In this quote, Lyn Hejinian emphasizes the importance of each sentence standing on its own in a piece of writing. Each sentence should encapsulate a complete thought or idea, contributing to the overall message or story being conveyed. This highlights the significance of precision and clarity in crafting sentences that hold meaning and impact on their own. The quote suggests that each sentence should be carefully constructed to carry weight and contribute to the coherence of the entire piece.
In a world where attention spans are shrinking and information overload is prevalent, the power of each sentence has never been more crucial. Lyn Hejinian's quote reminds us that in order to effectively communicate and connect with others, every sentence we write or speak must be able to stand on its own and convey the intended message effectively. This principle holds true in various forms of modern communication, from social media posts to professional emails. By ensuring that each sentence tells a complete story or conveys a clear point, we can capture and maintain the attention of our audience in a concise and impactful manner.
This quote by Lyn Hejinian illustrates the importance of ensuring that each sentence can stand alone and convey the entire message of a story. It highlights the significance of crafting each sentence carefully to fully encapsulate the intended meaning.
When considering Lyn Hejinian's perspective that each sentence must be the whole story to some extent, it raises important questions about the depth and complexity of language and communication. Reflecting on this idea may prompt you to consider the following:
How does the idea that each sentence should be self-contained as the whole story impact the way we communicate and interpret meaning?
In what ways does this concept challenge traditional notions of storytelling and narrative structure?
How can we ensure that individual sentences convey the full depth and complexity of our thoughts and ideas?
What role does context play in shaping the meaning and significance of a single sentence?
How might this perspective influence the way we approach writing and crafting language in our own work?
“Writing’s initial situation, its point of origin, is often characterized and always complicated by opposing impulses in the writer and by a seeming dilemma that language creates and then cannot resolve. The writer experiences a conflict between a desire to satisfy a demand for boundedness, for containment and coherence, and a simultaneous desire for free, unhampered access to the world prompting a correspondingly open response to it. Curiously, the term inclusivity is applicable to both, though the connotative emphasis is different for each. The impulse to boundedness demands circumscription and that in turn requires that a distinction be made between inside and outside, between the relevant and the (for the particular writing at hand) confusing and irrelevant—the meaningless. The desire for unhampered access and response to the world (an encyclopedic impulse), on the other hand, hates to leave anything out. The essential question here concerns the writer’s subject position.”
“People must flatter their own eyes with their pathetic lives. The things I was saying followed logically the things that I had said before, yet bore no relation to what I was thinking and feeling.”
“Allegories are told with a purpose whose possibility is lostUntil a potato-eater appears and eats potatoes”
“In every country is a word which attempts the sound of cats, to match an inisolable portrait in the clouds to a din in the air. But the constant noise is not an omen of music to come.”
“A German goldsmith covered a bit of metal with cloth in the 14th century and gave mankind its first button. It was hard to know this as politics, because it plays like the work of one person, but nothing is isolated in history -- certain humans are situations.”
“Drinking Shirley Temple with my Mary Janes on, let's say that every possibility waits”