Reynolds Price, The Great Imagination Heist

1
Reynolds Price, The Great Imagination Heist

• Good reading, vast quantities of active or
  passive reading . . . . No other available
  resource has such a record of benign influence on
  maturation. Give every child you cherish good
  books human stories at every conceivable
  opportunity . . . to help them grow their own
  imaginations in the slow solitude and silence
  that makes for general sanity.

2
Jean-Jacque Rousseau, Emile or On Education

• Reading is the plague of childhood and almost
  the only occupation we know hot to give it. At
  twelve Emile will hardly know what a book is.
  But, it will be said, he certainly must at least
  know how to read. I agree. He must agree to
  read when reading is useful to him up to then it
  is only good for boring him.