Anne Carson Quotes

I saw that bad handwriting should be regarded as a sign of an imperfect education.

In my day the schools taught two things, love of country and penmanship-now they don't teach either.

It's true and it's easily said that language is material, and something does materialise as one writes.

I always write my first draft in longhand, in lined notebooks. I move around the house, sitting where I like, and watch the words spool out in front of me, actually taking a lot of pleasure in the way they look in my strange handwriting on the page.

I don't write directly on to the computer because I don't think well facing forward with fingers on a keyboard. I think better looking down holding a pen. And the concentration quotient of pen and paper is higher than when I'm moving words around on screen.

I'm really interested in making a mark on a paper and letting that be cursive shorthand for an idea - that's the origin of cartooning.

I like the physical action of writing down by hand, and I don't just use it for writing my fiction.

Somehow, the words don't have any vitality, any life to them, unless I can feel it marking on a paper. That's how I start. Once I'm off, then I switch to the laptop. I think it would all just be prose if it started on a laptop - not that what I do is poetry.

I enjoy the research and love actually creating the words. There's not too much I find a drudge when it comes to writing.

I write every first draft - almost every draft, but certainly the first - by hand on blank white pieces of paper, so I don't know how long it is as I'm writing; it just piles up, and then I input it all in my computer, and I learn how long it is.

When it comes to actually writing the book/story, I work on a computer. I wish I could write longhand, but I can't.

I got to take classes in writing with a fountain pen, and actually, something you make is your own textbook. So, while you're learning about something, you have to write essays on it, and then you handwrite in cursive, in fountain pen, your essays out on beautiful paper and you bind it together into a book that you hand in at the end of the course.

Men of quality are in the wrong to undervalue, as they often do, the practise of a fair and quick hand in writing; for it is no immaterial accomplishment.

...instead of giving a rifle to somebody, build a school; instead of giving a rifle, build a community with adequate services. Instead of giving a rifle, develop an educational system that is not about conflict and violence, but one that promotes respect for values, for life, and respect for one's elders. This requires a huge investment. Yet if we can invest in a different vision of peaceful coexistence, I think we can change the world, because every problem has a nonviolent answer.

It was always a pleasure to write. I can never think of a time when I just hacked something out to fulfil a contract or meet a deadline. I might have hacked things out, but it was always stuff I loved.

I think charter schools, choice, and frankly school standards need a champion.

I am inclined to think that one's education has been in vain if one fails to learn that most schoolmasters are idiots.

I credit that eight years of grammar school with nourishing me in a direction where I could trust myself and trust my instincts. They gave me the tools to reject my faith. They taught me to question and think for myself and to believe in my instincts to such an extent that I just said, "This is a wonderful fairy tale they have going here, but it's not for me."

Belonging to humanity is a great thing for us, and I think the schools can do it. So I think we can look after the quality of education on the school even as we expand the availability of schooling.

And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.

I think school is so important. I was good student. A rebel, but I did well in my studies. I don't close myself to anything. I liked reading and I still love learning. I loved history and German.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think. Tuition fee increases are a disciplinary technique, and by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the disciplinarian culture. This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy.

I've seen my kids' work at school, and I think they're better than when I was young, 'cause I was brainwashed into anti-Communism. This is a much more interesting view of history than I've ever seen, and I hope to God it works. It's classic history, classically told. No talking heads. Just pure archival footage and a storyline.

I never really got over the fun of making letters.

I remember liking to write stories pretty early on. In fourth or fifth grade, they would give us the beginning of a story, and we were supposed to finish it. I remember liking that. But I didn't think about deciding to become a writer until high school at about the age of 16.