One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.
Clifton FadimanRead
To read in bed is to draw around us invisible, noiseless curtains. Then at last we are in a room of our own and are ready to burrow back, back to that private life of the imagination we all led as a child and to whose secret satisfactions so many of us have mislaid the key.
Interpretation
Reading in bed creates a private escape into our imaginations.
Clifton Fadiman's quote highlights the intimate and personal experience of reading in bed, likening it to a retreat into a private world of imagination. It suggests that through reading, we can reclaim the joy and comfort we experienced as children, allowing ourselves to rediscover the hidden pleasures that lie in the stories we immerse ourselves in, away from the noise of the outside world.
In practice
In a book club discussion about intimate reading experiences.
One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.
Insomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking.
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke - and that the joke is oneself.
There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.
When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke-and that the joke is oneself.
When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.
We must make up our minds to be ignorant of much, if we would know anything.
I want to start two institutions, one in Madras and one in Calcutta, to carry out my plan; and that plan briefly is to bring the Vedantic ideals into the everyday practical life of the saint or the sinner, of the sage or the ignoramus, of the Brahmin or the Pariah.
In the 1970s, what I, as a young foreign student studying in the United States, found most dynamic, exciting and impressive about this country is what much of the world continues to value most about the U.S. today: its open intellectual culture, its great universities, its capacity for discovery and innovation.
We must therefore turn to the child as to the key to the fate of our future life.
There's nothing in the world like getting up in front of a high-school classroom in New York City. They won't give you a break if you don't hold them. There's no escape.
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