As a reader, you’re often inside one or more character heads, so you know what they’re feeling, even if they can’t exactly say it, or they say it so obliquely that the other characters don’t catch it. Readers are frequently reminded of the gulf between what people say and what they mean, and such moments prod us to become more attuned to gesture, tone, and language.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the complexity of communication and understanding in literature and life.
Will Schwalbe's quote emphasizes the intricate nature of dialogue and the often nuanced feelings that characters, and by extension people, may harbor. It illustrates how readers or observers can perceive deeper emotions and intentions that might elude the characters themselves, urging us to pay close attention to unspoken cues such as gestures and tone in both literature and real-life interactions.
In practice
In a book discussion group, this quote can be used to explore character motivations.
What I suddenly understood was that a thank-you note isn't the price you pay for receiving a gift, as so many children think it is, a kind of minimum tribute or toll, but an opportunity to count your blessings. And gratitude isn't what you give in exchange for something; it's what you feel when you are blessed--blessed to have family and friends who care about you, and who want to see you happy. Hence the joy from thanking.
That’s one of the things books do. They help us talk. But they also give us something we all can talk about when we don’t want to talk about ourselves.
I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.
What's wrong with our children? Adults telling children to be honest while lying and cheating. Adults telling children to not be violent while marketing and glorifying violence... I believe that adult hypocrisy is the biggest problem children face in America.
My best teachers were not the ones who knew all the answers, but those who were deeply excited by questions they couldn't answer.
People who grow up with two or more languages understand that each can express certain aspects of reality better than the other.
People talk of situations, read books, repeat quotations.
When kids know that you refuse to let them fail ... they don't give up as easy. So sometimes they don't have it inside, [but] they're like,'You know, I don't want to do this, but I know my mother's going to be mad.'That matters to kids, and it helps get them through.
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