My Reading Highlights

By writing that works, I mean writing that does the job it’s supposed to do, whether that job is to inform, entertain, sadden, anger, or instruct.

The author’s use of visual images and accessible language should establish more firmly in your mind something you already knew when you picked up this book: Style does make a difference. It’s not just what you write that matters; it’s how you write it.

good writers can make any subject interesting, while incompetent writers can make anything dull.

this even if he was in another room and could not see the instrument being played, and he could do it not just for the violin and fortepiano but for every instrument he heard—and Mozart’s father, as a composer and music teacher, had

But since the 1990s brain researchers have come to realize that the brain—even the adult brain—is far more adaptable than anyone ever imagined, and this gives us a tremendous amount of control over what our brains are able to do.

New connections are made between neurons, while existing connections can be strengthened or weakened, and in some parts of the brain it is even possible for new neurons to grow

“When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,” he said. “When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.”

The most important is that the writer’s original perception of a character or characters may be as erroneous as the reader’s. Running a close second was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.

We’ve engaged in an act of telepathy. No mythy-mountain shit; real telepathy.

Empirical research into how we learn and remember shows that much of what we take for gospel about how to learn turns out to be largely wasted effort.

If learners spread out their study of a topic, returning to it periodically over time, they remember it better. Similarly, if they interleave the study of different topics, they learn each better than if they had studied them one at a time in sequence.

Learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful. Learning that’s easy is like writing in sand, here today and gone tomorrow.

I wrote a book in 2004 called Writing About Your Life

rewriting is the essence of writing

I often find myself reading with interest about a topic I never thought would interest me—some scientific quest, perhaps. What holds me is the enthusiasm of the writer for his field.

“The universe as we see it is never quite the exact physical universe,”

Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders.

When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.

All rebellions are ordinary and an ultimate bore. They are copied out of the same pattern, one much like another. The driving force is adrenalin addiction and the desire to gain personal power. All rebels are closet aristocrats.

government is a shared myth. When the myth dies, the government dies

It has occurred to me more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will.

If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross.

The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?

can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come

When the individual feels, the community reels," Lenina pronounced.   "Well, why shouldn't it reel a bit?"

Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."

We are not our own any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves, we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We are not our own masters. We are God's property. Is it not our happiness thus to view the matter? Is it any happiness or any comfort, to consider that we are our own? It may be thought so by the young and prosperous. These may think it a great thing to have everything, as they suppose, their own way–to depend on no one–to have to think of nothing out of sight, to be without the irksomeness of continual acknowledgment, continual prayer, continual reference of what they do to the will of another. But as time goes on, they, as all men, will find that independence was not made for man–that it is an unnatural state–will do for a while, but will not carry us on safely to the end …'"

The three essentials of effective writing in the English language are: purity, perspicuity, and precision.

Perspicuity denotes clear expression of thoughts conveyed in unequivocal language, so there is no misunderstanding of the thought or idea that the writer wishes to express. Ambiguous words, words of double meaning, and words that might be construed in a sense different from that intended should be avoided. Perspicuity requires a style that is clear and concise.

Precision requires concise and exact expression, free from redundancy–a style that is clear and simple enough so that the reader can immediately comprehend the meaning of the writer's words.

No, I don’t mean love, when I say patriotism. I mean fear. The fear of the other. And its expressions are political, not poetical: hate, rivalry, aggression

“the unforetold, the unproven, that is what life is based on. Ignorance is the ground of thought.

How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one’s country; is it hate of one’s uncountry? Then it’s not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That’s a good thing, but one mustn’t make a virtue of it, or a profession. . . .

the proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.

“Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear’s path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual.

Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man’s gentleness, his thereness.

that one opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life, and death to more death.

’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugliness and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. Still, they have one thing that I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.

“When I am not, what will there be? There will be nothing. Then where shall I be when I am no more?

“What is this? Can it be that it is Death?” And the inner voice answered: “Yes, it is Death.” “Why these sufferings?” And the voice answered, “For no reason — they just are so.” Beyond and besides this there was nothing.

Every powerful language has three mechanisms for accomplishing this: primitive expressions, which represent the simplest entities the language is concerned with, means of combination, by which compound elements are built from simpler ones, and means of abstraction, by which compound elements can be named and manipulated as units.

they move in a world where speech has lost its power. And whatever men do or know or experience can make sense only to the extent that it can be spoken about.

You know, we thank some people for merely living at the same time as we do.

Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast. I kept my melancholy and my agitation hidden, careful lest any trace should be left exposed.