“Socrates affirmed that only that which the reader already knows can be sparked by a reading, and that the knowledge cannot be acquired through dead letters.”
The Missing First Page, p. 86.
A History of Reading (1996)
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Alberto Manguel63
writer 1948Related quotes
Malcolm Bradbury (1932–2000) English author and academic
The Sunday Times, November 29, 1987.
“To my son,
If you are reading this letter, then I am dead.”
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Source: City of Lost Souls
Michael Schmidt (poet) (1947) American poet
The Great Modern Poets, London, 2006
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Source: Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia
Context: Every book, remember, is dead until a reader activates it by reading. Every time that you read you are walking among the dead, and, if you are listening, you just might hear prophecies. Aeneas did. Odysseus did. Listen to Delany, a prophet.