It is hard to look at the tumor and not come away with the feeling that one has encountered a powerful monster in its infancy
Siddhartha MukherjeeRead
I think the cardinal rule of learning to write is learning to read first. I learned to write by learning to read.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Reading is essential for developing writing skills.
The quote emphasizes the foundational relationship between reading and writing. Siddhartha Mukherjee suggests that in order to become a proficient writer, one must first immerse themselves in reading, as it provides the necessary exposure to language, style, and ideas that influence one's own writing abilities.
Themes
ReadingWritingLearningEducationLiteracy
In practice
Example use cases
A teacher can use this quote to highlight the importance of reading in a writing curriculum.
More from Siddhartha Mukherjee
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One day, I had a patient who was going through chemotherapy who came to me and said, 'I'm going to go on with what I'm doing, but I need you to tell me what it is that I'm fighting.'
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Nearly every one of the genes that turns out to be a key player in cancer has a vital role in the normal physiology of an organism. The genes that enable our brains and blood cells to develop are implicated in cancer.
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It remains an astonishing, disturbing fact that in America - a nation where nearly every new drug is subjected to rigorous scrutiny as a potential carcinogen, and even the bare hint of a substance's link to cancer ignites a firestorm of public hysteria and media anxiety - one of the most potent and common carcinogens known to humans can be freely bought and sold at every corner store for a few dollars.
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It felt—nearly twenty-five hundred years after Hippocrates had naively coined the overarching term karkinos—that modern oncology was hardly any more sophisticated in its taxonomy of cancer.
Siddhartha MukherjeeRead
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To push for excellence today without continuing to push for access for less privileged students is to undermine the crucial but incomplete gains that have been made. Equity and excellence cannot be divided.
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Growth and psychic development are therefore guided by: the absorbent mind, the nebulae and the sensitive periods, with their respective mechanisms. It is these that are hereditary and characteristic of the human species. But the promise they hold can only be fulfilled through the experience of free activity conducted in the environment.
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If you wish to learn swimming you have to go into the water and if you wish to become a problem solver you have to solve problems.
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