Quotes About Learning

AAaargwannawannaaaagongongonaargggaaaaBLOON! which is the traditional sound of a very small child learning that with balloons, as with life itself, it is important to know when not to let go of the string. The whole point of balloons is to teach small children this.

The problem with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and putting things in it.

People were stupid, sometimes. They thought the Library was a dangerous place because of all the magical books, which was true enough, but what made it really one of the most dangerous places there could ever be was the simple fact that it was a library.

Young man, the games we play are lessons we learn. The assumptions we make, things we ignore, and things we change make us what we become.

I read anything that's going to be interesting. But you don't know what it is until you've read it. Somewhere in a book on the history of false teeth there'll be the making of a novel.

Many things went on at Unseen University and, regrettably, teaching had to be one of them. The faculty had long ago confronted this fact and had perfected various devices for avoiding it. But this was perfectly all right because, to be fair, so had the students.

Sergeant Colon had had a broad education. He'd been to the School of My Dad Always Said, the College of It Stands to Reason, and was now a postgraduate student at the University of What Some Bloke In the Pub Told Me.

What was the point of education, he thought, if people went out afterward and used it?

It's a bad case o' the thinkin' he's caught, missus. When a man starts messin' wi' the readin' and the writin' then he'll come doon with a dose o' the thinkin' soon enough. I'll fetch some o' the lads and we'll hold his heid under water until he stops doin' it, 'tis the only cure. It can kill a man, the thinkin'.

If there's one thing that really annoys a god, it's not knowing something.

Education had been easy. Learning things had been harder.

Teppic hadn't been educated. Education had just settled on him, like dandruff.

She'd read the dictionary all the way through. No one told her you weren't supposed to.

I heard this story once, she said, where this bloke got locked up for years and years and he learned amazin' stuff about the universe and everythin' from another prisoner who was incredibly clever, and then he escaped and got his revenge. What incredibly clever stuff do you know about the universe, Gytha Ogg? said Granny. Bugger all, said Nanny cheerfully. Then we'd better bloody well escape right now.

There's no educating a smart boy.

Funny, reely, he said. You spend your whole life goin' to school and learnin' stuff, and they never tell you about stuff like the Bermuda Triangle and UFOs and all these Old Masters running around the inside of the Earth. Why do we have to learn boring stuff when there's all this brilliant stuff we could be learnin', that's what I want to know.

All witches who'd lived in her cottage were bookish types. They thought you could see life through books but you couldn't, the reason being that the words got in the way.

In life, as in breakfast cereal, it is always best to read the instructions on the box.

I see embarrassment among all of you. That's good. The thing about being embarrassed is that sooner or later you aren't, but you remember that you were.

They both savored the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than ordinary people, who were ignorant of only ordinary things.

He stared at his feet. "I'm still very ignorant," he said, "but at least I'm ignorant about really important things.

What's magic, eh? Just wavin' a stick an' sayin' a few wee magical words. An' what's so clever aboot that, eh? But lookin' at things, really lookin' at 'em, and then workin' 'em oout, now, that's a real skill.

Well, the traveling teachers do come through every few months, said the Baron. Yes, sir, I know, sir, and they're useless, sir. They teach facts, not understanding. It's like teaching people about forests by showing them a saw. I want a proper school, sir, to teach reading and writing, and most of all thinking, sir, so people can find what they're good at, because someone doing what they really like is always an asset to any country, and too often people never find out until it's too late.

First you get the test, and then afterwards you spend years findin' out how you passed it.