...a box where she was expected to be sweet and sensitive (but not oversensitive); a box for young and pretty girls who were not as bright or powerful as their boyfriends. A box for people who were not forces to be reckoned with.
E. LockhartRead
Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you.
Interpretation
The quote compares the experience of reading a novel filled with surprises to the joy of spending time with someone special.
E. Lockhart's quote emphasizes the delight and unexpected joy that can come from both literature and personal relationships. Just as a novel captivates the reader with a chain of surprises and emotional shifts, spending time with a loved one can evoke similar feelings of astonishment and wonder, suggesting that meaningful connections with others are as enriching as the best stories.
In practice
During a book club meeting to discuss the value of storytelling in relationships.
...a box where she was expected to be sweet and sensitive (but not oversensitive); a box for young and pretty girls who were not as bright or powerful as their boyfriends. A box for people who were not forces to be reckoned with.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, the public's relationship to art has been weakened by a profound institutional reluctance to address the question of what art is for. This is a question that has, quite unfairly, come to feel impatient, illegitimate, and a little impudent.
Writing, for me, was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.
It's a magical thing, the guitar. It allows you to be the whole band in one, to play rhythm and melody, sing over the top. And as an instrument for solos, you can bend notes, draw emotional content out of tiny movements, vibratos and tonal things which even a piano can't do.
To be a great painter means to be a great poet: someone who transcends the limits of his language.
Photography has become so fundamental to the way we see that 'photography' and 'seeing' are becoming more and more synonymous. The ubiquity of photography is, perhaps ironically, a challenge to curators, practitioners, and critics.
I remember the first time I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and saw a Kerry James Marshall painting with black bodies in it on a museum wall... It strengthened me on a cellular level.
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