I spent much of my childhood in northern Quebec, and often there was no radio, no television - there wasn't a lot to entertain us. When it rained, I stayed inside reading, writing, drawing.
Interpretation
Engaging in creative activities like reading and writing nurtures the mind during times of limited entertainment.
In this quote, Margaret Atwood reflects on her childhood experiences growing up in northern Quebec, where the absence of modern entertainment sources like radio and television forced her to immerse herself in creative pursuits. This highlights the importance of self-directed learning and creativity, suggesting that limitations can foster ingenuity and personal growth.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of creativity in education, you might use this quote to illustrate how limited resources can encourage imaginative pursuits.
If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.
I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even make a good ditch-digger, I'd start tearing apart the sewer-system, trying to pick-axe and unearth all those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave in the paper-mines for all time.
We love each other, that’s true whatever it means, but we aren’t good at it; for some it’s a talent, for others only an addiction.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.
The readers are the ones who let us live our dreams. I try to write books which are really compelling - that you'd take on vacation and rather than going out, you'd read in your hotel room because you had to find out what happened. Hopefully that's what readers are responding to.
Literature taught me that I wasn't alone, that I could become a writer if I worked at it, that my story mattered. Whether a young reader becomes a writer or not, they deserve to know that their story, whatever it may be, is important.
I was 17 the first time I set foot in a classroom, but 10 years later, I would graduate from Cambridge with a Ph.D. 'Educated' is the story of how I came by my education. It is also the story of how I lost my family.
Through my education, I didn't just develop skills, I didn't just develop the ability to learn, but I developed confidence.
Praise your child explicitly for how capable they are of learning rather than telling them how smart they are.
There are several places in Vietnam where they're teaching computer science from second grade in class, so they don't have a gender divide because everybody is expected to program.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.