What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening
wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.
A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.
We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules.
How do I define history? It's just one fucking thing after another.
One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human. One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.