#rounds

I've hung out at dozens of playgrounds, bored out of my mind, with not even a look of comfort from disapproving mothers all around me. Either they think I'm a pedophile or a deadbeat dad. That's what I get for being a single dad - suspicious looks at the playground. ↗

— Dominic West

#being #bored #comfort #dad #disapproving

Some years ago I had a conversation with a man who thought that writing and editing fantasy books was a rather frivolous job for a grown woman like me. He wasn’t trying to be contentious, but he himself was a probation officer, working with troubled kids from the Indian reservation where he’d been raised. Day in, day out, he dealt in a concrete way with very concrete problems, well aware that his words and deeds could change young lives for good or ill. I argued that certain stories are also capable of changing lives, addressing some of the same problems and issues he confronted in his daily work: problems of poverty, violence, and alienation, issues of culture, race, gender, and class... “Stories aren’t real,” he told me shortly. “They don’t feed a kid left home in an empty house. Or keep an abusive relative at bay. Or prevent an unloved child from finding ‘family’ in the nearest gang.” Sometimes they do, I tried to argue. The right stories, read at the right time, can be as important as shelter or food. They can help us to escape calamity, and heal us in its aftermath. He frowned, dismissing this foolishness, but his wife was more conciliatory. “Write down the names of some books,” she said. “Maybe we’ll read them.” I wrote some titles on a scrap of paper, and the top three were by Charles de lint – for these are precisely the kind of tales that Charles tells better than anyone. The vital, necessary stories. The ones that can change and heal young lives. Stories that use the power of myth to speak truth to the human heart. Charles de Lint creates a magical world that’s not off in a distant Neverland but here and now and accessible, formed by the “magic” of friendship, art, community, and social activism. Although most of his books have not been published specifically for adolescents and young adults, nonetheless young readers find them and embrace them with particular passion. I’ve long lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people from troubled backgrounds say that books by Charles saved them in their youth, and kept them going. Recently I saw that parole officer again, and I asked after his work. “Gets harder every year,” he said. “Or maybe I’m just getting old.” He stopped me as I turned to go. “That writer? That Charles de Lint? My wife got me to read them books…. Sometimes I pass them to the kids.” “Do they like them?” I asked him curiously. “If I can get them to read, they do. I tell them: Stories are important.” And then he looked at me and smiled. ↗

— Terri Windling

#charles-de-lint #childhood #fantasy #folklore #magical-realism

Charles de Lint creates a magical world that’s not off in a distant Neverland but here and now and accessible, formed by the “magic” of friendship, art, community, and social activism. Although most of his books have not been published specifically for adolescents and young adults, nonetheless young readers find them and embrace them with particular passion. I’ve long lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people from troubled backgrounds say that books by Charles saved them in their youth, and kept them going. ↗

— Terri Windling

#charles-de-lint #childhood #power-of-stories #reading #save-lives

I wouldn't say that I'm very similar to the character of Nathan at all. Both of us have had very different upbringings and backgrounds. I have a competitive nature like the character of Nathan. That's really easy to draw from when I'm acting; that's probably the biggest similarity. ↗

— James Lafferty

#backgrounds #biggest #both #character #competitive

If we were to do the Second Coming of Christ in color for a full hour, there would be a considerable number of stations which would decline to carry it on the grounds that a Western or a quiz show would be more profitable. ↗

— Edward R. Murrow

#christ #color #coming #considerable #considerable number

Will they attack us? Yes. Will they smear our backgrounds and distort our records? Undoubtedly. Will they lie about us, harass our families, namecall to try to intimidate us? They will. There's nothing safe about it. But is it worth it? Well, let me ask you. Is freedom worth it? Is America worth it? ↗

— Christine O'Donnell

#america #ask #attack #backgrounds #distort

In early 1993, a hostile observer might have had grounds for thinking that the Unix story was almost played out, and with it the fortunes of the hacker tribe. ↗

— Eric S. Raymond

#early #fortunes #grounds #hacker #had

All travellers who had preceded me into the Barren Grounds had relied on the abundant game, and in consequence suffered dreadful hardships; in some cases even starved to death. ↗

— Ernest Thompson Seton

#barren #cases #consequence #death #dreadful

If I get a script that's set in the jungle it goes to the bottom of the pile because I don't think the playgrounds are going to be very good there! I'm really aware of how lucky I am but I have the kind of job where I can bring my child to work. ↗

— Kate Beckinsale

#aware #because #bottom #bring #child

Even in 2012, if there's a black character in the movies or on television that's a professional, if we even hear about their backgrounds they're always 'up from the streets.' ↗

— Stephen Carter

#always #backgrounds #black #character #even