Life is going to beat you up, it wouldn’t be fair if you didn’t throw some punches back at it

A principle for writing, investing, and life in general: It is much easier to notice when something is working than to predict ahead of time if it will work. Take action, make many small bets,...

More than the sound of my own beating heart, I miss the sound of a ticking clock. Time passes. It must pass….

Idols must never be touched: the gilt will come off on our hands.

There is never a right time. Except the time we make right.

I said I made a special trip to get her favorite item, because it sounded more romantic than saying I randomly had it already. Now that’s love.

Constance always said good people need to stand up and do what’s right, otherwise bad things will go unchallenged.

That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing; it was what everything was really about. It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just...

Normalization takes place not because there is Western-ideology that normalizes third-world texts in any special way (other than the usual play with exoticism) but because this academic seeks to domesticate everything, even Marx.

He who spends too long regretting his ruined crop will be neglect to plant next year’s harvest.

What if all I’d ever known was how it had been for the past three years – me being an unwanted outsider in my own family?I might have turned out like Aphrodite, and I might...

The man was rude, crude, and inappropriate. I was taken with him the moment I walked in the door, and I knew the first moment I saw him that it was going to be raw,...

Why is being a nerd bad? Saying I notice you’re a nerd is like saying, ‘Hey, I notice that you’d rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you’d rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that...

Most people, by the time they get old, have grown tough little shells around their hearts. Babies, like little Laila, start off with tender, loving, trusting hearts, but gradually, gradually, they learn to protect themselves...

Just because I liked something at one point in time doesn’t mean I’ll always like it, or that I have to go on liking it at all points in time as an unthinking act of...

It seems to me that God would not have endowed us with a mind and a sense of curiosity if he did not mean for us to use it.

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.

Last night your thin walls invited me to the party next door / reminded me I am a quiet person in a quiet life.

What happens to the world when science stops evolving?

The world’s a headmaster who works on your faults. I don’t mean in a mystical or Jesus way. More how you’ll keep tripping over a hidden step, over and over, till you finally understand: Watch...

Every morning and every night, I pause for just a minute and express my gratitude for all that I have in my life and all that I have experienced.

I’d laugh, only my stupid lizard brain has disabled the laugh button for now. I’m too frozen up with tension.I am owed so much laughter. Sometimes I hope I’m building up a stockpile of missing...

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater,you realize that you’ve been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying...

What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power.

Each positive thought is your refuge and your sanctuary, where in that thoughtful moment, you are safe.

Unless you are silent, you will notknow your urgent heart, how it beatsbetween the thin skin of yes and no.

Even when we do not actively participate in our destiny, we are still on a chosen path. Life has a way of making decisions for us.

If losers can exploit what their adversaries teach them, yes, losers can become winners in the long term.

Until I moved to Stockhold I had felt there was a continuity to my life, as if it stretched unbroken from childhood up to the present, held together by new connections, in a complex and...

He licked his lips. ‘Well, if you want my opinion-‘‘I don’t, ‘ She said. ‘I have my own.

I put a basketball hoop in the trees, to help the squirrels and give them a nice net to store their nuts for the winter. But that’s just the kind of thoughtful guy I am.

And it occurred to me how even pulling trees that day, just months ago, I was in heaven. Unaware. I had known nothing even as the evil was occurring, I hadn’t been touched yet.

I write, write and write but I can’t find words that define what I feel inside.

First of all I like John Kerry. I think he’s intellectually curious and very thoughtful. I think he’s deeply committed on issues like the environment. I think he’s an internationalist, which I am.

In war, the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich makes slaves of the poor.

It is inevitable that I will leave a legacy simply because I cannot walk through life without leaving footprints as I walk. Therefore, I would be wise to consider the path before I make the...

I was just overwhelmed with not only his story but the way he told it. He’s such a thoughtful, intellectual, moving person. You could hear a pin drop in our interview room when he was...

…just remember, darling, it is pain that changes our lives.

Actual message in letter I mailed: Congrats on getting married! Here’s a hundred-dollar gift certificate to Amazon.com. You could buy something practical, or you could buy 101 copies of my .99 cents ebook. Just kidding—I...

It was my kingdom. And when enemies attack your kingdom, you don’t flee. You show them why it’s your kingdom.

Unhealthy gossiping is one way that divides heaven and hell.

Librarians are tour-guides for all of knowledge.

A brain is only capable of what it could conceive, andit couldnt concieve what it hasnt experienced

I’m going to do something bigger and better,bigger and betterand bolder, but first,I’m going to do somethingsmaller and worse.

I need a break after school,” she told me later. “School is hard because a lot of people are in the room, so you get tired. I freak out if my mom plans a play...

Are you handing me an empty wine glass? You’re so thoughtful. How’d you know I wasn’t in the mood to drink?

She got icing all over her face. I think that’s why I like her. For the good stuff, she’s willing to get icing all over her face. Who wouldn’t want a girl like that?

Being thoughtful about the comfort and needs of the people who work in your home is a characteristic of a great Home Care CEO.

Married women are far more depressed than married men — in unhappy marriages, three times more; and — interestingly — in happy marriages, five times more. In truth, it is men who are thriving in...

I was a hugely unchaperoned reader, and I would wander into my local public library and there sat the world, waiting for me to look at it, to find out about it, to discover who...