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And in our own reading lives, every day, we come across that blue river of truth, curling somewhere; we encounter scenes and moments and perfectly placed words in fiction and poetry, in film and drama, which strike us with their truth, which move and sustain us, which shake habit's house to its fou…

[...] The institutionalized meritocratic system helps a few to gain access to positions they merit and from which they might otherwise be barred. But it allows many more to gain access to positions on the basis of ascribed status under the cover of having gained this access by achievement.

[...] I read very fast, uncritically, and without retention, seeking only to escape from my own life through the imaginative plunge into another. Safe in my room with milk and cookies I disappeared into inner space. The real world dissolved and I was free to drift into fantasy, living a thousand li…

the stillness inside me, the thanatoid silence frightening me into a last-ditch effort to stay alive

[...] I stared at the meaningless stream of cars going by, my brain as empty and silent as the house around me. Within me sadness had given way to hopelessness. And I mean genuine hopelessness, when faith had evaporated and the imagination is dead, when life seems to have come finally and irrevocab…