I read for growth, firmly believing that what you are today and what you will be in five years depends on two things: the people you meet and the books you read.
Interpretation
Personal growth is influenced by the connections you make and the knowledge you acquire.
This quote emphasizes the importance of both relationships and literature in shaping an individual's future. Twyla Tharp suggests that the people we surround ourselves with and the books we choose to read significantly contribute to our development and success over time, indicating that growth is not just a personal endeavor but also a communal one, heavily influenced by external sources of wisdom and inspiration.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-improvement, you could quote this to emphasize the importance of surrounding oneself with positive influences.
Do I watch dancers as people? Yes, absolutely. Do I watch really good dancers for specifically who they are? Absolutely, because how they move best and how they look best is going to be most familiar to them, and not necessarily to me.
I am still pushing the edge of what my body can do.
No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.
I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft.
Universities are of course hostile to geniuses, which, seeing and using ways of their own, discredit the routine: as churches and monasteries persecute youthful saints.
Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.
When I was growing up, my mother would always say, 'It will go on your permanent record.' There was no 'permanent record.' If there were a 'permanent record,' I'd never be able to be a lawyer. I was such a bum, in elementary school and high school... There is a permanent record today and it's called the Internet.
We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough.
The primary goal in the education of children is to teach, and to give the example of, a virtuous life.
I believe a kid who is playing is not alone. There is something brought alive during play, and this something, when played with, seems to play back.
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