Standards are always out of date. That's what makes them standards.
Alan BennettRead
Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.
Interpretation
Books allow us to experience diverse lives and worlds, highlighting the richness of literature beyond mere entertainment.
In this quote, Alan Bennett emphasizes that reading is not simply a means to occupy our time; rather, it immerses us in the experiences and perspectives of others. He suggests that books transport us to different realities and that true readers often wish for more time to explore these narratives, contrasting this with mundane pastimes that simply make time go by, like visiting New Zealand.
In practice
In a book club discussion about the significance of reading.
Standards are always out of date. That's what makes them standards.
To begin with, it's true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time.
A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories, knowing as their own dusk falls that they will only be remembered for remembering someone else.
To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less...selfish.
The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours
With better vision, we sacrifice for students for whom that sacrifice will most likely pay off. I'm sorry to say this, but there are times when even superhuman effort will not save a child from his environment or himself. It's not the job of the teacher to save a child's soul; it is the teachers' job to provide an opportunity for the child to save his own soul.
The foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody at any age in some form.
I didn't go to school a full year until I was 11 or 12, so I lived in books. I really was an observer of life.
He who refuses to learn deserves extinction.
I had this feeling that, somehow, we ought to be teaching not just the history of particular nations or particular regions, but the history of humanity.
It is essential to rear a generation at the very top of society that has all the qualities needed to lead and give the people the inspiration and the drive to make it succeed. In short, the elite.. Every society tries to produce this type. The British have special schools for them: the gifted and talented are sent to Eton and Harrow.
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