Anne White > Anne's Quotes

“I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.”
― Chaim Potok, The Chosen

“We do not list “humility” among our school subjects or put it on a transcript, but that is actually the little secret of classical education. The things that make it truly classical, truly worthwhile to pursue, aren’t school subjects at all, but principles that add depth and cohesion to everything we study in all areas of the curriculum. ❧ ❧ ❧”
― Karen Glass, Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition

“By all means," cried the bard, his eyes lighting up. "A Fflam to the rescue! Storm the castle! Carry it by assault! Batter down the gates!"
"There's not much of it left to storm," said Eilonwy.
"Oh?" said Fflewddur, with disappointment. "Very well, we shall do the best we can.”
― Lloyd Alexander, The Book of Three

“I did not love cold harmony and perfect regularity of organization; what I sought was variety, mystery, tradition, the venerable, the awful. I despised sophisters and calculators; I was groping for faith, honor, and prescriptive loyalties. I would have given any number of neo-classical pediments for one poor battered gargoyle.”
― Russell Kirk

“Few pay attention to the histories and the root pictures words can release. These neglected qualities are there, however, and the poets have always found them a self-delighting source of excitement.”
― John Ciardi, How Does a Poem Mean?

“Self-education is the only possible education; the rest is mere veneer laid on the surface of a child's nature.”
― Charlotte Mason

“Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.”
― William Knowlton Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“Is there not glory enough in living the days given to us? You should know there is adventure in simply being among those we love and the things we love, and beauty, too.”
― Lloyd Alexander, The Black Cauldron

“What a pity every child couldn't learn to read under a willow tree...”
― Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond

“I wish I knew when I was going to die,' ninety-six-year-old Dame Frances Anne often said, 'I wish I knew.'
'Why, Dame?'
'Then I should know what to read next.”
― Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede

“Most of us are called on to perform tasks far beyond what we can do. Our capabilities seldom match our aspirations, and we are often woefully unprepared. To this extent, we are all Assistant Pig-Keepers at heart.”
― Lloyd Alexander, The Book of Three

“The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that things are not mended again.”
― Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country

“What greater violence can be done to the poet’s experience than to drag it into an early morning classroom and to go after it as an item on its way to a Final Examination? …It is the experience, not the Final Examination, that counts.”
― John Ciardi, How Does a Poem Mean?

“We should always choose our books as God chooses our friends, just a bit beyond us, so that we have to do our level best to keep up with them.”
― Oswald Chambers

“Every word has a history. Every word has an image locked into its roots.”
― John Ciardi

“It does not mean that adults think of a child as a blank sheet of paper on which they imprint their ideas, impressions, and knowledge. Neither does it mean leaving the child unattended like a weed growing in a sidewalk. It is a balanced understanding of education as the provision of possibilities for a person to build relationships with a vast number of things and thoughts.”
― Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, For the Children's Sake

“The world is a fabric woven of mysteries, and a mystery is a provocation to our humanity that cannot be dissolved by googling a few more bits of information.”
― Stratford Caldecott

“There is more reason to say grace before beginning a book than there is to say it before beginning to dine.”
― Charles Lamb

“Cooking is not a mystery.”
― Edward Espe Brown, Tassajara Cooking

“Keep reading. It's one of the most marvelous adventures that anyone can have.”
― Lloyd Alexander

“Dinner over, we produced a bundle of pens, a copious supply of ink, and a goodly show of writing and blotting paper. For there was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”
― Mortimer J. Adler

“To agree without understanding is inane. To disagree without understanding is impudent.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

“I like to think coffee comes from beans; therefore, it’s a vegetable.”
― Jim Gaffigan, Food: A Love Story

“...a blink of an eye in itself is nothing.But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant...”
― Chaim Potok, The Chosen

“In times of storm and tempest, of indecision and desolation, a book already known and loved makes better reading than something new and untried ... nothing is so warming and companionable.”
― Elizabeth Goudge

“What is the scent of water?"
"Renewal. The goodness of God coming down like dew.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water

“Every child, every person needs to know that they are a source of joy; every child, every person, needs to be celebrated. Only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed.”
― Jean Vanier, Becoming Human

“When we love and respect people, revealing to them their value, they can begin to come out from behind the walls that protect them.”
― Jean Vanier, Finding Peace

“The response to war is to live like brothers and sisters. The response to injustice is to share. The response to despair is a limitless trust and hope. The response to prejudice and hatred is forgiveness. To work for community is to work for humanity. To work for peace is to work for a true political solution; it is to work for the Kingdom of God. It is to work to enable every one to live and taste the secret joys of the human person united to the eternal.”
― Jean Vanier, Community and Growth