51 Quotes by Maureen Corrigan

Readers, professional or casual, are alert to passages in a book that illuminate what was previously shadowy and formless.

I was assigned to the office of a recently deceased faculty member; the office hadn’t been cleaned out yet, and a few days before the fall term began, I unlocked the door to find a dirty room whose bookshelves were crammed with empty bourbon bottles and crucifixes, mute testimony to the limits of literature as a sustaining comfort in life.

Most martyr stories – sacred and profane – contain an element of superiority. This self-denying hero or heroine is “rewarded,” at the very least, by capturing the admiring focus of the narrative, while everyone else recedes into the background.

Terry Eagleson says his family’s aim was to have the words “We Were No Trouble” engraved on their gravestones.

One of the many drawbacks of this “I teach what I am” approach is that it stifles classroom discussion. Any disagreement with the professor’s expertise comes off as an ad hominem attack.

It’s a gift of tranquility when your adult desires mesh with your childhood background. I don’t quite know why mine didn’t, although I think books, again, are partly to blame.