“Anyone would think we were some kind of free education service,' grumbled Joyce, having disposed of the child and returned to her central eyrie. 'That's just what we are,' said Helen. Joyce shot her a look in which surprise and indignation were nicely fused.” EducationLearningTeachingServiceLibrariesLibrarians Book:Passing On Source: Passing On
“I can remember the lush spring excitement of language in childhood. Sitting in church, rolling it around my mouth like marbles -- tabernacle and pharisee and parable, trespasses and Babylon and covenant.... I collected the names of stars and of plants: Arcturus and Orion and Betelgeuse, melilot and fumitory and toadflax. There was no end to it, apparently -- it was like the grains of sand on the shore, the leaves on the great ash outside my bedroom window, immeasurable and unconquerable.” LanguageLearningChildhoodWordsPronunciation Book:Moon Tiger Source: Moon Tiger
“Books are the mind's ballast, for so many of us--the cargo that makes us what we are, a freight that is ephemeral and indelible, half-forgotten but leaving an imprint. They are nutrition, too. My old age fear is not being able to read--the worst deprivation. Or no longer having my books around me: the familiar, eclectic, explanatory assemblage that hitches me to the wide world, that has freed me from the prison of myself, that has helped me to think, and to write.” ThinkingLifeReadingLearningBooksPersonalityAgingOld AgeLibraries Book:Ammonites And Leaping Fish: A Life In Time Source: Ammonites And Leaping Fish: A Life In Time
“...collective memory is unevenly distributed: some people have a rich and deep resource, for others it is minimal. A matter of education, and also of inclination. But however minimal, however threadbare, it is ballast of a kind. We all need that seven-eighths of the iceberg, the ballast of the past, a general past, the place from which we came. That is why history should be taught in school, to all children, as much of it as possible. If you have no sense of the past, no access to the historical narrative, you are afloat, untethered; you cannot see yourself as a part of the narrative, you cannot place yourself within a context. You will not have an understanding of time, and a respect for memory and its subtle victory over the remorselessness of time.” PastTimeUnderstandingEducationHistoryLearningMemory Book:Ammonites And Leaping Fish: A Life In Time Source: Ammonites And Leaping Fish: A Life In Time