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Quote by Anna Quindlen

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How Reading Changed My Life

In 'How Reading Changed My Life,' the author delves into the profound influence that reading has had on their personal growth and worldview. The narrative is a compilation of personal anecdotes, reflections, and the author's journey through various literary works, illustrating how reading has shaped their understanding of the world and themselves. more

Author

Anna Quindlen
Anna Quindlen

Anna Quindlen, born on July 8, 1952, is a renowned American author known for her insightful social commentary and delicate portrayal of everyday life. Her writing career began as a newspaper editor, later transitioning to novel writing, which has been well-received by readers. more

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“In a world where we spend ever more of our time staring at screens, blocking out even our most intimate and proximate human contacts, public institutions with open-door policies compel us to pay close attention to people nearby. After all, places like libraries are saturated with strangers, people whose bodies are different, whose styles are different, who make different sounds, speak different languages, give off different, sometimes noxious, smells. Spending time in public social infrastructures requires learning to deal with these differences in a civil manner.”

AttentionCivilityDifferenceStrangersSocial InfrastructurePublic Libraries
Book:Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life
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“The accessible physical space of the library is not the only factor that makes it work well as social infrastructure. The institution's extensive programming, organized by a professional staff that upholds a principled commitment to openness and inclusivity, fosters social cohesion among clients who might otherwise keep to themselves.”

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“I exercised my mental muscles in the library, and lo and behold, I transformed myself from a casual reader into a focused one. So it was more than just free books, but also free space and a culture that reinforced settling down, deep reading, thinking, imagining, and exploring with my mind. I am no doubt a writer today because I had a place to go as a kid, where I knew stories were essential, and where everybody also reveled in the wonder within books.”

ReadingLibraryReading BooksLibrariesPublic LibraryImportance Of ReadingSergio TroncosoPublic Libraries
Book:Crossing Borders: Personal Essays
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“Public libraries have succumbed to the same pressures that have overwhelmed the basic cultural functions of museums and universities, aims that should remain what they were, not because the old ways are always better but because in this case they were the right ones: the sustaining of standards, the preservation of quality, the conservation of literacy's history, the education of the heart, eye and mind. Now libraries devote far too much of their restricted space, and their limited budget, to public amusement. It is a fact of philistine life that amusement is where the money is.”

Public Libraries
Author:William H. Gass
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“Their words also make it a lot easier for people to justify that shift -- to convince themselves that surfing the Web is a suitable, even superior, substitute for deep reading and other forms of calm and attentive thought. In arguing that books are archaic and dispensable, Federman and Shirky provide the intellectual cover that allows thoughtful people to slip comfortably in the permanent state of distractedness that defines the online life.”

BookReadingFocusInternetConcentrationLiteracyDeep ThoughtEbookCulturalWebDeep ReadingEreadingPost LiteraryWeb Surfing
Book:The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
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