My mother taught me that reading is a kind of work, and that every paragraph merits exertion, and in this way, I learned how to absorb difficult books. Soon after I went to kindergarten, however, I learned that reading difficult books also brings trouble. I was punished for reading ahead of the class, for being unwilling to speak and act "nicely." I didn't know why I simultaneously feared and adored my female teachers, but I did know that I needed their attention . Hope Jahren
About This Quote

"My mother taught me that reading is a kind of work, and that every paragraph merits exertion, and in this way, I learned how to absorb difficult books. Soon after I went to kindergarten, however, I learned that reading difficult books also brings trouble. I was punished for reading ahead of the class, for being unwilling to speak and act "nicely." I didn't know why I simultaneously feared and adored my female teachers, but I did know that I needed their attention." When Nelson Mandela was a child his mother taught him how to read. Although he did not have a very easy life growing up there were still little things he learned from his mother.

Reading was important for this young man because it allowed him to escape the harsh reality in which he lived. When there is something you can do to make yourself feel better when you are sad or angry, you will be able to get through anything.

Source: Lab Girl

Some Similar Quotes
  1. Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore. - Lady Gaga
  2. Work without love is slavery. - Mother Teresa
  3. There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time. - Coco Chanel
  4. Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live--that productive work is the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, of translating an idea... - Ayn Rand
  5. I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am... - Audre Lorde
More Quotes By Hope Jahren
  1. I have accepted that I don't know all the things that I ought to know, but I do know things that I need to know.
  2. People will tell you that you have to know math to be a scientist, or physics or chemistry. They're wrong.... What comes first is a question, and you're already there. It's not nearly as involved as people make it out to be.
  3. You may have heard that America doesn't have enough scientists and is in danger of "falling behind" (whatever that means) because of it. Tell this to an academic scientist and watch her laugh. For the last thirty years, the amount of the U.S. annual budget...
  4. Our world is falling apart quietly. Human civilization has reduced the plant, a four-million-year-old life form, into three things: food, medicine, and wood. In our relentless and ever-intensifying obsession with obtaining a higher volume, potency, and variety of these three things, we have devastated plant...
  5. Once your baby tree is in the ground, check it daily, because the first three years are critical. Remember that you are your tree's only friend in a hostile world.
Related Topics