Truth from Fiction

Truth hunting is hard work. Sometimes it doesn’t show up at all in the news. Sometimes you have to go to written words—some of them quite old—to find it. Because truth doesn’t change, so the words that bear it will last.

So, today are some things from my other, non-Spherical Model quote file. Today’s collection is mainly about words, or about reading or writing—both of which I do in this truth-hunting life’s work. (The video down a little is our puppy getting her first taste of literature.)

 

 

Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.—Neil Gaiman

  

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.”―Sir Francis Bacon

 

There is no Frigate like a Book

By Emily Dickinson

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry –

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll –

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human Soul –

 

 

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.—William Wordsworth

 

 

I don’t run out of things to say. I write like I talk. And you never get talker’s block.—Seth Godin

 

 

At the dawn of time, Truth was wandering the world when she came upon a town and first saw people. Delighted, she entered the town to speak to them, but when they saw her, they ran away screaming in terror.

Dismayed and discouraged, she left the town. Soon she came across the most beautiful being she had ever seen, clothed in lovely robes of shimmering color. The being noticed how sad Truth was and asked the reason.

“When I saw the people, I was glad because I had so much to tell them” Truth said. “But when they saw me, they were afraid and ran away.”

“Well, of course, they ran away,” the being said, “for you are naked and people are greatly afraid of the naked truth. My name is Story, and I have many of these beautiful robes. Here, take one and let us go into the town together.”

When the people saw Truth clothed in the beautiful garment of Story, they greeted her warmly and asked her to stay.”

—A folk tale adapted by Tom Burger, 1999 

  

 

Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.—G. K. Chesterton

 

 

"Destiny is important, see, but people go wrong when they think it controls them. It's the other way around."—Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

 

 

If you love to read, or learn to love reading, you will have an amazing life. Period. Life will always have hardships, pressure, and incredibly annoying people, but books will make it all worthwhile. In books, you will find your North Star, and you will find you, which is why you are here.

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Books are paper ships, to all the worlds, to ancient Egypt, outer space, eternity, into the childhood of your favorite musician, and — the most precious stunning journey of all — into your own heart, your own family, your own history and future and body.

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Out of these flat almost two-dimensional boxes of paper will spring mountains, lions, concerts, galaxies, heroes. You will meet people who have been all but destroyed, who have risen up and will bring you with them. Books and stories are medicine, plaster casts for broken lives and hearts, slings for weakened spirits. And in reading, you will laugh harder than you ever imagined laughing, and this will be magic, heaven, and salvation. I promise.—Anne Lamott on the value of reading, Source: A Velocity of Being: Letters to A Young Reader

 

 

The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.—Albert Einstein

 

 

Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.—Terry Pratchett, Introduction to the Encyclopedia of Fantasy

 

 

The phrase “Someone ought to do something” was not, by itself, a helpful one. People who used it never added the rider “and that someone is me.”—Terry Pratchett, The Hogfather

 

 

"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance."—Thomas Sowell

 

 

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.—Terry Pratchett

 

 

Rather than reading the works of your mentors, learn who they looked up to and read their works.—Scott Newstok, PhD

 

 

You never truly understand something until you can explain it to your grandmother.—Albert Einstein

 

 

Reading is like breathing in; writing is like breathing out; and storytelling is what links both: it is the soul of literacy.—Pam Allyn

 

 

You can’t go back and change the beginning,

but you can start where you are and change the ending.—C. S. Lewis

 

 

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know. So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then, because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.—Ernest Hemingway

 

 

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.—Leonardo da Vinci