Some excerpts I like from the book “Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies”
On Reading Well…
Because the nature of literary engagement is not, finally, detached. We will be addressed and changed, if we read well. We will be challenged and confronted and convicted and offended, bothered, unsettled, and sometimes bored – and even boredom has its uses as preparation for a deeper level of engagement – though more often it’s a sign of sloth.
Entering word, story or poetry… “not only as imaginative spaces or settings, but as space-time frameworks where we actually spend a portion of our real lives. And these journeys are consequential – some every bit as consequential as actual travels to real places.
On the art of Conversation…
To ask the next question is to keep the ball in play. One must be willing to expend the energy required to keep listening, to turn the next corner, and to remain open to surprise. Insofar as conversation takes us in unplanned directions, it involves at least some slight risk that we might reveal our ignorance, look foolish, find ourselves emotionally or intellectually or verbally unprepared.
