From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again.
Interpretation
Reading brings companionship and opens up the world.
This quote emphasizes the transformative power of reading, suggesting that books can provide both knowledge and a sense of connection to the broader world. By immersing oneself in literature, a person can escape feelings of loneliness and experience the richness of diverse perspectives and stories.
In practice
Using this quote to inspire students about the importance of reading during a school assembly.
Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence. What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction. If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.
Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere - be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.
Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.
I know that's what people say-- you'll get over it. I'd say it, too. But I know it's not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won't forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him.
It was the last time sheβd see the river from that window. The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. This that I see now, she thought, to see no more this way. Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadnβt held it tighter when you had it every day.
It doesn't take long to write things of which you know nothing. When you write of actual things, it takes longer, because you have to live them first.
When I start a book, it's every day. There is no Saturday, no Sunday. It's every day, because if I stop one day, I'm afraid of losing the book and losing the energy.
Man's mind is not a container to be filled but rather a fire to be kindled.
When you're learning, especially to write, unless you're some incredibly gifted writer, a young Malcom Gladwell, say, you need to be imitating people. You need to be imitating how they make their work, how they structure it, how they design the pieces. It gives you chops; it gives you moves.
Princeton ignited my intellectual curiosity and introduced me to a new social world. It... challenged me on the most fundamental levels imaginable. It was where I became a man.
As long as the centuries continue to unfold, the number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes.
To read a novel requires a certain amount of concentration, focus, devotion to the reading. If you read a novel in more than two weeks, you don't read the novel, really.
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