It’s when we do this foolish, time-consuming, romantic, quixotic, childlike thing called play that we are most practical, most useful, and most firmly grounded in reality, because the world itself is the most unlikely of places, and it works in the oddest of ways, and we won’t make any sense of it by doing what everybody else has done before us. It’s when we fool about with the stuff the world is made of that we make the most valuable discoveries, we create the most lasting beauty, we discover the most profound truths. The youngest children can do it, and the greatest artists, the greatest scientists do it all the time. Everything else is proofreading.
Philip Pullman in the Guardian about the basics of teaching writing
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2 replies on “Quote #83, Amen to that”
So where do the lines of experimentation and play blur. Personally, one might put Dubya in that “foolish” and “childlike” play category in the simplistic, black and white view of the world, destructability of tyranny, etc. He’s certainly not proofreading. Not sure if he reads at all. None of it is new rhetoric as far as presidents are concerned, of course. I know you’re going to respond with something about innocence, how play doesn’t really mean this, there’s no relation to consequences, but I’m confused about where that line is. As Ike Reilly says, there are some lines that can’t be crossed, but sometimes those lines get lost.
[Do you need anything from Duty Free?]
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Play Is Too Important To Not Take Seriously By Engaging In It Whenever Possible
idiolect.org.uk: quotes Archives. Amen to thatIt’s when we do this foolish, time-consuming, romantic, quixotic, childlike thing called play that we are most practical, most useful, and most firmly grounded in reality, because the world itself is the mo…