Every island to a child is a treasure island.
P. D. JamesRead
Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Reading thoughtfully can help you avoid poor writing influences.
This quote highlights the importance of being selective and critical in our reading choices. By consuming high-quality writing, we can improve our own skills and avoid the pitfalls of bad writing, which can easily spread and negatively impact our own clarity and style.
Themes
ReadingWritingEducationDiscriminationLiterature
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, a mentor could use this quote to emphasize the importance of reading quality literature.
More from P. D. James
All quotes →If from infancy you treat children as gods, they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.
P. D. JamesRead
I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism.
P. D. JamesRead
What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give.
P. D. JamesRead
Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted.
P. D. JamesRead
It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.
P. D. JamesRead
Similar quotes
Nothing enrages me more than when people criticize my criticism of school by telling me that schools are not just places to learn maths and spelling, they are places where children learn a vaguely defined thing called socialization...I think schools generally do an effective and terribly damaging job of teaching children to be infantile, dependent, intellectually dishonest, passive and disrespectful to their own developmental capacities.
Seymour PapertRead
Maybe reading was just a way to make her feel less alone, to keep her company. When you read something you are stopped, the moment is stayed, you can sometimes be there more fully than you can in your real life.
Helen HumphreysRead
I want a laitywho know their creed so well, that they can_x000D_ give an account of it, who know so much of history that_x000D_ they can defend it.
John Henry NewmanRead
The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to the education and rank.
William ZinsserRead
What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
George Bernard ShawRead
We had nothing, no television, no radio, nothing to get in the way. We read by the streetlight at the top of the lane, and we acted out the stories.
Frank MccourtRead