R. F. Delderfield Quotes

I learned from admiration and osmosis.

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

When I got large enough to go to work, while employed I was reflecting on many things that would present themselves to my imagination; and whenever an opportunity occurred of looking at a book, when the school-children were getting their lessons, I would find many things that the fertility of my own imagination had depicted to me before.

I kind of like to be a sponge, in a way. So everywhere that I am, I like to keep an open mind and just get ideas from everything.

Reading has been the fuel of my motivation: it has changed the direction in which I have traveled, and it has enhanced my creative imagination more than any other activity I have ever pursued.

I like learning stuff. The more information you can get about a person or a subject, the more you can pour into a potential project. I made a decision to do different things. I want to do things that have a better chance of being thought of as original. I do everything I can to disrupt my comfort zone.

We really teach ourselves. If you want to learn, you will always find someone to learn from, be they dead or alive, great or unknown. You learn from everything you see and hear around you - if you are willing to pay attention.

Libraries raised me.

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.

I was on my own at Wellesley, surrounded by a lot of young women who were motivated and intellectually curious. I started to read because I was required to do so for class, but I soon found myself enjoying the seclusion of the library. I came to see reading as an important way to learn about people, including myself.

Read a lot, live your life, and listen and watch, so that your mind fills up with millions of images.

I never stop reading. I read everything, and I read every day. If you never read anything, be curious. Curiosity is the true foundation of education, reading things that we've factually already agreed on, and I love reading books. With that said, it's more important that you ask the question 'why.'

It is very important to learn. And I try to learn from everything around me.

A child can educate just about anybody.

there are some people who never learn; indeed, few people learn by experience, so far as I have ever seen.

One must learn to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live.

I easily sink into mere absorption of what other minds have done, and should like a whole life for that alone.

If you are going to be successful, you have to start hanging out with the successful people. You need to ask them to share their success strategies with you. Then try them on and see if they fit for you. Experiment with doing what they do, reading what they read, thinking the way they think, and so on. If the new ways of thinking and behaving work, adopt them. If not, drop them, and keep looking and experimenting.

I don't think that anyone learns anything. Well, I mean, you do always learn something if you have your eyes and ears open. You do learn something from every outing, every time that you go for it. But for me what actors do is interact and that's why you have to do that.

Unless you have read and absorbed the best that can be read and absorbed, you will not think clearly or well.

Cram your head with characters and stories. Abuse your library privileges. Never stop looking at the world, and never stop reading to find out what sense other people have made of it. If people give you a hard time and tell you to get your nose out of a book, tell them you're working. Tell them it's research. Tell them to pipe down and leave you alone.

I'm learning all the time." "Well, you're a scholar.

What we have to discover for ourselves leaves behind in our mind a pathway that can be used on another occasion.

It cannot be that the people should grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading. A reading people will always be a knowing people.

I had a friend who was the King's surgeon in England. One day I asked him what makes a great surgeon. He replied, "What distinguishes a great surgeon is his knowledge. He knows more than other surgeons. During an operation he finds something which he wasn't expecting, recognizes it and knows what to do about it." It's the same thing with advertising people. The good ones know more. How do you get to know more? By reading books about advertising. By picking the brains of people who know more than you do. From the Magic Lanterns. And from experience.