KarenElissa’s most recent Quotables

Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel, or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen. Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.

Membership of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society increases each time the book is read and enjoyed. The wonderful thing about books--and the thing that made them such a refuge for the islanders during the occupation--is that they take us out of our time and place and understanding, and transport us not just into the world of the story, but into the world of our fellow readers, who have stories of their own.

I hope it may be said when I am dead,
"His sins were scarlet, but his books were read."

But I do think that when people say 'a learning curve,' they make a mistake. Learning to me always seems to go in a straight, ignorant line and then, every so often, takes a jump straight upward.

The great tragedy of science -- the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

Wherever they burn books, they will also burn people at the end.

What a blessing it is to love books as I love them, to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!

But my awareness of that transcendent hunger is not constant. It comes and goes, often coming in an overpowering way that makes me want to run and hide myself, sometimes coming at the most inopportune times, and too often evaporating at the moment when I most want to grasp it. So how do I deal with that elusive yearning?

For an adult reader, the possible verdicts are five: I can see this is good and I like it; I can see this is good but I don’t like it; I can see this is good, and, though at present I don’t like it, I believe with perseverance I shall come to like it; I can see this is trash but I like it; I can see this is trash and I don’t like it.

She gives gifts the way other people steal: in secret and for the thrill of it.

If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done."

The answer, for me, is to be found once again within the function of play. Given that a child is not totally withdrawn or uncontrollably violent, the play activities of a regular kindergarten group provide the best environment in which to learn about people and behavior. The five-year-old who lacks controls must be given a chance to play with children who have them.

Instead the girls forced Sylvia to change her behavior. They offered her a continued role in the play group if she conformed, or banishment if she resisted. No teacher could makes this offer. I could giver her approval for positive behavior or the time-out chair for harmful behavior. However, I could not guarantee a place within the group. The prize they offered was worth the huge effort it required for Sylvia to control herself.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

Creativity is an area in which younger people have a tremendous advantage, since they have an endearing habit of always questioning past wisdom and authority.

No one can alter truth. What we can do and should do is to search for truth and then serve it when we have found it.

The wonderful thing about science is that it can even explain things that nobody needs to know.

Picture the universe as a game with unknown rules, which is a good metaphor for how scientists do their work.

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

...as Agatha Swanburne once said, "To be kept waiting is unfortunate, but to be kept waiting with nothing interesting to read is a tragedy of Greek proportions."