Quotes
2019
Jacinda Ardern's inspiring response to the Christchurch shooting
·158 words·1 min
Quotes
News
This is a hell of a speech from New Zealand’s PM on the Christchurch shooting.
We cannot know your grief, but we can walk with you at every stage. We can.
Xia Jia on time
·97 words·1 min
Quotes
I gave a lecture on time travel where, using the “butterfly effect,” I explained that we cannot predict the weather or one’s trajectory in life accurately. Every second in our past matters equally.
2018
Warren Ellis and professional OpSec
·138 words·1 min
Quotes
Privacy
Satire
Warren Ellis on limiting your availability for both productivity and OpSec:
When you reply to this, it doesn’t go to my main email. It goes to a public-facing email account that I have to manually go to.
2017
Merlin Mann on a better media diet
·54 words·1 min
Quotes
Social Media
Politics
Politics, celebrity gossip, business headlines, tech punditry, odd news, and user-generated content.
These are the chew toys that have made me sad and tired and cynical.
— Merlin Mann, Better
John Darnielle's Lyrics Slay Me
·307 words·2 mins
Quotes
Music
Podcasts
When you punish a person for dreaming his dream,
don’t expect him to thank or forgive you.
— The Mountain Goats, “Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton"
I’ve been listening to the podcast I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats, which is a wonderful show about music, being an artist, and what it means to be a fan.
N.K. Jemisin on the secret of oppression
·107 words·1 min
Quotes
Politics
Tell them they can be great someday, like us. Tell them they belong among us, no matter how we treat them. Tell them they must earn the respect which everyone else receives by default.
Manguso on anxiety
·35 words·1 min
Quotes
Anxiety
Mental Health
Worry is impatience for the next horror.
— Sarah Manguso, 300 Arguments
Manguso’s 300 Arguments is a wonderful and quick read. This passage keeps floating to the top of my mind, and refuses to leave.
Warren Ellis on myth as a carrier wave
·98 words·1 min
Quotes
Myth
I ended a talk in Manchester a couple of years ago with this:
Magic is our language and our story, and we can’t ride the ghost train into a future of haunted machines without them.
2015
Quote: Charlie Jane Anders on Sentences for Fiction
·57 words·1 min
Quotes
Writing
People will advise you to write all sorts of sentences. Snappy sentences, lyrical sentences, Hemingway-esque short sentences, long Faulknerian sentences. But there’s really only one kind of sentence that actually works: a sentence that carries the reader forward from the previous sentence.
Quote: Kelly Sue DeConnick on Feminism in Her Writing
·71 words·1 min
Quotes
Feminism
Culture
Writing
I don’t actually set out to write political pamphlets. I’m always writing story first, and even before that I’m always writing character first – everything is born of character. But I think that I have some very strong feelings about some things; in particular, ideas of fairness and justice.
2014
Quote: Antoine de Saint Exupéry
·68 words·1 min
Quotes
Culture
Philosophy
Sociology
Business
Management
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
Quote: Maciej Ceglowski on Productivity Techniques
·23 words·1 min
Quotes
Productivity
Culture
Kindly remember that if, unprompted, you tell someone about your system for getting organized, you are no better than a vegan.
— @Pinboard
Quote: Salman Rushdie
·76 words·1 min
Quotes
Writing
Culture
Storytelling
Humanism
Literature
Man is the animal that tells stories about himself to himself.
— Salman Rushdie, Lecture at the University of Iowa (March 2004)
It’s been years since I sat in that lecture hall, but Rushdie’s description of humans as storytelling creatures still gets me with it’s perfect simplicity.
Quote: Umberto Eco on Heroes
·25 words·1 min
Quotes
Writing
Literature
Heroes
The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.
— Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality
Quote: Matt Mullenweg on Blogging Without Distraction
·115 words·1 min
Quotes
Writing
Social Media
The antidote I’ve found for this is to write for only two people. First, write for yourself, both your present self whose thinking will be clarified by distilling an idea through writing and editing, and your future self who will be able to look back on these words and be reminded of the context in which they were written.
Quote: Mike Monteiro
·109 words·1 min
Quotes
Feels
Poverty
Economics
Human Condition
Culture
Every night, homeless people construct their nightly shelters outside the Quaker meeting house. Quakers will not make you leave. And have a high level of empathy. A few weeks ago I was walking home and there was a woman, a homeless woman, setting up a space.
2013
Quote: Chuck Wendig on Personal Brands
·201 words·1 min
Quotes
Writing
Marketing
Social Media
You are not a brand. You are a human being. Writing is your craft. Story is your art. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: who wants to read a story by a brand?
Quote: John D. MacDonald
·346 words·2 mins
Quotes
Human Condition
Loneliness
Always I have seen around me all the games and parades of life and have always envied the players and the marchers. I watch the cards they play and feel in my belly the hollowness as the big drums go by, and I smile and shrug and say, Who needs games?
Quote: Ray Bradbury
·26 words·1 min
Quotes
Ray Bradbury
Science Fiction
Fantasy
Writing
If I’m anything at all, I’m not really a science-fiction writer — I’m a writer of fairy tales and modern myths about technology.
— Ray Bradbury
Quote: Jaron Lanier
·48 words·1 min
Quotes
Technology
Culture
If you listen first, and write later, then whatever you write will have had time to filter through your brain, and you’ll be in what you say. This is what makes you exist.