and no manner of thing shall fail of that point.Julian of Norwich
The map is not the territory, and the name is not the thing named.
Gregory Bateson
A painter makes patterns with shapes and colours, a poet with words. A painting may embody an ‘idea’, but the idea is usually commonplace and unimportant. In poetry, ideas count for a good deal more; but, [...] the importance of ideas in poetry is habitually exaggerated: '... Poetry is no the thing said but a way of saying it.' [In poetry,] the poverty of the ideas seems hardly to affect the beauty of the verbal pattern.
G. H. Hardy
The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race.
Gough Whitlam
Yes, Betrayer of Hope. So have men named me, just as they named you Dragon, but unlike you I embrace the name. They gave me the name to revile me, but I will yet make them kneel and worship it.
Robert Jordan
Cather, Willa
Catherine II of Russia
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