The exercise of letters is sometimes linked to the ambition to contruct an absolute book, a book of books that includes the others... like a Platonic archetype, an object whose virtues are not diminished by the passage of time.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Writing prejudicial, off-putting reviews is a precise exercise in applied black magic. The reviewer can draw free- floating disagr...eeable associations to a book by implying that the book is completely unimportant without saying exactly why, and carefully avoiding any clear images that could capture the reader's full attention.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Reading, in contrast to sitting before the screen, is not a purely passive exercise. The child, particularly one who reads a book ...dealing with real life, has nothing before it but the hieroglyphics of the printed page. Imagination must do the rest; and imagination is called upon to do it. Not so the television screen. Here everything is spelled out for the viewer, visually, in motion, and in all three dimensions. No effort of imagination is called upon for its enjoyment.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And for the citation of so many authors, 'tis the easiest thing in nature. Find out one of these books with an alphabetical index,... and without any farther ceremony, remove it verbatim into your own ... there are fools enough to be thus drawn into an opinion of the work; at least, such a flourishing train of attendants will give your book a fashionable air, and recommend it for sale.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am told that Duclos' book is not in vogue in Paris, and that it is being violently criticized, apparently because readers unders...tand it; and being intelligible is no longer the fashion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To get time for civic work, for exercise, for neighborhood projects, reading or meditation, or just plain time to themselves, moth...ers need to hold out against the fairly recent but surprisingly entrenched myth that "good mothers" are constantly with their children. They will have to speak out at last about the demoralizing effect of spending day after day with small children, no matter how much they love them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is a Book By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,... On which the eyes of God not rarely look,
A chronicle of actions just and bright-- There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine; And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »