“The capacity for imaginative reflex, for moral risk in any human being is not limitless; on the contrary, it can be rapidly absorbed by fictions, and thus the cry in the poem may come to sound louder, more urgent, more real than the cry in the street outside. The death in the novel may move us more potently than the death in the next room.”
"To Civilize our Gentlemen" (1965).
Language and Silence: Essays 1958-1966 (1967)
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George Steiner 74
American writer 1929–2020Related quotes
“More tearful than crying is seeing someone cry.”
Más llanto que llorar es ver llorar.
Voces (1943)
“Fire will attract more attention than any other cry for help.”
"Credo" at his official website http://robertfulghum.com/index.php/fulghumweb/credo/; this may be partly influenced by remarks of Albert Einstein in "What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929): I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
“Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.”
“Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.”
Hey, some people on tumblr are wondering if writers feel upset or get a thrill when they kill their characters. Care to enlighten us?, John Green's tumblr, Tumblr, January 1, 2013, July 15, 2014 http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com/post/39363824562/hey-some-people-on-tumblr-are-wondering-if-writers,
Message to the Tricontinental (1967)
Context: Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons and other men be ready to intone the funeral dirge with the staccato singing of the machine-guns and new battle cries of war and victory.