“A typo can charge the meaning of anything.”
— This Is a Book
Demetri Martin
— This Is a Book
Demetri Martin
“Maneater” took the bassline from the Supremes’ “You Can’t Hurry Love”—it was pretty obvious, since Phil Collins had just covered the song and had a big hit with it. But I love every minute of this song. The long, smoldering intro, building up tension beat by beat. The cheesy ’80s sax solo to end all cheesy ’80s sax solos. The way Oates utters that “oooh!” at the end of the sax solo. The way Hall utters the non-word “ooobaaddaaaswougghew!” at the precise four-minute mark. And the way it warns me about those tough girls they were always singing about. This girl was deadly, man, but could she really rip my world apart?
- Talking to Girls About Duran Duran
Rob Sheffield
When you borrow a lot of money to create a false prosperity, you import the future into the present. It isn’t the actual future so much as some grotesque silicone version of it. Leverage buys you a glimpse of a prosperity you haven’t really earned.
- Boomerang
Michael Lewis
Constant self-enquiry is a good way to make sure you are at least being honest with yourself.
- I Was Blind But Now I See
James Altucher
The second you are offered an opportunity to have an adventure, to change your thinking, to step outside of yourself, go for it and see what happens. If this thought scares you, remember that you can always go back into your shell the second it’s over, if you want to. But even saying yes to every opportunity isn’t set in stone as a rule, because that would be inflexible. The really flexible thinkers know when to say ‘no’ as well as when to say ‘yes.’
- The Rules of Life
Richard Templar
Abby_Donovan: You know, it just might be bad form to talk about your ex-wife on a first date.
MarkBaynard: Oh, I don’t know. You never know when you might be interviewing your next ex-wife.
- Goodnight Tweetheart
Teresa Medeiros
Serial killers, they concluded, fall into one of two categories. Some crime scenes show evidence of logic and planning. The victim has been hunted and selected in order to fulfill a specific fantasy. The recruitment of the victim might involve a ruse or a con. The perpetrator maintains control throughout the offense. He takes his time with the victim, carefully enacting his fantasies. He is adaptable and mobile. He almost never leaves a weapon behind. He meticulously conceals the body. Douglas and Ressler, in their respective books, call that kind of crime organized.
In a disorganized crime, the victim isn’t chosen logically. She’s seemingly picked at random and “blitz-attacked,” not stalked and coerced. The killer might grab a steak knife from the kitchen and leave the knife behind. The crime is so sloppily executed that the victim often has a chance to fight back. The crime might take place in a high-risk environment.
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Each of these styles, the argument goes, corresponds to a personality type. The organized killer is intelligent and articulate. He feels superior to those around him. The disorganized killer is unattractive and has a poor self-image. He often has some kind of disability. He’s too strange and withdrawn to be married or have a girlfriend. If he doesn’t live alone, he lives with his parents. He has pornography stashed in his closet. If he drives at all, his car is a wreck.
- What the Dog Saw
Malcolm Gladwell
I’m the dumbest guy in the room and happy to stay that way. Then everyone else can fight. I can listen and learn.
- I Was Blind But Now I See
James Altucher
Word spread in Icelandic economic circles that this distinguished professor at Chicago had taken a special interest in Iceland. In May 2008, Aliber was invited by the University of Iceland’s economics department to give a speech. To an audience of students, bankers, and journalists, he explained that Iceland, far from having an innate talent for high finance, had all the markings of a giant bubble, but he spoke the technical language of academic economists. (“Monetary Turbulence and the Icelandic Economy,” he called his speech.) In the following Q&A session someone asked him to predict the future, and he lapsed into plain English. As an audience member recalls, Aliber said, “I give you nine months. Your banks are dead. Your bankers are either stupid or greedy. And I’ll be they are on planes trying to sell their assets right now.”
- Boomerang
Michael Lewis
Abby_Donovan: I wish you’d take off those shades. It makes me nervous when I can’t see a man’s eyes.
MarkBaynard: It would make you more nervous if you caught me staring at your chest while you talked instead of gazing deep into your eyes.
Abby_Donovan: Or if I caught you gazing deep into my eyes when I was hoping you were staring at my chest.
- Goodnight Tweetheart
Teresa Medeiros
Observing life in general, people very broadly seem to fall into two main camps: those who seem to have mastered the knack of successful living, and those who still find it all a bit of a struggle. And when I say successfully mastered it, I don’t mean by amassing wealth or being at the top in some stressful career. No, I mean mastered it in the old-fashioned sense that my hard-working grandparents would have understood. People who are content, mostly happy on a day-to-day basis, and in general healthy and getting more out of life. Those who are still struggling tend to be not so happy on the whole, and the enjoyment of life just isn’t what it should be.
- The Rules of Life
Richard Templar
A note about me: I do not think stress is a legitimate topic of conversation, in public anyway. No one ever wants to hear how stressed out anyone else is, because most of the time everyone is stressed out. Going on and on in detail about how stressed out I am isn’t conversation. It’ll never lead anywhere. No one is going to say, “Wow, Mindy, you really have it especially bad. I have heard some stories of stress, but this just takes the cake.”
- Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
Mindy Kaling
As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.
- The Fault in Our Stars
John Green
Being a member of Mensa means that you are a genius, with an IQ of at least 132. This enables you to meet other members, who will understand what the hell you are talking about when you say, for example, “That lamppost is tawdry.” That’s the kind of person they’re after. Joining Mensa instills in you a courtly benevolence toward non-members who would pretend to know what you know, think what you think, and stultify what you perambulate.
- Pure Drivel
Steve Martin
We’re so happy when we’re young and the future seems infinite in front of us. But it is an engorged cyst with pus that leaks out and finally bursts when youth turns to old age, when potential turns to mediocrity, when loves turns to languish.
- I Was Blind But Now I See
James Altucher
