The books I loved in childhood - the first loves - I’ve read so often that I’ve internalized them in some really essential way: they are more inside me now than out.
Interpretation
Books from childhood have a lasting impact and become a part of who we are.
Donna Tartt reflects on the profound influence that childhood reading experiences have on personal identity. The books we cherish during our formative years do not merely entertain us; they shape our thoughts, values, and emotional landscapes, becoming integral to our very being.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of childhood education, this quote can serve as a powerful reminder of how reading shapes us.
Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.
Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?
But sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.
And the flavor of Pippa's kiss--bittersweet and strange--stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.
Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?
I've written only two novels, but they're both long ones, and they each took a decade to write.
As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit
Are you a reader? If you aren't a reader, you might as well forget trying to be a writer.
Some who support [more] coercive strategies assume that children will run wild if they are not controlled. However, the children for whom this is true typically turn out to be those accustomed to being controlled— those who are not trusted, given explanations, encouraged to think for themselves, helped to develop and internalize good values, and so on. Control breeds the need for more control, which is used to justify the use of control.
The end of all learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love and imitate Him.
So what should we say when children complete a task—say, math problems—quickly and perfectly? Should we deny them the praise they have earned? Yes. When this happens, I say, “Whoops. I guess that was too easy. I apologize for wasting your time. Let’s do something you can really learn from!
No one can speak well, unless he thoroughly understands his subject.
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