My Only Real Claim To Anyone's Attention

I Have Maintained A Passionate Interest In Education, Which Leads Me Occasionally To Make Foolish And Ill-considered Remarks Alleging That Not Everything Is Well In Our Schools. My Main Concern Is That An Over-emphasis On Testing And League Tables Has Led To A Lack Of Time And Freedom For A True, Imaginative And Humane Engagement With Literature.

There’s Been Terrible Things We Seen, En’t There? And More A Coming, More’n Likely. So I Think I’d Rather Not Know What’s In The Future. I’ll Stick To The Present.

And Then Serafina Understood Something For Which The Witches Had No Word: It Was The Idea Of Pilgrimage. She Understood Why These Beings Would Wait For Thousands Of Years And Travel Vast Distances In Order To Be Close To Something Important, And How They Would Feel Differently For The Rest Of Time, Having Been Briefly In Its Presence. That Was How These Creatures Looked Now, These Beautiful Pilgrims Of Rarefied Light, Standing Around The Girl With The Dirty-face And The Tartan Skirt And The Boy With The Wounded Hand Who Was Frowning In His Sleep.

I Don't Expect Christians To See God As A Metaphor, But That's What He Is. Perhaps It Might Be Clearer To Call Him A Character In Fiction, And A Very Interesting One Too: One Of The Greatest And Most Complex Villains Of All - Savage, Petty, Boastful And Jealous, And Yet Capable Of Moments Of Tenderness And Extremes Of Arbitrary Affection - For David, For Example. But He's Not Real, Any More Than Hamlet Or Mr Pickwick Are Real. They Are Real In The Context Of Their Stories, But You Won't Find Them In The Phone Book.

There Are Some Who Live By Every Rule And Cling Tightly To Their Rectitude Because They Fear Being Swept Away By A Tempest Of Passion, And There Are Others Who Cling To The Rules Because They Fear That There Is No Passion There At All, And That If They Let Go They Would Simply Remain Where They Are, Foolish And Unmoved; And They Could Bear That Least Of All. Living A Life Of Iron Control Lets Them Pretend To Themselves That Only By The Mightiest Effort Of Will Can They Hold Great Passions At Bay.