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Thomas C. Foster QUOTES

Thomas C. Foster QUOTES

21 " Education is mostly about institutions and getting tickets stamped; learning is what we do for ourselves. When we're lucky, they go together. If I had to choose, I'd take learning. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor

22 " Always" and "never" are not words that have much meaning in literary study. For one thing, as soon as something seems to always be true, some wise guy will come along and write something to prove that it's not. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor

23 " We - as readers or writers, tellers or listeners - understand each other, we share knowledge of the structures of our myths, we comprehend the logic of symbols, largely because we have access to the same swirl of story. We have only to reach out into the air and pluck a piece of it. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor

24 " So what did you think the devil would look like? If he were red with a tail, horns, and cloven hooves, any fool could say no. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor

25 " Every reader’s experience of every work is unique, largely because each person will emphasize various elements to differing degrees, and those differences will cause certain features of the text to become more or less pronounced. We bring an individual history to our reading, a mix of previous readings, to be sure, but also a history that includes, but is not limited to, educational attainment, gender, race, class, faith, social involvement, and philosophical inclination. These factors will inevitably influence what we understand in our reading, and nowhere is this individuality clearer than in the matter of symbolism. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor

26 " When it's over, we may feel wooed, adored, appreciated, or abused, but it will have been an affair to remember. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form

27 " The novels we read allow us to encounter possible persons, visions of ourselves that we would never see, never permit ourselves to become, in places we can never go and might not care to, while assuring that we get to return home again. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form

28 " Everything is a symbol of something, it seems, until proven otherwise. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor

29 " Don't wait for writers to be dead to be read; the living ones can use the money. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor

30 " And romance is just the place for creating mythic figures doing mythic things. Like carving 'civilzation' out of the wilderness. Like showing us what a hero looks life, a real, American, sprung-from-the soil, lethal-weapon-with-leggings, bona fide hero. And for a guy who never marries, he has a lot of offspring. Shane. The Virginian. The Ringo Kid. The Man with No Name. Just think how many actors would have had no careers without Natty Bumppo. Gary Cooper. John Wayne. Alan Ladd. Tom Mix. Clint Eastwood. Silent. Laconic. More committed to their horse or buddy than to a lady. Professional. Deadly. In his Studies in Classic American Literature, D.H. Lawrence waxes prolix on Natty's most salient feature: he's a killer. And so are his offspring. This heros can talk, stiltedly to be sure, but he prefers silence. He appreciates female beauty but is way more committed to his canoe or his business partner (his business being death and war) or, most disturbingly, his long rifle, Killdeer. Dr. Freud, your three-o'clock is here. Like those later avatars, he is a wilderness god, part backwoods sage, part cold-blooded killer, part unwilling Prince Charming, part jack-of-all-trades, but all man. Here's how his creator describes him: 'a philosopher of the wilderness, simple-minded, faithful, utterly without fear, yet prudent.' A great character, no doubt, but hardly a person. A paragon. An archetype. A miracle. But a potentially real person--not so much. "

― Thomas C. Foster , Twenty-five Books That Shaped America: How White Whales, Green Lights, and Restless Spirits Forged Our National Identity

31 " What happens if the writer is good is usually not that the work seems derivative or trivial but just the opposite: the work actually acquires depth and resonance from the echoes and chimes it sets up with prior texts, weight from the accumulated use of certain basic patterns and tendencies. Moreover, works are actually more comforting because we can recognize elements of them from our prior reading. I suspect that a wholly original work, one that owed nothing to previous writing, would so lack familiarity as to be quite unnerving to readers. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor

32 " The process of dehuminazing the locals was under way, and it had very little to do with veracity. The Puritan narratives would continue that process and bring the devil into the mix. At least John Smith didn't think Satan was involved. "

― Thomas C. Foster , Twenty-five Books That Shaped America: How White Whales, Green Lights, and Restless Spirits Forged Our National Identity

33 " Someone had to go first, show that there was a life to be recorded here, that this place, this new set of possibilities, could inspire a new literature. Cooper set the signpost on the road, and hearty travelers have been following it ever since. "

― Thomas C. Foster , Twenty-five Books That Shaped America: How White Whales, Green Lights, and Restless Spirits Forged Our National Identity

34 " In a sense, every story or poem is a vacation. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor: For Kids

35 " Everywhere you look, the ground is already camped on. So you sigh and pitch your tent where you can, knowing someone else has been there before. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor

36 " We have to bring our imaginations to bear on a story if we are to see all it's possibilitiess; otherwise it's just about somebody who did something. Whatever we take away from stories in the way of significance, symbolism, theme, meaning, pretty much anything except character and plot, we discover because our imagination engages with that of the author. Pretty amazing when you consider that the author may have been dead for thousands of years, yet we can still have this exchange, this dialogue, with her. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor

37 " Whenever people eat or drink together, it's communion. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor

38 " Don't read with your eyes. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor

39 " Professors also read, and think, symbolically. Everything is a symbol of something, it seems, until proven otherwise. "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Literature Like a Professor

40 " We love the plays, the great characters, the fabulous speeches, the witty repartee even in times of duress. I hope never to be mortally stabbed, but if I am, I'd sure like to have the self-possession, when asked if it's bad, to answer, "No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve," as Mercutio does in Romeo and Juliet. I mean, to be dying and clever at the same time, how can you not love that? "

― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form