“If you walked around like David Bowie in 1973 in Reading, you'd get beaten up. The 1970s in a small town was more like the 1950s.. and that's the truth. The backdrop was probably Victorian.” IfsReadingTownsBeatenSmall TownVictorianBowieBackdrop Author:Ricky Gervais
“I grew up on Stephen King, reading the books. I love the small town, 1950s feel to it, that nostalgia, and that old America. What happens when something weird starts happening to all these people, something other-worldly, something demonic?” PeopleFeelsBookHappensAmericaReadingGrewKingsGrew UpHappeningsTownsNostalgiaWorldlySmall TownDemonic Author:Alexander Koch
“I remember one letter from a girl in a midwestern town who read one of my books and thought she had discovered it- that no one had ever read it or knew about it. Then one day in her local library she found cards for one or two of my other books. They were full of names- the books were borrowed all the time. She resented this a bit and then walked around the town looking in everybody's face and wondering if they were the ones who were reading my books. That is someone I write for.” IfsWritingTwoBookRememberFacesGirlReadingFoundNamesBitsWonderOne DayLettersTownsLibraryLocalsCardsBorrowed Author:J. P. Donleavy
“If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already. It is but a small matter whether you read with anyone or not. I did not read with anyone. Get the books, and read and study them till you understand them in their principal features; and that is the main thing. It is of no consequence to be in a large town while you are reading. I read at New Salem, which never had three hundred people living in it. The books, and your capacity for understanding them, are just the same in all places.” PeopleIfsBookMatterDoneThreeReadingUnderstandingHalfStudyHundredConsequenceCapacityTownsDeterminedLawyerFeaturesPrincipalSalem Book:The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln Source: The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln
“But, for the role of Sarah Linden, we saw everybody. Everybody wanted this role. Every female actor in town really wanted to play a real woman and be in this drama. It was incredible that all these women were coming in. And then, Mireille [Enos] walked in the door and she was reading the lines that I had written, and I saw her in that field. I was like, "Wow, she's the one."” RealPlayWantedReadingActorsLinesRolesSawsWrittenDoorsFieldsDramaFemaleTownsIncrediblesWowReal Women Author:Veena Sud
“Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest.” BookReadingInterestCommunityTownsDemocraticLibraryThought ProvokingRequirementsLibrarianEntrancesLibrary BooksLibraries And Librarians Author:Lady Bird Johnson
“One of the things that's amazing about reading the private writing of these folks is that they enthusiastically describe things which we have now seen, and which are widely regarded as unappealing. They'll write, "It's going to be beautiful, we're going to have a town of 1,000 stone buildings that are all identical." And we as modern readers think, we've seen that; that's bad Soviet architecture or a public housing project. Nobody fantasizes about living there.” ThinkingWritingBeautifulReadingModernBuildingReaderProjectsStonesTownsFolksArchitectureSovietHousingIdenticalPublic Housing Author:Christine Jennings
“For people who are coming out of an oral tradition, it is very exciting to get into reading and writing and it is quite interesting how frequently people want to write their own story. Sometimes it is straight history - this is how we came about, how our town was created, a lot of that kind of effort, as soon as literacy came. The first thing you wanted to do was to put something down about who you are or how you are related to you neighbors. Then the next stage would be the stories, the cultural part of the story: this is the kind of world our ancestors made or aspired to.” PeopleWorldWantWritingFirstsKindMadeSometimesStoriesWould BeWantedReadingNextInterestingEffortStageTraditionExcitingTownsWho You AreNeighborRelatedComing OutAncestorLiteracyReading And WritingOur TownOral Tradition Author:Chinua Achebe
“All of us grow up in particular realities - a home, family, a clan, a small town, a neighborhood. Depending upon how we're brought up, we are either deeply aware of the particular reading of reality into which we are born, or we are peripherally aware of it.” HomeRealityReadingGrowsBornFamilyGrowing UpParticularTownsNeighborhoodSmall TownClans Author:Chaim Potok