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Look at anyone's bookcase at home, no matter how modest, and you're going to find a book that contains wisdom or ideas or a language that's at least a thousand years old. And the idea that humans have created a mechanism to time travel, to hurl ideas into the future, it sort of bookends. Books are a time machine.
Jonathan Nolan
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Books allow us to access ancient wisdom and ideas, acting as a form of time travel.

This quote by Jonathan Nolan emphasizes the profound nature of books as vessels of human thought and creativity that transcend time. They carry knowledge and insights from the past, enabling readers to connect with ideas that are thousands of years old, offering an opportunity to engage with wisdom across generations. In this way, books serve as a mechanism of time travel, allowing us to reflect on human experience and wisdom long after the original ideas were penned.

Themes

BooksWisdomIdeasTimeKnowledge

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the importance of literacy at a local school event.

More from Jonathan Nolan

Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight.
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Everybody is waiting for the end to come, but what if it already passed us by? What if the final joke of Judgment Day was that it had already come and gone and we were none the wiser? Apocalypse arrives quietly; the chosen are herded off to heaven, and the rest of us, the ones who failed the test, just keep on going, oblivious. Dead already, wandering around long after the gods have stopped keeping score, still optimistic about the future.
Jonathan NolanRead

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