I was a voracious reader and the library fed my curiosity, imagination and my soul. I read by the shelf - biographies, fantasy - all and everything fed my dreams. Then as an adult whenever I would go on location the first thing we would do as a family is sign up at the closest library. Not only would we find books, but what was happening in that town, because the library is the head of the community.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of reading and libraries in nurturing curiosity and community engagement.
In this quote, Susan Sarandon reflects on her lifelong love of reading and the profound impact that libraries have had on her life and imagination. She highlights how libraries serve not only as places to discover books, but also as integral parts of the community that foster connections and knowledge. By portraying reading as a source of nourishment for the soul and a gateway to understanding the world, Sarandon encourages a love of literature and an acknowledgment of libraries as valuable community resources.
In practice
During a speech at a local library fundraiser to emphasize the role of libraries in education.
At a time when everything seems so out of control and the people you've elected are bogus and there's so much random violence and hatred, it fills you with such hope and admiration to even be part for a short time in a community where people have connected to strangers to try to put out a hand.
Suffering should not define you as a woman! And just because you’re a man it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t affect you! HELP HER to remove the taboos and the loneliness surrounding this disease; be understanding, show empathy, and don’t accuse her of being sensitive, delicate, or overly dramatic – this is a big opportunity for you guys to show that you care and to be a real man!
Knowledge is the key to stopping the spread of AIDS. Yet millions of children are missing an education. Missing their teachers who have died of the disease. Missing from class as they stay home to care for their dying mothers and fathers. Children are missing your support. United for Children. Unite against AIDS.
If you walk down the street and see someone in a box, you have a choice. That person is either the other and you're fearful of them, or that person is an extension of your family.
We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'.
Do you really expect me to say gravity hasn't taken its toll? No. But as I'm earning these lines [in my face], I'm making an aesthetic choice.
Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.
A recluse without books and ink is already in life a dead man.
How it is we have so much information, but know so little?
Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post as soon as there is no enemy in the field.
As long as parents and teachers in general shall fall under the established rule, it is clear that politics and modes of government will educate and infect us all. They poison our minds, before we can resist, or so much as suspect their malignity. Like the barbarous directors of the Eastern seraglios, they deprive us of our vitality, and fit us for their despicable employment from the cradle.
Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
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