Write. No amount of self-inflicted misery, altered states, black pullovers or being publicly obnoxious will ever add up to your being a writer. Writers write. On you go.
A.L. KennedyRead
Read. As much as you can. As deeply and widely and nourishingly and irritatingly as you can. And the good things will make you remember them, so you won't need to take notes.
Interpretation
Reading extensively and deeply enhances knowledge and memory.
A.L. Kennedy emphasizes the importance of reading not just for quantity but for the quality of engagement with the material. By immersing ourselves in a diverse range of texts, we can cultivate a deeper understanding and retention of knowledge, making note-taking obsolete for the truly impactful ideas that resonate with us the most.
In practice
In a classroom setting to inspire students to read more.
Write. No amount of self-inflicted misery, altered states, black pullovers or being publicly obnoxious will ever add up to your being a writer. Writers write. On you go.
You can look at the words on this paper and, because they are the ones I am used to choosing, they will show you the shape of me. I am here to be read in the way you might read the impression of my weight in a bed after a still night, a restless night, a night not alone.
Remember you love writing. It wouldn’t be worth it if you didn’t. If the love fades, do what you need to and get it back.
For every fresh stage in our lives we need a fresh education, and there is no stage for which so little educational preparation is made as that which follows the reproductive period.
The wrong things are predominantly stressed in the schools - things remote from the student's experience and need.
Let there be nothing harmonious about our children's playthings, lest they grow up expecting peace and order, and be eaten alive.
I don't think we should see the world of books as fundamentally separate from the world of the Internet. Yes, the Internet contains a lot of videos of squirrels riding skateboards, but it can also be a place that facilitates big conversations about books.
Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress the truth.
We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra.
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