“I mistook non-conformity for freedom and in so doing found myself anything but free. For it is in conformity to one's true nature that one is most becoming, in both senses of the word: well-fitted and beautiful.” — Karen Swallow Prior Copy Share Image
“Brontë was attempting to depict a character that adheres to the unchanging principles of her faith though she refused conformity to the particular practices of her society. Doctrine and practice, unfortunately, don’t always neatly coincide. At this point in the book, Jane—like me, an alien and pilgrim—demonstrates her possession of true freedom: the freedom to be true to the self… — Karen Swallow Prior Copy Share
“If the right book can save your soul, then perhaps the wrong ones can damn it.” — Karen Swallow Prior Copy Share Image
“It is no coincidence that the term “voice” has come to mean in modern usage much more than just the sound made by the… — Karen Swallow Prior Copy Share Image
“When my youth group leader told all of the kids in youth group that he had burned all of his rock albums, and I happened to listen to rock music, I saw two choices before me: either to burn all my albums, too, or to keep listening but not talk about it in church on Sunday or with any of… — Karen Swallow Prior Copy Share
“Even in their reading, More charged, too many women were prone to superficiality. In search of a passing knowledge of books and authors, many read anthologies of excerpted works that selected the brightest passages but left out deeper contexts—eighteenth-century versions of Reader’s Digest were quite popular. More cautioned against a habit she viewed as cultivating a taste only for “delicious… — Karen Swallow Prior Copy Share
“Nothing defined the latter half of England's Victorian age more than the way in which Darwin's claims shook the collective faith of Victorian society. The cataclysmic effect of Darwin's ideas on his society is described by historians as a crisis of faith that turned the once-hopeful period into an "age of anxiety" and an "age of doubt." The years surrounding… — Karen Swallow Prior Copy Share
“Thomas Merton says, “Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I… — Karen Swallow Prior Copy Share Image
“Discovering truth is a process that occurs over time, more fully with each idea or book that gets added to the equation. Sure, many… — Karen Swallow Prior Copy Share Image
“What good literature can do and does do—far greater than any importation of morality—is touch the human soul.” — Karen Swallow Prior Copy Share Image
“From that moment, and for the rest of my life, my mother's words--perceptive and many others--have helped me to be the thing she saw… — Karen Swallow Prior Copy Share Image
“God who spoke the world into existence with words is, in fact, the source of meaning of all words. My journey toward that discovery… — Karen Swallow Prior Copy Share Image
“The more I thought about it, the more I realized that reading—that is, really reading, interpreting—literature is practice for reading and interpreting life. The… — Karen Swallow Prior Copy Share Image
