“I was too much of a Bronx kid to read Emerson or Hawthorne.”
“That life can be a rich place, comprised of the highbrow and the lowdown, the casual and the ambitious, private reading and public sharing. As a parent in that landscape, you'll need to be sometimes traveling companion, sometimes guides, sometimes off in your own part of the forest. A relationship between readers is complicated and cannot be reduced to such "strategies" as mandatory reading aloud, a commendable family activity whose pleasure has been codified into virtue, transforming the nightly bedtime story into a harbinger of everybody's favorite thing: homework.”
Source: A Family of Readers: The Book Lover's Guide to Children's and Young Adult Literature
“(She) could have read for hours, except that recently she had discovered holes and crevices between the words which she immediately had to fill with her own ideas until she was fed up with patching up the makeshift constructs.”
“But the main reason you should read this is that I don't see why I should have to know all these terrible, terrible things and you should get off scot free.”
Source: How Animals Have Sex
“My blood. You’re a vampire… I’m a witch… you guys always want us. And you stalk me, always."
"True. But you like that.”
Source: Bewitched
“an incredibly beautiful read”
Source: Mariners 2001: A Joy Ride into the Record Books
“Colleges should offer lots of optional life-enriching experiences, like intramural basketball and a place to sunbathe. But reading books, like basketball or sunbathing, is a leisure activity, neither more nor less admirable than any other, and colleges should not pretend otherwise.”
Source: The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics
“And what is your name going to be?" Ms. Isle asks me as we are ending our session. "You need to think of a stage name. Something that will set you apart. A name that will cause the judges to sit up and think, now she is someone special!"
I shrug. “I don’t want to be anyone else. I’m just Brooke.”
“Be aware, everyone else is coming up with a stage name. That’s part of picking out your brand. Just Brooke isn’t going to get any attention.”
“Maybe not," I agree. "But my singing will!”
Source: Just Brooke
“What kind of reader does this book want me to be?" is useful precisely because it helps you find your way to meaning even when you dislike or hate or are outraged by a book.”
Source: What Can I Get Out of This?: Teaching and Learning in a Classroom Full of Skeptics
“...everything is horror, if you read it right.”
Source: The Ending Writes Itself