Matilda said, "Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable.
Roald DahlRead
The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives.
Interpretation
Books can take us to different places and allow us to meet fascinating characters.
This quote by Roald Dahl highlights the transformative power of literature. Through reading, individuals can escape their realities and immerse themselves in diverse stories and experiences, allowing them to encounter extraordinary lives and perspectives that they might not experience otherwise.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of reading at a local school.
Matilda said, "Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable.
I asked my mum, who's a very clever psychotherapist, and she says that kids love stories about death; they need it, they need to have stories that deal with death and explain it, as a place to put their fears.
By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least one hundred and fifty times. I am suspicious of both facility and speed. Good writing is essentially rewriting. I am positive of this.
You seemed so far away," Miss Honey whispered, awestruck. "Oh, I was. I was flying past the stars on silver wings," Matilda said. "It was wonderful.
If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.
I don't care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.
What's amazing is, if young people understood how doing well in school makes the rest of their life so much interesting, they would be more motivated. It's so far away in time that they can't appreciate what it means for their whole life.
All new learning looks at first like chaos.
It's hunger. It's homelessness, often. It's underfunded, under-resourced schools. It's abuse beyond the chilling. It's having overwhelmed parents and caregivers. Those are the things that young people are struggling with beyond our view.
The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read a book over I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one.
As an educator, I try to get people to be fundamentally curious and to question ideas that they might have or that are shared by others. In that state of mind, they have earned a kind of inoculation against the fuzzy thinking of these weird ideas floating around out there.
Spare the rod and spoil the child - that is true. But, beside the rod, keep an apple to give him when he has done well.
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