The idea of some people being less than people is poison to any society and needs to be named as such in order to halt its spread before it turns the soul of a society septic.
Richard FlanaganRead
In reading, you sense the divine: the things that are larger and greater and more mysterious than yourself.
Interpretation
Reading allows you to connect with profound ideas that transcend your own existence.
This quote reflects the transformative power of reading, suggesting that through literature, one can encounter concepts and experiences that are immense, intricate, and far beyond personal understanding. It emphasizes how engaging with written works can lead to a deeper awareness of existence and the universe's mysteries.
In practice
During a book club meeting to discuss the deeper themes of a novel.
The idea of some people being less than people is poison to any society and needs to be named as such in order to halt its spread before it turns the soul of a society septic.
I never know what I am writing. The moment you know what you're writing, you're writing nothing worth reading.
My father was a Japanese prisoner of war, a survivor of the Thai-Burma Death Railway, built by a quarter of a million slave labourers in 1943. Between 100,000 and 200,000 died.
If 30 Australians drowned in Sydney Harbour, it would be a national tragedy. But when 30 or more refugees drown off the Australian coast, it is a political question.
Is it easier for a man to live his life again as a fish, than to accept the wonder of being human? So alone, so frightened, so wanting for what we are afraid to give tongue to.
I do not share the pessimism of the age about the novel. They are one of our greatest spiritual, aesthetic and intellectual inventions. As a species it is story that distinguishes us, and one of the supreme expressions of story is the novel. Novels are not content. Nor are they are a mirror to life or an explanation of life or a guide to life. Novels are life, or they are nothing.
Leo Tolstoy ... defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers.
Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.
Well, the future for me is already a thing of the past.
We all labour against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.
Our liberties do not come from charters; for these are only the declaration of pre-existing rights. They do not depend on parchments or seals; but come from the King of Kings and the Lord of all the earth.
To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.
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