Like my child self, Sarah is somewhat of a fantasist – she escapes the tedium of US suburbia by retreating to her books, reciting passages from her favourite, The Labyrinth: "Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the goblin city to take back the child that you have stolen".
Von Neumann showed signs of genius in early childhood: he could joke in Classical Greek and, for a family stunt, he could quickly memorize a page from a telephone book and recite its numbers and addresses.
We read aloud the prayers of ancient books and recite prayers that comforted our ancestors.
Carolyn Hall, who seems to be on the verge of histrionics, opens a book and recites a string of words related to the body.
Unlike some historic filibusters, in which senators have read from the phone book or recited the Declaration of Independence to kill time, Mr. Paul kept the focus squarely on drones, using most of his time to discuss questions of actual policy.
Mr. Shepherd, in a performance of symphonic calibration, progresses from detached curiosity to intense engagement to an emotional fluency that allows him to discard the book altogether and recite from memory.
"I didn't want to talk at people, or for the book to simply recite a bunch of facts.
He says he has memorized 20,000 books and can recite pi to 30 million decimal places.
Instead of a report, I was to pick a passage from a book, memorize it and recite it in front of the class.
She loved Chaucer and had us stand one by one and recite, off book, 25 lines from the Canterbury Tales in Middle English.
