Quotations: On Reading
July 30, 2008 2 Comments
“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” —C. S. Lewis to his godchild, Lucy Barfield, to whom he dedicated The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
“Don’t . . . be stingy with your underlining, because if you don’t save the book’s vibrant material now, it’ll be dead to you once you shut the cover. I’m being realistic. There’s too much to read, learn, and do in this life, and unless a volume stands out as particularly worthy, you’ll probably only thumb through it again to consult your highlights. The rest of the text might as well not be there.” —Mark Levy, Accidental Genius
“Rereading is often a shock, an encounter with an earlier self that has been revised . . . .” —David Denby, Great Books
About Doug Geivett
Hi Carol,
Lewis was a true genius of compact and moving expression. Many have tried to i imitate his style; I know of none who have succeeded. Lewis has probably said somewhere that each writer must find his or her own voice—though he no doubt would have said it better!
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Wonderful quotation, Doug. How Lewis could say something so profound in such a simple statement–an amazing thinker and writer.
–Carol Willis
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