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I was read to as a small child, I read on my own as soon as I could, and I recall being more or less overwhelmed again and again - if not by what the books actually said, by what they suggested, what they helped me to imagine.
Marilynne Robinson
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Reading is a transformative experience that ignites imagination and personal growth.

In this quote, Marilynne Robinson reflects on the profound impact that reading has had on her life, starting from childhood. She emphasizes that it is not just the content of the books that influences her, but also the imaginative possibilities and suggestions they provide, which encourage personal exploration and intellectual growth.

Themes

ReadingImaginationBooksImpactGrowth

In practice

Example use cases

Sharing this quote during a book club meeting to emphasize the importance of reading.

More from Marilynne Robinson

He will wipe the tears from all faces.' It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required
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It seems to me there is less meanness in atheism, by a good measure. It seems that the spirit of religious self-righteousness this article deplores is precisely the spirit in which it is written. Of course he's right about many things, one of them being the destructive potency of religious self-righteousness. (p. 146)
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A narrow pond would form in the orchard, water clear as air covering grass and black leaves and fallen branches, all around it black leaves and drenched grass and fallen branches, and on it, slight as an image in an eye, sky, clouds, trees, our hovering faces and our cold hands.
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The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of morning. Light within light...It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within that great general light of existence.
Marilynne RobinsonRead
There are worries that seem to me sustained by the love of worry. For example, that people are reading from screens, or listening to recorded books. Why scold the impulse to enjoy language and narrative in whatever form it takes?
Marilynne RobinsonRead
Teaching is a distraction and a burden, but it's also an incredible stimulus. And a reprieve, in a way. When you're trying to work on something and it's not going anywhere, you can go to school and there's a two-and-a-half-hour block of time in which you can accomplish something.
Marilynne RobinsonRead

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...the reader who plucks a book from her shelf only once is as deprived as the listener who, after attending a single performance of a Beethoven symphony, never hears it again.
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How it is we have so much information, but know so little?
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Schools and schoolmasters, as we have them today, are not popular as places of education and teachers, but rather prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parent.
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A little wisdom, now and then

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Quote by Marilynne Robinson | QuoteProject