For me, books have always been a way to feel less alone while being alone. Perhaps if I was depressed and isolated, just communicating with these authors through their sentences helped me.
Interpretation
Books provide companionship and understanding in times of solitude.
In this quote, Jonathan Ames expresses how books serve as a source of comfort and connection during periods of loneliness and isolation. Through reading, he finds solace in the thoughts and experiences shared by authors, which helps alleviate feelings of depression and fosters a sense of companionship despite being physically alone.
In practice
Sharing this quote at a book club to highlight the emotional power of literature.
Young screenwriters are always very frustrated when they talk to me. They say, 'How do we get to be a screenwriter?' I say, 'You know what you do? I'll tell you the secret, it's easy: Read 'Hamlet.' You know? Then read it again, and read it again, and read it until you understand it. Read 'King Lear,' and then read 'Othello.'
A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum.
It is possible to take a population of students who are failing and whose schools are failing them, who are being written off as not being college material, and if they have the right support, they can all go to college and succeed.
I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it.
The thing I loved the most - and still love the most about teaching - is that you can connect with an individual or a group, and see that individual or group exceed their limits.
To teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge.
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