Do you like ?" he asks. "I hate it," she says. "And I don't say that about many things. Teachers assign it, and parents are happy because their kids are reading something of 'quality.' But it's forcing kids to read books like that that make them thin...
Scholars of the East and West have heroically consecrated their whole working lives to making available, by means of their own disciplines, Sufi literary and philosophical material to the world at large. In many cases they have faithfully recorded th...
How long had it had been since she'd thought back on the evenings around the fire, number games at the kitchen table, or listening to her father sing? Too long. Yes, there had been bad times. And she had tallied them like figures in a column, not rem...
With the Book hitching rides, hiding on people, guess we’re all going to be dressing like skanks for a while, huh? Skintight or skin. Dude, everybody’s everything’s gonna be hanging out, and some o’ those fat chicks at the abbey are gonna gro...
Love gives insight, Maggie, and insight often gives foreboding. Listen to me, let me supply you with books; do let me see you sometimes, be your brother and teacher, as you said at Lorton. It is less wrong that you should see me than that you should ...
Rohan, one of us is an unmarried man with superior mathematical abilities and no prospects for the evening. The other is a confirmed lecher in an amorous mood, with a willing and nubile young wife waiting at home. Who do you think should do the damne...
Some days drawing is a real struggle. Hopefully, using the exercises in this book, it will become easier and more and more relaxing. Until that happens you may have to just accept the difficulty and battle through it - that too is a useful process. B...
In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results wi...
According to the history books, the decisive battle that ended the Ankh-Morpork Civil War was fought between two handfuls of bone-weary men in a swamp early one misty morning and, although one side claimed victory, ended with a practical score of Hum...
The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled...
The limitless mind lets us dream and examine and explore. It opens us up to opportunity. We come up with a desire, a clear, fresh perspective, and a potential goal to observe from afar. And we wonder, is this it, the right choice, the best choice to ...
The promise of aspiration is that it is evolutionary. The human condition is such that we are always aspiring to be something more, something better, something nobler. It starts as a thought, a want, a need, or a desire and then grows and evolves wit...
He found Satan on his throne in the cavern of lava, reading a large-print edition of Wheatley’s . 'It’s a rum way to warn people off from worshiping me,' Satan commented, indicating the book. 'It seems to be lots of fun, according to this. Still,...
Sometimes I sensed that the books I read in rapid succession had set up some sort of murmur among themselves, transforming my head into an orchestra pit where different musical instruments sounded out, and I would realize that I could endure this lif...
In a basic agricultural society, it's easy enough to swap five chickens for a new dress or to pay a schoolteacher with a goat and three sacks of rice. Barter works less well in a more advanced economy. The logistical challenges of using chickens to b...
When a day passes, it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren't told or books weren't written, man would live like the beasts, only for the day. The whole world, all human life, is one long story.
Edmondson has incisively discussed the ways college campuses have grown akin to upscale retirement homes for the very young, where the promise of intellectually demanding courses ranks far below the lure of new gymnastic facilities.
Like a lot of other bashful introverts, I discovered that I like teaching a lot because it's like acting. When I stepped into the classroom, I stepped into a role, one that allowed me to forget myself.
We read literature for a lot of reasons, but two of the most compelling ones are to get out of ourselves and our life stories and – equally important – to find ourselves by understanding our own life stories more clearly in the context of others.
Stop a minute, Ambrose!" interrupted Master Nathaniel. "I've got a sudden silly whim that we should take an oath I must have read when I was a youngster in some old book... the words have suddenly come back to me. They go like this: (and then we say ...
He was no longer quite sure whether anything he had ever thought or felt was truly his own property, or whether his thoughts were merely a common part of the world’s store of ideas which had always existed ready-made and which people only borrowed,...
