Henry Giroux Quotes

One of the things that I do think government counts on is that people are busy. And it's very difficult to mobilize a busy and relatively affluent country, unless it's over really crucial- you know, foundational issues.

Before you're a writer, you're a citizen, a human being, and therefore the weapons of the citizen are at your disposal to use or not use.

I don't think academic writing ever was wonderful. However, science used to be much less specialized.

The biggest challenge is how to affect public attitudes and make people care.

Too rigid specialization is almost as bad for a historian's mind, and for his ultimate reputation, as too early an indulgence in broad generalization and synthesis.

There is little or no point being chair of the Labour Party and being ignored when engaging with Labour ministers when you're trying to articulate something that affects ordinary people in society.

I have already reached out to the janata, and I am only trying to acquaint myself with people's problems.

History belongs to everyone. I don't think you have to give up scholarly standards. But I also don't think you want to write something that is impenetrable. You try as hard as you can to be readable.

One of the things I've learned from animation is that some guys are really good at writing, some guys are really good at design, some guys are really good at directing. It's almost like working in a band - not everybody plays every instrument.

I don't think I'm more politically-based as much as socially-based.

Bad writing, it is easily verified, has never kept scholarship from being published.

Everyone engaged in research must have had the experience of working with feverish and prolonged intensity to write a paper which no one else will read or to solve a problem which no one else thinks important and which will bring no conceivable reward - which may only confirm a general opinion that the researcher is wasting his time on irrelevancies.

The effects of MFA programs, and the rise of creative writing instruction more generally, are far more diffuse than people think. Even if you're a writer who has avoided institutions your whole life, you're still going to be reading a lot of writers who have MFAs, and are affiliated with universities.

I remember the excruciating school task of writing a three-page term paper. But, oh, that feeling when I was done! I think I drive myself for that feeling of accomplishment.

It is harrowing for me to try to teach 20-year-old students, who earnestly want to improve their writing. The best I can think to tell them is: Quit smoking, and observe posted speed limits. This will improve your odds of getting old enough to be wise.

Promote then as an object of primary importance, Institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

When you're writing theology, you have to say everything all the time, otherwise people think you've deliberately missed something out.

The people themselves must think, because the people alone can act.

In Boston where community policing is so important, they don't necessarily have to like each other, but they know each other. The cops in Boston make it their business to get out of their vehicles, to engage the public, to walk around the neighborhoods. They live in the community that they police. And I think these things help.

Clear writing is universal. People talk about writing down to an audience or writing up to an audience; I think that's nonsense. If you write in a way that is clear, transparent, and elegant, it will reach everyone.

I talk about folding it in often with Althea, my girlfriend. She's getting her doctoral degree at Berkeley and she talks about how even when writing these very academic, and, for the most part, serious papers there's just so much going on in her head and heart, and it's a reminder that there's a reason that she's studying these things.

It's a national failing to think of politics as something that goes on in Parliament. It isn't; it's something that goes on inside us.

To write about history or language is supposed to be within the reach of every man. To write about natural science is allowed to be within the reach only of those who have mastered the subjects on which they write.

The historian ought to be an educated person, writing for other educated people about something which they don't know about, but wish to know about in a way that they can understand.

I think one of the core ideas in America has always been conversation and being able to question our systems of government, and being able to dictate our own communities and how we want this country to work. And I feel like we're losing part of that because of the way that even our current political campaign is centered more around celebrity than anything else, and so we're kind of losing conversation. We're still having conversations, but they seem to be more about like Donald Trump's hair and like memes of his face more than anything else.