Jump off. You are a protected individual. Do not fear.
Henry MillerRead
A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum.
Interpretation
Books should be shared and utilized rather than left unused on a shelf.
Henry Miller emphasizes the importance of actively engaging with books, comparing them to ammunition and money that lose their value when not put to use. This quote advocates for lending and borrowing books to foster knowledge and learning, highlighting that the true value of books lies in their circulation and use within the community.
In practice
During a book fair, you could quote this to encourage people to share their books.
Jump off. You are a protected individual. Do not fear.
I saw through to the last sign and symbol, but I could not read her face. I could see only the eyes shining through, huge, fleshy-like luminous beasts, as though I were swimming behind them in the electric effluvia of her incandescent vision.
The essential thing is to WANT to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.
Great God! What have I turned into? What right have you people to clutter up my life, steal my time, probe my soul, suckle my thoughts, have me for your companion, confidant, and information bureau? What do you take me for? Am I an entertainer on salary, required every evening to play an intellectual farce under your stupid noses? Am I a slave, bought and paid for, to crawl on my belly in front of you idlers and lay at your feet all that I do and all that I know?
We are swimming on the face of time and all else has drowned, is drowning, or will drown.
To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.
Words are alive--when I've found a story that I love, I read it again and again, like playing a favorite song over and over. Reading isn't passive--I enter the story with the characters, breathe their air, feel their frustrations, scream at them to stop when they're about to do something stupid, cry with them, laugh with them. Reading for me, is spending time with a friend. A book is a friend. You can never have too many.
Over 20 million children of conflict are out of school. Education is often forgotten.
Books themselves need no defense. Their spokesmen come and go, their readers live and die, they remain constant.
They call it coaching but it is teaching. You do not just tell them...you show them the reasons.
Note too that a faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel.
Teaching literature is teaching how to read. How to notice things in a text that a speed-reading culture is trained to disregard, overcome, edit out, or explain away; how to read what the language is doing, not guess what the author was thinking; how to take evidence from a page, not seek a reality to substitute for it.
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