Leonard Cohen, I’m Your Man

I found that things got a lot easier when I no longer expected to win….

Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. 

Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance

Habit is necessary; but it is the habit of having careless habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.

(via James Clear)

 

Sylvia Plath, “Mad Girl’s Love Song”

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

W. H. Auden, Musee de Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window
or just walking dully along…

Clyde Barrow, letter to Henry Ford, from Letters of Note

Clyde Barrow to Henry Ford, 10th April 1934

While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got every other car skinned and even if my business hasn't been strictly legal it don't hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8.

Clyde Barrow³
Letter to Henry Ford
10th April 1934

https://blinkingtwelve.blogspot.com

Mike Tyson

Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth.

John Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel (East of Eden)

I feel just worthless today. I have used every physical excuse not to work except fake illness. I have dawdled, gone to the toilet innumerable times, had many glasses of water. Really childish. I dread the next scene, dread it like hell. 

Tyler Cowen's first law (Marginal Revolution)

There is something wrong with everything.

  — Tyler Cowen

There is something wrong with everying.

— Margalo Goldbach, not applying it as a law

 

Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction (via Samuel L. Jackson)

If my answers frighten you, Vincent, then you should cease asking scary questions.

Toni Morrison in keynote 1981

We don't need any more writers as solitary heroes. We need a heroic writers movement—assertive, militant, pugnacious.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereux

You'll find the shame is like the pain, you only feel it once.

— Marquise de Merteuil

 

Marie Kondo, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

To truly cherish the things that are important to you, 

you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose.

General James Mattis, Former United States Secretary of Defense

Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

John Mulaney on Netflix Is a Joke

I don't even know what my body is for — besides taking my head from room to room.

John O’Hara, Letter to The New Yorker editor Harold Ross - 1939

I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money.

T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding", The Four Quartets

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

Warren Buffet quoting his friend Tom, a Book of Mentors

Forty years ago, Tom gave me one of the best pieces of advice I've ever received. He said, "Warren, you can always tell someone to go to hell tomorrow." It's such an easy way of putting it. You haven't missed the opportunity. Just forget about it for a day.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled By Randomness

I detest the random use of borrowed wisdom.