One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.
Clifton FadimanRead
To read in bed is to draw around us invisible, noiseless curtains. Then at last we are in a room of our own and are ready to burrow back, back to that private life of the imagination we all led as a child and to whose secret satisfactions so many of us have mislaid the key.
Interpretation
Reading in bed creates a private escape into our imaginations.
Clifton Fadiman's quote highlights the intimate and personal experience of reading in bed, likening it to a retreat into a private world of imagination. It suggests that through reading, we can reclaim the joy and comfort we experienced as children, allowing ourselves to rediscover the hidden pleasures that lie in the stories we immerse ourselves in, away from the noise of the outside world.
In practice
In a book club discussion about intimate reading experiences.
One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.
Insomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking.
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke - and that the joke is oneself.
There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.
When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke-and that the joke is oneself.
To ask the proper question is half of knowing.
Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind
Children not only have to learn what their parents learned in school, but also have to learn how to learn. This has to be recognized as a new problem which is only partly solved.
Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.
What can the schools do to defend democracy? Should they preach a specific political doctrine? I believe they should not. If they are able to teach young people to have a critical mind and a socially oriented attitude, they will have done all that is necessary.
The wrong things are predominantly stressed in the schools - things remote from the student's experience and need.
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