Category Archives: Quotes

As every second post on this site is a quote. You’ll find a deep and broad variety of quotes under this category, which overlap with several other tags and categories. Many of the quotes are larded with links for deeper reading on the subject of the quote, or connections between the subject of the quotes and other people, things, or ideas. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

An Omnibus of Rotten Reviews: Philip Roth

Posted on January 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Portnoy’s Complaint (1971)

This looks and sounds like a Jewish novel. It isn’t. Or, if it is, it is not a good one, a true one…it is finally a definitive something or other. I regret that it is not a definitive something.

America

The best that can be said of Roth’s accomplishment is that Mama Portnoy is a caricature drawn by a master cartoonist, but she’s not more than that…the main trouble with the Jewish family theme is that it has been overwritten.

The Nation

Our Gang (1971)

Nixon’s rough treatment at Roth’s hands may very well invite more sympathy for him than anything since the Checkers speech.

Saturday Review

The Great American Novel (1973)

Roth has, unfortunately, got into such a shouting match with his readers that some of us are going to have to start shouting back.

Encounter

My Life as a Man (1974)

…a totally solipsistic novel, which may well make it a perfect expression of the times.

Commentary“

Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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Term of Art: Mental Age

Posted on January 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

“mental age n.: A child’s performance on a test of mental ability expressed as the average age of children who achieved the same level of performance in a standardization sample. Thus a 10-year-old child who achieves the same score as the average 12-year-old child in a standardization sample has a mental age of 12. The concept was introduced in 1905 by the French psychologists Alfred Binet (1857-1911) and Theodore Simon (1873-1961). See also Binet-Simon scale, IQ. Compare chronological age, social age. MA abbrev.”

Excerpted from: Colman, Andrew M., ed. Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

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Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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Learning Support: Writing about Reading

Posted on January 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

[You can also take this as a Word Document if you prefer.]

Writing About Reading: Some Openers

  • I was surprised when/angry about/satisfied with/moved by/incredulous at…
  • I liked how the author
  • I noticed how the author
  • I don’t get why the author
  • If I were the author I would have
  • I’d compare this author to
  • This book reminded me of
  • The main character
  • The character development
  • The narrative voice
  • The structure of this book
  • The climax of the plot
  • The resolution of the main character’s problem
  • The genre of this book
  • I’d say a theme of this book is
  • I wish that
  • I didn’t agree with
  • I understood
  • I couldn’t understand
  • Why did
  • This is how I read this book
  • I rated this one _____ because
  • And always: I was struck by/interested in/convinced by this passage: “….” It shows…about this author’s writing.

Excerpted from: Atwell, Nancie. The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers. New York: Scholastic, 2007.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Quotes, Reference

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The Tripartite Revolutionary Values of the French Revolution

Posted on January 3, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Liberty * Equality * Fraternity

Nothing has ever quite matched the elan of idealism expressed in these tripartite watchwords of the French Revolution, which became the national motto of the nation. They are attributed to a Parisian printer, Antoine-Francois Momoro, though at the time of the Revolution there were several variants, and lists might include Amitie (Friendship), Charite (Charity) or Union–and there was often a qualifier–ou la Mort (or death). The latter was discreetly dropped after the Reign of Terror.”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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Steve Wozniak on the Digital Age

Posted on January 3, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Never trust a computer you can’t throw out of a window.”

Stephen Wozniak

Quoted in Newsbytes, 26 Sept. 1997

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Term of Art: Argot

Posted on January 3, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Argot: The slang of a restricted, often suspect social group: ‘They have their own argot: they bimble, yomp, or tab across the peat and couth a shirt in readiness for a Saturday night bob with the Bennies (locals)’ (Colin Smith, Observer, 26b May 1985, writing about British soldiers in the Falkland Islands). See CANT, JARGON , POLARI, ROMANI.

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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Sfumato

Posted on January 2, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Sfumato: (it., evaporated) The soft gradation of light tones into dark ones, such that all sharply defined contours are eliminated. About light and shade in painting, Leonardo da Vinci wrote that they should blend imperceptibly,’without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke.’ Compare CHIAROSCURO.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

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Daniel Willingham on Vocabulary and Reading

Posted on January 2, 2020 | Leave a comment

“We have a pretty low tolerance for reading unknown words. And writers use a lot of words, many more than speakers do. If I’m talking about my cheap friend, I might use the word cheap three times within a few sentences. But writers like to mix things up, so my friend will be ‘frugal,’ ‘stingy,’ ‘thrifty,’ and ‘tight.’ Texts that students typically encounter in school have about 85,000 different words. Somehow we need to ensure that children have a broad enough vocabulary so that they are not constantly colliding with unknown words.”

Excerpted from: Willingham, Daniel T. The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017.

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Mari Evans on Education

Posted on December 20, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Education is the jewel casting brilliance into the future.”

Mari Evans

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

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5 Freedoms of Psychoanalysis

Posted on December 20, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Unimportant * Irrelevant * Nonsensical * Embarrassing * Distressing

Patients undergoing Freudian psychoanalysis must be free to say whatever comes into their head, however unimportant, irrelevant, nonsensical, embarrassing, or distressing it might seem to be, and yet be sure of receiving the same level of intent listening from their analyst.”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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