#era

America’s education system has become less a ladder of opportunity than a structure to transmit inequity from one generation to the next. ↗

— Nicholas Kristof

#generations #inequality #inequity #opportunity #united-states

I'll fight when needed, revel when there's an occasion, mourn when there is greif and die if my time comes...But I will not let anyone use me against my will. ↗

— Christopher Paolini

#self-determination #determination

Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye? I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here. ↗

— Chaim Potok

#life

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same. ↗

— Carlos Castaneda

#either #emphasizes #happy #make #miserable

Les personnages de nos autres vies sont des fantômes que la littérature fait revivre. ↗

— Olivier Weber

#africa #colonialism #french-writer #literature #report

Too many writers are trying to write with too shallow an education. Whether they go to college or not is immaterial...a good writer needs a sense of the history of literature to be successful as a writer. ↗

— James Kisner

#writing #education

I regained my soul through literature after those times I'd lost it to wild-eyed gypsy girls on the European streets. ↗

— Roman Payne

#europe #fortune #fortunes #gypsies #gypsy

It was a time I slept in many rooms, called myself by many names. I wandered through the quarters of the city like alluvium wanders the river banks. I knew every kind of joy, ascents of every hue. Mine was the twilight and the morning. Mine was a world of rooftops and love songs. ↗

— Roman Payne

#literature #payne #roman #rooftop-soliloquy #love

If the word doesn't exist, invent it; but first be sure it doesn't exist. ↗

— Charles Baudelaire

#words #writing #literature

Don’t just teach your children to read… Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything. ↗

— George Carlin

#children-s-literature #literature