{
  "type": "quote",
  "site": {
    "name": "Leafy Quotes",
    "language": "en",
    "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com"
  },
  "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.",
  "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-tevis/mockingbird/but-most-of-all",
  "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-tevis/mockingbird/but-most-of-all.json",
  "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-tevis/mockingbird/but-most-of-all.md",
  "id": "807ece5d-36aa-4ddd-8f26-3346de0f4abe",
  "slug": "but-most-of-all",
  "text": "But most of all, it seems to me now, has been the courage to know and to sense my feelings that has come, slowly, from the emotionally charged silent films at the old library at first and then later from the poems and novels and histories and biographies and how-to-do-it books that I have read. All of those books—even the dull and nearly incomprehensible ones—have made me understand more clearly what it means to be a human being. And I have learned from the sense of awe I at times develop when I feel in touch with the mind of another, long-dead person and know that I am not alone on this earth. There have been others who have felt as I feel and who have, at times, been able to say the unsayable.",
  "language": "en",
  "author": {
    "name": "Walter Tevis",
    "slug": "walter-tevis",
    "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-tevis"
  },
  "book": {
    "title": "Mockingbird",
    "slug": "mockingbird",
    "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-tevis/mockingbird"
  },
  "character": null,
  "chapter": null,
  "chapter_parent": null,
  "page": 256,
  "verified": false,
  "original": null,
  "other_languages": [],
  "topics": [
    {
      "name": "human nature",
      "slug": "human-nature",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature"
    },
    {
      "name": "loneliness",
      "slug": "loneliness",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness"
    },
    {
      "name": "reading",
      "slug": "reading",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading"
    }
  ],
  "source": {
    "name": "Wikiquote",
    "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_Tevis#Mockingbird_(1980)",
    "license": {
      "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
      "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
    }
  },
  "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:26",
  "more_from_book": [
    {
      "id": "f69bb90f-78ce-4b77-afb4-109984b5f0f7",
      "slug": "noticing-and-thinking",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-tevis/mockingbird/noticing-and-thinking",
      "text": "Noticing and thinking are sometimes a strain and a bafflement and I wonder if the Designers were aware of that when they made it almost impossible for the ordinary citizen to make use of a recorder. Or when they had us all taught that earliest learned wisdom: “When in doubt, forget it.”",
      "language": "en",
      "character": null,
      "chapter": null,
      "chapter_parent": null,
      "page": 22,
      "verified": false,
      "original": null,
      "other_languages": [],
      "topics": [
        {
          "name": "thinking",
          "slug": "thinking",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking"
        },
        {
          "name": "memory",
          "slug": "memory",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/memory"
        }
      ],
      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_Tevis#Mockingbird_(1980)",
        "license": {
          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
          "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
        }
      },
      "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:26"
    },
    {
      "id": "eadab09d-aa6e-4ef9-abc8-3c1d3da7c72e",
      "slug": "i-feel-free",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-tevis/mockingbird/i-feel-free",
      "text": "I feel free and strong. If I were not a reader of books I could not feel this way. Whatever may happen to me, thank God that I can read, that I have truly touched the minds of other men.",
      "language": "en",
      "character": null,
      "chapter": null,
      "chapter_parent": null,
      "page": 248,
      "verified": false,
      "original": null,
      "other_languages": [],
      "topics": [
        {
          "name": "freedom",
          "slug": "freedom",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom"
        },
        {
          "name": "reading",
          "slug": "reading",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading"
        }
      ],
      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_Tevis#Mockingbird_(1980)",
        "license": {
          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
          "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
        }
      },
      "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:26"
    },
    {
      "id": "e8bebc55-4b53-416e-94b1-47bff3a72c76",
      "slug": "when-literacy-died",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-tevis/mockingbird/when-literacy-died",
      "text": "When literacy died, so had history.",
      "language": "en",
      "character": null,
      "chapter": null,
      "chapter_parent": null,
      "page": 161,
      "verified": false,
      "original": null,
      "other_languages": [],
      "topics": [
        {
          "name": "history",
          "slug": "history",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history"
        },
        {
          "name": "reading",
          "slug": "reading",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading"
        }
      ],
      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_Tevis#Mockingbird_(1980)",
        "license": {
          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
          "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
        }
      },
      "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:26"
    }
  ]
}
