Quote

The American psychologist Julian Jaynes, in a controversial study on the origin of consciousness, argued that the bicameral mind - in which one of the hemispheres becomes specialized in silent reading - is a late development in humankind's evolution, and that the process by which this function develops is still changing.

Alberto Manguel

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alberto Manguel
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: March 13
Editor
Translator
Writer
Buenos Ayres
Alberto Manguel
Mind
Consciousness
Humankind
Hemispheres
Becomes
Origin
Julian
Study
Changing
Specialized
Reading
Silent
Hemisphere
American
Evolution
Argued
Process
Function
Develops
Stills
Late
Psychologist
Still
Development
Controversial
Bicameral

More quotes by Alberto Manguel

Image
In the books by Ruy-Sanchez we find again the erotic conviction that allows us to read with all the skin. The erotic, in his narratives is not a subject or a phrase, it is the clay of what they are made. In his novels every experience, trivial or extraordinary, breaths through the erotic.
Alberto Manguel
Image
It hardly matters why a library is destroyed: every banning, curtailment, shredding, plunder or loot gives rise (at least as a ghostly presence) to a louder, clearer, more durable library of the banned, looted, plundered, shredded or curtailed.
Alberto Manguel
Image
I don't remember ever feeling lonely in fact, on the rare occasions when I met other children I found their games and their talk far less interesting than the adventures and dialogues I read in my books.
Alberto Manguel
Image
At different times and in different places I have come to expect certain books to look a certain way, and, as in all fashions, these changing features fix a precise quality onto a book's definition. I judge a book by its cover I judge a book by its shape.
Alberto Manguel
Image
This morning I looked at the books on my shelves and thought that they have no knowledge of my existence. They come to life because I open them and turn their pages, and yet they don't know that I am their reader.
Alberto Manguel
Image
Our books will bear witness for or against us, our books reflect who we are and who we have been, our books hold the share of pages granted to us from the Book of Life. By the books we call ours we will be judged
Alberto Manguel
Image
As we read a text in our own language, the text itself becomes a barrier.
Alberto Manguel
Image
Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.
Alberto Manguel
Image
Existing libraries, in their very being, seem to question the authority of those in power.
Alberto Manguel
Image
Libraries, whether my own or shared with a greater reading public, have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as I can remember I've been seduced by their labyrinthine logic, which suggests that reason (if not art) rules over a cacophonous arrangement of books.
Alberto Manguel
Image
In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long.
Alberto Manguel
Image
The telling of stories creates the real world.
Alberto Manguel
Image
A society can exist - many do exist - without writing, but no society can exist without reading.
Alberto Manguel
Image
I know that something dies when i give up my books, and that my memory keeps going back to them with mournful nostalgia.
Alberto Manguel
Image
But at night, when the library lamps are lit, the outside world disappears and nothing but the space of books remains in existence.
Alberto Manguel
Image
I remember, as a child, the confusion of not knowing what this place was where I was supposed to spend the night: it's a disquieting experience for a child. And what I would do was quickly unpack my books and go back to a book I knew well and make sure the same text and the same illustrations were there.
Alberto Manguel
Image
One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries.
Alberto Manguel
Image
All these are readers, and their gestures, their craft, the pleasure, the responsibility and the power they derive from reading, are common with mine. I am not alone.
Alberto Manguel
Image
Reading is at the beginning of the social contract.
Alberto Manguel
Image
Unpacking books is a revelatory activity.
Alberto Manguel