Lit Up Quotes

“So the obvious, then: the liberal arts in general, and especially reading seriously, offer an opening to a wider life, the powers of active citizenship (including the willingness to vote); reading strengthens perception, judgment, and character; it creates understanding of other people and oneself, maybe kindliness and wit, and certainly the ability to endure solitude, both in the common sense of empty-room loneliness and the cosmic sense of empty-universe loneliness. Reading fiction carries you further into imagination and invention than you would be capable of on your own, takes you into other people’s lives, and often, by reflection, deeper into your own. I will indulge a resounding tautology: every great civilization, including ours, has had a great literature and great readers. If literature matters less to young people than it once did, we are all in trouble.”
― David Denby, Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools. Twenty-four Books That Can Change Lives.

“But after children leave their parents' arms, school is still the necessary place for knowledge and soul to spring into life and good teachers are still the instigators of that miracle.”
― David Denby, Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools. Twenty-four Books That Can Change Lives.

“If you don't read books, and if you don't get consumed by the physical and moral life of men and women in fiction and history, too many facets of yourself may never come into being.”
― David Denby, Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools. Twenty-four Books That Can Change Lives.

“A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil.”
― David Denby, Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools. Twenty-four Books That Can Change Lives.

“But what about high school? How do you establish reading pleasure in busy, screen-loving teenagers—and in particular, pleasure in reading serious work? Is it still possible to raise teenagers who can’t live without reading something good? Or is that idea absurd? And could the struggle to create such hunger have any effect on the character of boys and girls?”
― David Denby, Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools. Twenty-four Books That Can Change Lives.

“After a bit, Mr. Leon said, 'This idea that you don't necessarily act in your own best interests struck me very hard when I first read Dostoevsky. Each man may choose to do things against his own interests because it preserves his personality.”
― David Denby, Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools. Twenty-four Books That Can Change Lives.