A Quote by Stuart Chase

I find it difficult to believe that words have no meaning in themselves, hard as I try. Habits of a lifetime are not lightly thrown aside. — © Stuart Chase
I find it difficult to believe that words have no meaning in themselves, hard as I try. Habits of a lifetime are not lightly thrown aside.
This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
It's dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you're feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That's why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling.
I get so nervous on stage I can't help but talk. I try. I try telling my brain: stop sending words to the mouth. But I get nervous and turn into my grandma. Behind the eyes it's pure fear. I find it difficult to believe I'm going to be able to deliver.
I have a problem with writer/directors, personal. I can't work well with both of them on the set, if both of them are giving instructions. Writers tend to be in love with what they wrote. You can't always translate the words into the meaning, sometimes the meaning is better served without the words, difficult to make a writer to try to understand that. It gets, sometimes, tense.
It is hard to put aside partisanship. It is hard to give up the easy wisecracking jeer that divides and destroys. It is hard - very hard - to have worked sincerely and wholeheartedly for a cause and to have lost. Most of all, it is hard to put aside personal prejudices. And yet we must put these things aside.
Scientists themselves are of surprisingly little help. They find it difficult to talk of what they do because they tend to assume detailed knowledge is required for generalities to be understood. They find it hard to grasp the concept of the meaning of their work, assuming this to be a debate that takes place at a lower level than the specialized discussions with their colleagues. When they do generalize, - or "popularize" as it is usually called with a noticeable degree of contempt - they tend to reveal a startling philosophical naiveté.
Words are changing. I find that old expressions are outdated, so when I write something, I try to find a new expression that hasn't been born yet. It's difficult.
All writers of fiction will at some point find themselves abandoning a piece of work - or find themselves putting it aside, as we gently say.
One listens to a piece of great music, say, and feels deeply moved by it, and wants to put this feeling into words, but it can't be put into words. That's what - the music has already supplied the meaning, and words will just be superfluous after that. But it's that kind of verbal meaning that can't be verbalized that I try to get at in poetry.
The ideas behind the words are simple ones that work in everyday life; find what we most want to do; do it, no matter what; and in the doing be guaranteed a very difficult and a very happy lifetime.
Patterns of repetition govern each day, week, year, and lifetime. 'Personal habits' is one term we use to describe the most common of these repeated patterns. But I say these habits are sacred because they give deliberate structure to our lives. Structure gives us a sense of security. And that sense of security is the ground of meaning.
I know it sounds hard to believe, but habits laid down by our ancestors persist even after the conditions that created those habits have gone away.
I think that obviously humans find it very difficult to believe that there is no there there. So they created these stories and myths to give their lives some meaning.
Contemporary poetry ... tries to transform the sign back into meaning: its ideal, ultimately, would be to reach not the meaning of words, but the meaning of things themselves. This is why it clouds the language, increases as much as it can the abstractness of the concept and the arbitrariness of the sign and stretches to the limit the link between signifier and signified.
Afraid lest he be caught up in a net of words, tripped up, bewildered and so defeated-thrown aside-a man hesitates to write down his innermost convictions.
I think a lot about writing and I try to read a lot. Being a musician, I don't take the words lightly; they are very, very important to me. At the same time, the words have to be musical and have to fit.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!