Our choice, always, is to love and understand.
People see everything through the lens of their obsessions.
Like most-maybe all- writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, by reading books.
All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another.
Too often students are being taught to read as if literature were some kind of ethics class or civics class—or worse, some kind of self-help manual. In fact, the important thing is the way the writer uses the language.
With this recitation of paraphernalia and detritus, O'Brien manages to encapsulate the experience of an army and of a particular war, of a mined and booby-trapped landscape, of cold nights and hot days, of soaking monsoons and rice paddies, and of the possibility of being shot, like Ted Lavender, suddenly and out of nowhere: not only in the middle of a sentence but in the midst of a subordinate clause.
When we humans speak, we are not merely communicating information but attempting to make an impression and achieve a goal.
My children grew up very resourceful and strong in spite of them having to live with different families and that I had to drag them all over the country with me.
Don't beat yourself up," said Charlotte. "True love can be so easily mistaken for other things-friendship, humane concern, indigestion.
It's always been a dream of mine, of exploring the living world, of classifying all the species and finding out what makes up the biosphere.
Things like guitars and ukuleles, you should never part with it, because there will probably be good, healthy times spent, just playing and writing.