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Quote by Susan Orlean

“The biggest library fire in American history had been upstaged by the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown. The books burned while most of us were waiting to see if we were about to witness the end of the world.”

Quote by Susan Orlean

Work

The Library Book

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Author

Susan Orlean
Susan Orlean

Susan Orlean is an American journalist known for her distinctive writing style and in-depth exploration of complex topics. Her work often focuses on unusual individuals and events, characterized by its insightful and accessible approach. more

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“I thought about my very first paying gig at Earnest Way and how nervous I was then and how I’m still afraid now...but for so many different reasons. I think in the beginning, I was afraid of failing. Now, I’m scared of the critics being right about me... I realize then... I need to stop running, quit being afraid and just surrender to my passion.”

“આખું જગત તમને દોડાવતું રહેશે. ફક્ત કલા તમને અટકી જવાનું કહેશે. દરેક જણ ઉતાવળ કરાવશે. ફક્ત સાહિત્ય તમને ધીરજ રાખવાનું કહેશે. સંગીત તમને નિરાંત શીખવાડશે. પુસ્તકો કહેશે કે ‘ટેક યોર ટાઈમ. કોઈ જલ્દી નથી.’ જો જગત અને કલામાંથી કોઈ એકની પસંદગી કરવી પડે, તો હંમેશા કલાની વાત સાંભળજો.”

“All texts are, always, to various degrees, contradictory, multifarious, polysemic. This is not license for epistemological anarchy, according to which anything, any reading, always goes. But it is to acknowledge that no next, whatever its author's (or reader's) intent, can have a simple, singular meaning. Every text will generate something like a tangle of meanings and connotations, more or less concentrated around a core, more or less protean or stable, according to political, social and linguistic context. As one playful formulation has it, rather than being straightforwardly 'about' something in particular, every text is inevitably surrounded by a 'vibrating aboutness cluster'. The context, content and range of that cluster must be accounted for as part of an analysis. Some writers in some situations may strain against rhetorical shenanigans, for example striving for the specificity of logical notation: the cluster of reasonable meanings of such texts may well thus be less diffuse than for those which, say, revel in pun and performance. But a text with one 'true' meaning is a chimera. Analysis is not closure, but an attempt to discern reasonable meaning(s) close to the core of that cluster, and to contest those that range too far from it.”