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What He Said...
Jan. 25th, 2013 12:13 amI have so much respect for Carl Sagan - he had an IQ of about 2 billion, yet he looked at the universe with the wonder and delight of a newborn, fascinated and thrilled by it all. He was eloquent in an almost child-like manner, and never talked down to poor plebs like me. This is a marvelous quote of his, and one that fills me with awe and humility:
What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you.
Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time.
A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
In future, if I falter, if my faith in my ability wanes, I will remember this: When I am inspired, and the Muse is driving, I am capable of working magic.
What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you.
Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time.
A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
In future, if I falter, if my faith in my ability wanes, I will remember this: When I am inspired, and the Muse is driving, I am capable of working magic.
