Example
• From the Bible, in the book of Genesis, an utterance, and nothing more, brings creation into being. Gen. 1:1-9 (KJV)
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. ...
The Apollo 8 astronauts, Jim Lovell, Frank Borman, and William Anders, read the selection above during their Christmas, 1968 spacecast, in a two-minute YouTube video clip.
Example
• From literary studies - Reader-response theory says that the truth about a text is the event that happens when the reader opens the cover and turns the pages. In the process of reading, the words and meaning come to life.
• From literary studies - The Gilgamesh story was lost until the tablets were unearthed. The Smithsonian web site recounts the story and the tablets' discovery in 1872.
• See this selection from Nicholas Sparks' The Wedding (2003), the follow-up to his earlier book which became the 2004 Nick Cassavetes film, The Notebook. It's not really a sequel since the focus is not on Noah and Allie, but on their daughter, son-in-law and their family. Early in the film, Noah listens as his son-in-law brings up a problem as they walk by the lake, and then, Noah says,
"Do you remember when Allie got sick? When I used to read to her?"
"Yes," I answered, feeling the memory pull at me. He used to read to her from a notebook that he'd written before they moved to Creekside. The notebook held the story of how he and Allie had fallen in love, and sometimes, after he read it aloud to her, Allie would become momentarily lucid, despite the ravages of Alzheimer's. The lucidity never lasted long -- and as the disease progressed further, it ceased completely -- but when it happened, Allie's improvement was dramatic enough for specialists to travel from Chapel Hill to Creekside in the hopes of understanding it. That reading to Allie sometimes worked, there was no doubt. Why it worked, however, was something the specialists were never able to figure out.
"Do you know why I did that?" he asked.
I brought my hands to my lap. "I believe so," I answered. "It helped Allie. And because she made you promise you would."
"Yes," he said, "that's true." He paused, and I could hear him wheezing, the sound like air through an old accordion. "But that wasn't the only reason I did it. I also did it for me. A lot of folks didn't understand that."
Though he trailed off, I knew he wasn't finished., and I said nothing. In the silence, the swan stopped circling and moved closer. Except for a black spot the size of a silver dollar on its chest, the swan was the color of ivory. It seemed to hover in place when Noah began speaking again.
"Do you know what I most remember about the good days?" he asked.
I knew he was referring to those rare days when Allie recognized him, and I shook my head. "No," I answered.
"Falling in love," he said. "That's what I remember. On her good days, it was like we were just starting out all over again."
He smiled. "That's what I mean when I say that I did it for me. Every time I read to her, it was like I was courting her, because sometimes, just sometimes, she would fall in love with me again, just like she had a long time ago. And that's the most wonderful feeling in the world. How many people are ever given that chance? To have someone you love fall in love with you over and over?"
Noah didn't seem to expect an answer, and I didn't offer one. ... And in typical southern fashion, he'd given me the answer to my problem, without my ever having had to ask him directly.
It was then that I knew what I had to do.
• From Co-directors Danny Boyle
and Loveleen Tandan's 2008 film, Slumdog Millionaire
Prem Kumar: So are you ready for the final question for 20 million rupees?
Jamal Malik: No, but maybe it's written, no?
Prem Kumar: Maybe...