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I Quotes

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All I Quotes

“I taught an introductory creative writing class at Princeton last year and, in addition to the classic ‘show don’t tell’, I often told my students that their fiction needed to have ’emotional truth’ […]: a quality different from honesty and more resilient than fact, a quality that existed not in the kind of fiction that explains but in the kind of fiction that shows. All the novels I love, the ones I remember, the ones I re-read, have this empathetic human quality. And because I write the kind of fiction I like to read, when I started Half of a Yellow Sun […], I hoped that emotional truth would be its major recognizable trait. […] Successful fiction does not need to be validated by ‘real life’; I cringe whenever a writer is asked how much of a novel is ‘real’. Yet, […] to write realistic fiction about war, especially one central to the history of one’s own country, is to be constantly aware of a responsibility to something larger than art. While writing Half of a Yellow Sun, I enjoyed playing with minor things [such as inventing a train station in a town that has none]. Yet I did not play with the central events of that time. I could not let a character be changed by anything that had not actually happened. If fiction is indeed the soul of history, then I was equally committed to the fiction and the history, equally keen to be true to the spirit of the time as well as to artistic vision of it. The writing itself was a bruising experience. […] But there were also moments of extravagant joy when I recognized, in a character or moment or scene, that quality of emotional truth.” In the Shadow of Biafra (essay included in the 2007 Harper Perennial edition of Half of a Yellow Sun).”

WritingFictionHistoryHistorical FictionArtistic VisionEmotional TruthTrue FactsVerifiability
Author:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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“I taught elementary school and painted apartments for ten years. Now I write full-time and never have to change a thing I write. Every book comes to me in a flash of inspiration and takes me about two seconds to finish. The longer books, like the Time Warp Trio novels, take a little longer to write - more like four seconds.”

WritingYearsLittlesTwoBookInspirationSchoolNovelFourTaughtTenTake MeSecondsFlashApartmentElementary SchoolWarpTrios
Author:Jon Scieszka
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“I taught everyone a very bad lesson at my publisher because they actually gave me deadlines this time and I'm now meeting them. I used to say, "Here's my book; it's six years late." I'm so much faster now, and work differently. With all the years of writing, I think I still draft as obsessively, but I think back to writing. On your first story, you start at draft one. On your second story, you start at draft ten. On your third story, you start at draft one hundred. If you need a hundred and eight drafts, you may write eight instead of a hundred and eight.”

ThinkingWritingBookMeetingsDeadline
Author:Nathan Englander
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“I taught Language Arts in public schools from fourth through eighth grade, and I believe reading is the most valuable skill a person can develop. I've been a lifelong reader since an early age, exploring every genre there is. The most important thing is finding something that touches one's heart and soul. Books and the stories they tell can change a person's life. There are so many lessons within stories—lessons that children may not always see modeled at home or in everyday life. After reading April Jenkins' children's book Kirby of the Serengeti: A Lidog's Tail, I was an immediate fan. This story has everything needed to make it a classic. It carries love and compassion for everyone. Every character is included, no matter what they look like or believe. I would love to see this story read and shared everywhere young children are being taught. I can't wait for the next story in A Lidog's Tail to be released—I’ll be first in line! *Michael Jenkins, Educator, Lifelong Reader, and Proud Father of the Author”

ReadingCompassionFamilyKindnessCourageClassicBelongingEducatorPicture BookChildren S
Author:Michael Jenkins
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“I taught myself electronics when I fell for it, I taught myself music in my youthful high. I taught myself languages in sheer obsession, I taught myself aeronautics when I wanted to fly. You only see the tip of the ice-berg, Fullness of the Himalayas you'll never see. I chose to put many of my passions aside, One path, one mission - one answer to calamity.”

LearningGeniusHumanitarianExistentialismEngineeringGrowth MindsetSelf EducationAutodidactScientist PoetAutodidactism
Author:Abhijit Naskar
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“I taught myself how to draw, and I soon found out it was what I really wanted to do. I didn't think I was going to create any great masterpieces like Rembrandt or Gauguin. I thought comics was a common form of art, and strictly American in my estimation, because America was the home of the common man - and show me the common man that can't do a comic. So comics is an American form of art that anyone can do with a pencil and paper.”

ThinkingMenArtShowsHomeWantedAmericaFormFoundCan DoCommonTaughtPaperDrawsComicComic BookShow MeMasterpiecePencilsCommon ManEstimation
Author:Jack Kirby
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“I taught public school for 26 years, but I just can't do it anymore. For years I asked the school board to let me teach a curriculum that doesn't hurt kids, but they always had other fish to fry. If you hear of a job where I don't have to hurt kids to make a living, let me know. The truth is that schools don't really teach anything, but blind obedience.”

IfsKnowsYearsKidsSchoolJobsHurtTeachTaughtTruth IsLet MeBlindFishesObedienceBoardsPublic SchoolCurriculumSchool BoardBlind Obedience
Author:John Taylor Gatto
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“I taught school in the early days of my manhood and I think I know something about mothers. There is a thread of aspiration that runs strong in them. It is the fiber that has formed the most unselfish creatures who inhabit this earth. They want three things only; for their children to be fed, to be healthy, and to make the most of themselves.”

ThinkingKnowsWantChildrenRunningSchoolEarthMotherThreeStrongWomenTaughtHealthyCreaturesAmbitionAspirationFedsThreadManhoodThree ThingsFiberUnselfish
Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“I taught what was clear in Acts 11:26: SAVED = CHRISTIAN = DISCIPLE, simply meaning that you cannot be saved and you cannot be a true Christian without being a disciple also. I taught that, to be baptized, you must first make the decision to be a disciple, and then be baptized. I taught that their baptism was invalid because a retroactive understanding of repentance and baptism was not consistent with Scripture.”

FirstsChristianUnderstandingDecisionClearTaughtSavedScriptureConsistentRepentanceDiscipleBaptismBaptized
Author:Kip McKean
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