Recitation Quotes

The status quo was rote memorization and recitation in classrooms thronged with passive children who were sternly disciplined when they expressed individual needs. ~ David Guterson

Do good works or commission an opera house or just take it out and gaze at it longingly when you think of the handsome prince you might have made your own. For the record, I favor the latter option, preferably paired with copious tears and the recitation of bad poetry. ~ Leigh Bardugo

A heart-felt prayer is not recitation with the lips. It is a yearning from within which expresses itself in every word, every act, nay every thought of people. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Foul language will earn you a recitation that will grow your vocabulary. ~ Rachel A. Marks

In these night recitations we create a space between things as we felt them at the time and as we speak them now. This is the space reserved for irony, sympathy and fond amusement, the means by which we rescue ourselves from the past. ~ Don DeLillo

Suppose you recite the Prajna Paramita Sutra only once. It might be a very good recitation. But what would happen to you if you recited it twice, three times, four times, or more? You might easily lose your original attitude towards it. The same thing will happen in your other Zen practices. For a while you will keep your beginner's mind, but if you continue to practice one, two, three years or more, although you may improve some, you are liable to lose the limitless meaning of original mind. ~ Shunryu Suzuki

The recitation of grievances was strange balm. ~ Regina O'Melveny

Well?" demanded the vicar at last, looking at Ian. "What do you have to say to me?"
"Good afternoon?" Ian suggested drolly. And then he added, "I didn't expect to see you until tomorrow, Uncle."
"Obviously," retorted the vicar with unconcealed irony.
"Uncle!" blurted Elizabeth, gaping incredulously at Ian Thornton, who'd been flagrantly defying rules of morality with his passionate kisses and seeking hands from the first night she met him.
As if the vicar read her thoughts, he looked at her, his brown eyes amused. "Amazing, is it not, my dear? It quite convinces me that God has a sense of humor."
A hysterical giggle welled up in Elizabeth as she saw Ian's impervious expression begin to waver when the vicar promptly launched into a recitation of his tribulations as Ian's uncle: "You cannot imagine how trying it used to be when I was forced to console weeping young ladies who'd cast out lures in hopes Ian would come up to scratch," he told Elizabeth. "And that's nothing to how I felt when he raced his horse and one of my parishioners thought I would be the ideal person to keep of the bets!" Elizabeth's burst of laughter rang like music through the hills, and the vicar, ignoring Ian's look of annoyance, continued blithely, "I have flat knees from the hours, the weeks, the months I've spent praying for his immortal soul-"
"When you're finished itemizing my transgressions, Duncan, " Ian cut in, "I'll introduce you to my companion."
Instead of be ~ Judith McNaught

He forced himself not to break down as he remembered Dumbledore's funeral, and the rows and rows of golden chairs, and the Minister of Magic in the front row, the recitation of Dumbledore's achievements, the stateliness of the white marble tomb. He felt that Dobby deserved just as grand a funeral, and yet here the elf lay between bushes in a roughly dug hole. ~ J.K. Rowling

To-day, when the crisis calls you, will you go off and display your recitation and harp on, 'How cleverly I compose dialogues'? Nay, fellow man, make this your object, 'Look how I fail not to get what I will. Look how I escape what I will to avoid. Let death come and you shall know; bring me pains, prison, dishonour, condemnation.' This is the true field of display for a young man come from school. Leave those other trifles to other men; let no one ever hear you say a word on them, do not tolerate any compliments upon them; assume the air of being no one and of knowing nothing. Show that you know this only, how not to fail and how not to fall. ~ Epictetus

here's a very worthwhile question to meditate on: How are we, in our own way, going to express and live out the meaning contained in the prayer? Simply by rote recitation? It'll be nothing more than an exercise in futility and hypocrisy unless we seek to understand it and make it real in our lives." To ~ Monks Of New Skete

Akhmed summoned the arborist with small declarative memories, and Sonja let him go on longer than she otherwise would because she, too, had tried to resurrect by recitation, had tried to recreate the thing by drawing its shape in cinders, and hoped that by compiling lists of Natasha's favorite foods and songs and annoying habits, her sister might spontaneously materialize under the pressure of the particularities. ~ Anthony Marra

