This quote from a recent JK Rowling commencement speech at Harvard is lovely:
You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
The world would probably be a better place if we tended the gardens of our imaginations a little more frequently. But as Rowling said, our capacity to imagine is also one of our saving graces. Our imaginations give us glimpses into the foggy realm of the possible, even while our more rational selves fold their arms and shake their heads disapprovingly.
Thank you very much Marc for informing me so well about interesting things or texts that I might otherwise ignore.