Original artwork, not a still
I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. … They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.
— The Sandman · 1989
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Rose measures education against moments when knowing the right facts does not tell someone how to live. Her list grows more vulnerable as it goes, ending with the difficulty of facing another person’s death. The sweeping last sentence sounds like frustration speaking after the useful answers have run out.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for The SandmanShow the scene
Rose Walker writes this list in her journal in The Sandman #61, part five of The Kindly Ones (1994). It is a caption from her diary, rather than spoken dialogue. The published passage is longer than the excerpt shown here: the ellipsis marks the omitted sentence, “They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind.” The list moves from love and money to separation and the difficulty of speaking to someone who is dying.
Sources (4)
- The Kindly Ones — journal transcriptionRose Walker’s Journal; passage labelled FiveReference checked
- The Sandman #61 — issue indexThe Kindly Ones: 5; July 1994Reference checked
- Wits thesis — Rose’s diaryPrinted page 71; Rose keeping a diary, KO 5:4Reference checked
- The Kindly Ones — collected quotationSchool-list paragraph beginning I’ve been making a listReference checked
Context reviewed