A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth. ~ Frank Luntz

Do you believe in God?' Grace asked him. The question was not strange. They were past strangeness.
'Of course' he replied. It was easier than the truth, simpler.
'Why?'
'Because without God' he started, his voice slipping easily into the lilting rhythm of recitation, 'we have no reason to believe in reason. Without God, our reason is an accident of the cosmos, as ultimately inconsequential as the spinning of the planet or the pulling of the tides. Reason becomes unimportant, and hence untenable. Without God we have only belief, and yet we are left with nothing to believe in'. ~ Bernard Beckett

Two opposing forces inhabit the poem: one of elevation or up-rooting, which pulls the word from the language: the other of gravity, which makes it return. The poem is an original and unique creation, but it is also reading and recitation: participation. The poet creates it; the people, by recitation, re-create it. Poet and reader are two moments of a single reality. ~ Octavio Paz

I am tired of reading about God's visitations of yesteryear. I want God to break out somewhere in my lifetime so that in the future my children can say, "I was there. I know; it's true." God has no grandchildren. Each generation must experience His presence. Recitation was never meant to take the place of visitation. ~ Tommy Tenney

You're alive, aren't you? That's more than I would have thought when I first met you."
"That's… comforting," I said.
"Is it? Wasn't meant to be. Simple recitation of fact."
"Always a pleasure, Randall."
"I wouldn't go that far. I thought there was a good chance you would have blown yourself up by the time you turned fifteen."
"I almost did," I said. "Several times."
"I still remember the day when Morgan told me about you. It was the day I first got an ulcer. ~ T.J. Klune

Have you not often met poor old women who are most faithful to the pious recitation of the Rosary? You also must do all that you can to recite it with fervour. Get right down, at the feet of Jesus: it is a good thing to make oneself small in the presence of so great a God. ~ Columba Marmion

Comedy is grievances. It's a recitation of grievances - whether they're inconsequential, superficial - like "my wife shops too much", or "kids today", all those old-fashioned themes - or, if it's deeper, and somewhat more thoughtful, about social imbalance and inequities, and the folly of human behavior. It's usually a complaint. ~ George Carlin

Breath control is crucial to most of the contemplative traditions... Qur'anic reciters chant long phrases for meditation. It is natural for the audience to adjust their breathing too and find that this has a calming, therapeutic effect, which enables them to grasp the more elusive teachings of the text. ~ Karen Armstrong

To be completely ignorant of the collective past seems to me to be another state of amnesia; you would be untethered, adrift in time. Which is why all societies have sought some kind of memory bank, whether by way of folklore, story-telling, recitation of the ancestors--from Homer to Genesis. And why the heritage industry does so well today; most people may not be particularly interested in the narrative of the past, in the detail or the discussion, but they are glad to know that it is there. ~ Penelope Lively

Don't go into Ramadan having hurt anyone without seeking their forgiveness. The last thing you'd want on the day of judgment is to find that your entire Ramadan with all of its quran recitation, fasting, taraweeh prayers, laylatul qadr, etc. went completely to waste because your pride stopped you from saying "I'm sorry". With that being said, I'm sorry if I've written, said, or done anything to offend you. Please find it in your heart to forgive and make dua that Allah grants me guidance and sincerity. ~ Omar Suleiman

Celia realized she'd shocked Mr. Pinter when his thick black brows drew together in a frown. His lean form seemed even more rigid than usual, and his angular features-the arrow of a nose and bladed jaw-even more stark. IN his severe morning attire of black serge and white linen, he radiated male disapproval.
But why? He knew she was the only "hellion" left unmarried. Did he think she would let her brothers and sisters lose their inheritance out of some rebellious desire to thwart Gran's ultimatum?
Of course he did. He'd been so kind and considerate during her recitation of the dream that she'd almost forgotten he hated her. Why else were his eyes, gray as slate after a storm, now so cold and remote? The blasted fellow was always so condescending and sure of himself, so...so...
Male.
"Forgive me, my lady," he said in his oddly raspy voice, "but I was unaware you had any suitors."
Curse him for being right. "Well, I don't...exactly. There are men who might be interested but haven't gone so far as to offer marriage." Or even to show a partiality to her.
"And you're hoping I'll twist their arms so they will?"
She colored under his piercing gaze. "Don't be ridiculous."
This was the Mr. Pinter she knew, the one who'd called her "a reckless society miss" and a "troublemaker."
Not that she cared what he thought. He was like her brother's friends, who saw her as a tomboy because she could demonstrate a rifle's fine qualities. And like Cous ~ Sabrina Jeffries

