Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.
Stephen KingRead
Not every book has to be loaded with symbolism, irony, or musical language, but it seems to me that every book-at least every one worth reading-is about something.
Interpretation
Every worthwhile book conveys a central theme or message, even if it's straightforward.
In this quote, Stephen King emphasizes that while literary techniques like symbolism and irony have their place, the essence of a good book lies in its engagement with a specific idea or theme. He suggests that a book should impart meaning and insight, making it valuable to the reader, rather than being just a complex arrangement of words.
In practice
Use this quote to spark a discussion in a literature class about the purpose of reading.
Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.
Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.
Hairstyles change, and skirt lengths, and slang, but high school administrations? Never.
Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.
That's the day's business. Thinking. Thinking and isolation, because it doesn't matter if you pass the time of day with someone or not; in the end, you're alone. He seemed to have put in as many miles in his brain as he had with his feet. The thoughts kept coming and there was no way to deny them.
Late last night and the night before, tommyknockers, tommyknockers knocking on my door. I wanna go out, don't know if I can 'cuz I'm so afraid of the tommyknocker man.
Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.
What we want... is for students to get more interested in things, more involved in them, more engaged in wanting to know; to have projects that they can get excited about and work on over long periods of time, to be stimulated to find things out on their own.
Governments decide they know best and they're going to tell you what to do. The trouble is that education doesn't go on in the committee rooms of our legislative buildings. It happens in classrooms and schools, and the people who do it are the teachers and the students. And if you remove their discretion, it stops working.
Heart and head are the constituent parts of character; temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and, therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible of being corrected and improved.
Play is a child's work and this is not a trivial pursuit.
I am an earnest advocate of manual training and trade teaching for black boys, and for white boys, too.
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