People Have A Habit Of

We're In English Class, Which For Most Of Us Is An Excruciating Exercise In Staying Awake Through The Great Classics Of Literature. These Works - Groundbreaking, Incendiary, Timeless - Have Been Pureed By The Curriculum Monsters Into A Digestible Pabulum Of Themes And Factoids We Can Spew Back On A Test. Scoring Well On Tests Is The Sort Of Happy Thing That Gets The School District The Greenbacks They Crave. Understanding And Appreciating The Material Are Secondary.

Without Further Warning, The Sky Opens Up And Cries.

Evie Wanted To Cry. From Fear. From Exhaustion, Yes. But Mostly From The Cruel Uselessness, The Damned Stupid Arbitrariness Of It All.

There In The City's Steam-and-smoke-smudged Harbor Is The Most Extraordinary Sight Of All: A Great Copper-clad Lady With A Torch In One Hand And A Book In The Other. It Is Not A Statesman Or A God Or A War Hero Who Welcomes Us To This New World. It Is But An Ordinary Woman Lighting The Way- A Lady Offering Us The Liberty To Pursue Our Dreams If We've The Courage To Begin.

I Don't Know. Sometimes, I Feel Nothing, And I'm So Afraid. Afraid I'll Stop Feeling Anything At All. I'll Just Slip Away Inside Myself...i Just Need To Feel Something" A Great And Terrible Beauty, Page 177, By