The speaker was good, I liked what he had to say. I had expected a dry recitation on how women should change their gender if they expected to advance in a man's world, since I wasn't about to grow a cock and balls this man gave me hope and inspiration. Women dominated the audience, not surprising since the average African man wouldn't support a speaker preaching gender equality. Africa was a continent with generational precedent for the alpha male, it was part of their culture, learned at an early age. This led to abuse on many levels. Women were expected to do the physical work, produce male babies and satisfy the sexual urgings of men. Urgings that in other societies would be called rape but in Africa were accepted as common practice. I understood this better than most. Pictures of the Kony boy-soldiers and their adult commander were burned into my memory. ~ Nick Hahn

Like the monks chanting their Pali mantras, learning by rote was the accepted method of education just as in English schools of the time. 'In geography,' Sokheang recalled, 'we would have to learn the size of a country, the population, the agricultural produce, etcetera. And we would get called up to recite it to the rest of the class.' The accuracy of this recitation was the measure of a successful student. 'Knowledge,' said Sokheang, 'was the storage of facts. ~ Nic Dunlop

Palestinian society is filled with poetry, but not experimental poetry. The Palestinian poetry that people know is not the modernist experimentations, it's certain kinds of poetry that lends itself to recitation and song and things like that. ~ Elliott Colla

There are many reasons our prayers may lack power. Sometimes they become routine. Our prayers become hollow when we say similar words in similar ways over and over so often that the words become more of a recitation than a communication. ~ Joseph B. Wirthlin

Vogon poetry is of course, the third worst in the universe.
The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their poet master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem "Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning" four of his audience died of internal haemorrhaging and the president of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos was reported to have been "disappointed" by the poem's reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his 12-book epic entitled "My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles" when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save humanity, leapt straight up through his neck and throttled his brain.
The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paul Neil Milne Johnstone of Redbridge, in the destruction of the planet Earth. Vogon poetry is mild by comparison. ~ Douglas Adams

But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell. ~ Lascelles Abercrombie

Prayer is not simply a soliloquy, a mere exercise in therapeutic self-analysis, or a religious recitation. Prayer is discourse with the personal God Himself. ~ R.C. Sproul

We are shut up in school and college recitation rooms for ten to fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing. We cannot use our hands, or our legs, or our eyes, or our arms. We do not know an edible root in the woods. We cannot tell our course by the stars, nor the hour of day by the sun. It is well if we can swim and skate. We are afraid of a horse or a cow, of a dog, of a cat, of a spider. Far better was the Roman rule to teach a boy nothing that he could not learn standing. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poetry comes alive to me through recitation. ~ Natalie Merchant

I'm not trying to impress you," he replied, glancing up at the front of the room. "Gads," he said, blinking in surprise. "What is that ?"
Hyacinth followed his gaze. Several of the Pleinsworth progeny, one of whom appeared to be costumed as a shepherdess, were milling about.
"Now that's an interesting coincidence," Gareth murmured.
"It might be time to start bleating," she agreed.
"I thought this was meant to be a poetry recitation."
Hyacinth grimaced and shook her head. "An unexpected change to the program, I'm afraid."
"From iambic pentameter to Little Bo Peep?" he asked doubtfully. "It does seem a stretch."
Hyacinth gave him a rueful look. "I think there will still be iambic pentameter."
His mouth fell open. "From Peep?"
She nodded, holding up the program that had been resting in her lap. "It's an original composition," she said, as if that would explain everything. "By Harriet Pleinsworth.The Shepherdess, the Unicorn, and Henry VIII ."
"All of them? At once?"
"I'm not jesting," she said, shaking her head.
"Of course not. Even you couldn't have made this up."
Hyacinth decided to take that as a compliment.
"Why didn't I receive one of these?" he asked, taking the program from her.
"I believe it was decided not to hand them out to the gentlemen," Hyacinth said, glancing about the room. "One has to admire Lady Pleinsworth's foresight, actually. You'd surely flee if you knew what was in store for you. ~ Julia Quinn

A twinge at the edge of her lips and she continued, the soft, slow lilt of recitation: Ancient walls that sing the distant hours. ~ Kate Morton

There is no surer means of calling down God's blessing upon the family than the daily recitation of the Rosary. ~ Pope Pius XII

I've translated two of Bae's novels, A Greater Music and Recitation, which are coming from Open Letter and Deep Vellum in October and January respectively. A Greater Music is a semi-autobiographical book centred on a Korean writer moving to Berlin, learning to live and even write in a foreign language. ~ Deborah Smith