“I don’t know how long I sat there reading about it, but at some point I’d read enough. I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. I suppose I was in shock, but whether it was the shock of learning about something horrific, or the shock of learning about my own ignorance, I’m not sure.”
Source: Educated (2018), Chapter 17, “To Keep it Holy” (p. 157; the reference is to the Holocaust)
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Tara Westover17
American historian and author 1986Related quotes
Britney Spears (1981) American singer, dancer and actress
Diane Sawyer interview http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/sixtyminutes/stories/2003_11_23/story_1024.asp, 60 Minutes (23 November 2003)
“I suppose the shock of recognition is one of the nastiest shocks of all.”
Donna Tartt book The Secret History
Source: The Secret History
William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator
Up from Liberalism (1959); also quoted in The American Dissent : A Decade of Modern Conservatism (1966) by Jeffrey Peter Hart, p. 171 <br class="br">Variants: <br class="br">Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views. <br class="br">As quoted in The Nastiest Things Ever Said about Democrats (2006) by Martin Higgins, p. 93 <br class="br">Liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, but it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view. <br class="br">As quoted in his obituary in The TImes (28 February 2008) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3447250.ece.
Barry Hines (1939–2016) British author
On Animal Farm
Barry Hines 1970 interview
“I began plotting novels at about the time I learned to read.”
James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States
Autobiographical Notes (1952)
Context: I began plotting novels at about the time I learned to read. The story of my childhood is the usual bleak fantasy, and we can dismiss it with the restrained observation that I certainly would not consider living it again.
“It shocks me how I wish for… what is lost and cannot come back.”
Sue Monk Kidd (1948) Novelist
Source: Traveling With Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story