"I remember when I was a kid in school and teachers would explain things to me about what I read, and I'd think, Where did they get that? I didn't read that in there. Later you look at it and think, That's kind of an interesting idea"
About this Quote
A child's first brush with literary analysis can feel like a conjuring act. You read the same pages as the teacher, yet meanings appear that you cannot find, as if they were smuggled between the lines. Norton Juster catches that bafflement and gently reframes it as a developmental moment. The young reader clings to the literal, suspects overreach, and wonders, Where did they get that? With time, the eye is trained to see patterns, tone, metaphor, and context, and the mind shifts from suspicion to curiosity: That is an interesting idea.
The shift matters. It reveals that interpretation is not a secret answer key hidden by the author, but a proposal about how words, images, and histories resonate. Teachers can mistakenly present readings as verdicts; the wiser approach models how to ask questions, follow clues, and imagine possibilities. Juster does not surrender to dogma in the classroom; he grants that a surplus of meaning can exist and that exploring it is part of the fun.
His own work embodies this. The Phantom Tollbooth delights in puns, allegory, and double meanings that invite readers to play. Milo learns that words have weight and measure, that literal-mindedness can be a trap, and that understanding often arrives sideways, through analogy and whimsy. That journey mirrors the move from Where did they get that? to That is interesting, a move from defensiveness to discovery.
An architect as well as a writer, Juster knew that a blueprint guides but does not exhaust how a building will be used. Texts are similar: they are designed, but readers inhabit them, traverse them, see out of their windows. His remark urges humility and openness. Reading becomes a conversation among text, reader, and guide, where meaning is not extracted like ore but built, revised, and enjoyed. The point is not to nail down the final answer, but to cultivate the capacity to see more than you saw before.
The shift matters. It reveals that interpretation is not a secret answer key hidden by the author, but a proposal about how words, images, and histories resonate. Teachers can mistakenly present readings as verdicts; the wiser approach models how to ask questions, follow clues, and imagine possibilities. Juster does not surrender to dogma in the classroom; he grants that a surplus of meaning can exist and that exploring it is part of the fun.
His own work embodies this. The Phantom Tollbooth delights in puns, allegory, and double meanings that invite readers to play. Milo learns that words have weight and measure, that literal-mindedness can be a trap, and that understanding often arrives sideways, through analogy and whimsy. That journey mirrors the move from Where did they get that? to That is interesting, a move from defensiveness to discovery.
An architect as well as a writer, Juster knew that a blueprint guides but does not exhaust how a building will be used. Texts are similar: they are designed, but readers inhabit them, traverse them, see out of their windows. His remark urges humility and openness. Reading becomes a conversation among text, reader, and guide, where meaning is not extracted like ore but built, revised, and enjoyed. The point is not to nail down the final answer, but to cultivate the capacity to see more than you saw before.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teaching |
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