THE WONDER OF A CHILD
Rachel Carson:
A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement.
VANITY, VANITY EVERYWHERE
Blaise Pascal:
Vanity is so anchored in man’s heart that a soldier, a camp-follower, a cook, a porter, boast and wish to have admirers; and the philosophers wish the same; and those who write against the desire of glory, glory in having written well; and those who read it, desire to have glory for having read it; and I who write this have perhaps the same desire; and also those who will read what I write.
ACTIVE READING
Arthur O. Lovejoy:
The student of the history of ideas must approach his historical sources certainly with an open but not with a passive mind.
ONE'S UNIVERSE IS BUILT ON TRUST
Adrienne Rich:
We take so much of the universe on trust. You tell me: “In 1950 I lived on the north side of Beacon Street in Somerville.
READING ALTERS THE READER
Siri Hustvedt:
Books are made between the words and spaces left by the writer on the page and the reader who reinvents them through her own embodied reality, for better and for worse.
WRAPPING UP A LIFE OF READING
William Maxwell:
Before I am ready to call it quits I would like to reread every book I have ever deeply enjoyed, beginning with Jane Austen and going through shelf after shelf of the bookcases, until I arrive at the ‘‘Autobiographies’’ of William Butler Yeats.