1
2
3
5
8
12
20
33
52
83
133
213
340
543
867
1384
2208
2949
2950
2951
2952
2953
3346
3522
5443
5619
6757
7581
8098
8422
8625
8752
8832
8882
8913
8932
8945
8953
8957
8960
8962
8963
8964
8965
▲
▼
| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 71e9077 | Let us say that, in general, failure (and disconfirmation) are more informative than success and confirmation, which is why I claim that negative knowledge is just "more robust." | Nassim Nicholas Taleb | ||
| 68500d1 | It is no secret that large corporations prefer people with families; those with downside risk are easier to own, particularly when they are choking under a large mortgage. | Nassim Nicholas Taleb | ||
| b07793d | The only article Lady Fortuna has no control over is your behavior. Good luck. | Nassim Nicholas Taleb | ||
| 0e16da4 | Artisans, say, taxi drivers, prostitutes (a very, very old profession), carpenters, plumbers, tailors, and dentists, have some volatility in their income but they are rather robust to a minor professional Black Swan, one that would bring their income to a complete halt. Their risks are visible. Not so with employees, who have no volatility, but can be surprised to see their income going to zero after a phone call from the personnel departme.. | Nassim Nicholas Taleb | ||
| c326576 | Your reputation is harmed the most by what you say to defend it. | Nassim Nicholas Taleb | ||
| e16f0a5 | Don't complain too loud about wrongs done you; you may give ideas to your less imaginative enemies. | Nassim Nicholas Taleb | ||
| 69af652 | At the end, what matters is the strength of the string--not the wealth and power of the dining party. | Nassim Nicholas Taleb | ||
| 8446f75 | Some people are only funny when they try to be serious. | Nassim Nicholas Taleb | ||
| 8224e48 | Asking science to explain life and vital matters is equivalent to asking a grammarian to explain poetry. | Nassim Nicholas Taleb | ||
| 3f42c36 | The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know. | Nassim Nicholas Taleb | ||
| 1462482 | It is the system and its fragility, not events, that must be studied--what | Nassim Nicholas Taleb | ||
| 494f1c1 | Mental effort moves us into higher gear, activating more vigorous and more analytical brain machinery. | Nassim Nicholas Taleb | ||
| ed5c204 | Ermaline has entered the room noiselessly and is whispering to Nana. When she leaves, Nana and Papa start talking about friends of Mom's who are in the middle of a scandalous divorce. Mom and Dad keep glancing at Adam, and Nana keeps asking Mom and Dad questions, pulling their attention back to the conversation. I have seen this before. It's Nana's highly effective and very annoying way of not mentioning the elephant in the living room. But.. | Ann M. Martin | ||
| 958b924 | Adam,' I say, 'had good times and he had bad times.' I pause here and glance at Nana, see that she is crying silently, the way I cried at the duck pond in the park. I was going to say something more about the bad times- how Adam's bad times were different from most people's, and that I'll never really understand them. But now that I see Nana's tears, see her start to reach for Papa's hand, then pull back and fold her hands in her lap again-.. | Ann M. Martin | ||
| 076559a | A doorstop?|| he squawked. --Yes, doorstop. As in big, silent, and good only for holding wood.|| She smiled sweetly, and added, --At least I'm pretty sure about the wood part. Nanos do make sure immortal males function in all areas.|| Drina watched with satisfaction as Anders's mouth dropped open. She then shifted in her seat to a more comfortable position and closed her eyes. --I think I'll take a nap. I never sleep well on planes. Enjoy t.. | Lynsay Sands | ||
| e19e9e5 | Oh, Armand!" Agnes whirled away to embrace him now. "I do like her. You were ever so clever to find her." Armand actually chuckled as he hugged her back. "I'm glad, Agnes. I like her too." "Oh you!" Agnes pulled back to slap his chest playfully at the reprimand. "Ever the man of understatement. You don't just like her, Armand. I can read your thoughts. You love her." Eshe stilled at the words, a little startled by them, though she didn't kn.. | Lynsay Sands | ||
| 49c0617 | Teling a little would ultimately mean telling a lot. | Francine Pascal | ||
| 7a7356d | What sucked was that her room was on the fourth floor of a four-story house because she hated walking past every other room on her way in and out. She was like a latter-day Rapunzel except her hair was only a few inches below her shoulders, slightly fried, not all that blond, and furthermore, who the hell was ever going to climb up to give her a hand? The guy in the wheelchair from school? What she -- and Rapunzel, frankly -- needed was a d.. | ladder rapunzel rooms | Francine Pascal | |
| 47217be | Rayne, why is it you feel the need to argue with every single thing I say?" "Because every single thing you say is usually stupid and ridiculous." | rayne | Mari Mancusi | |
| 2f3f70c | Chris whistled. "Damn. That's hot." She swatted him. "Yeah, yeah," she dais. But her stomach fluttered. "I'm roasting actually." "That's not what I-" | mari-mancusi tomorrow-land | Mari Mancusi | |
| eda6be6 | Memory, which so confounds our waking life with anticipation and regret, may well be our one earthly consolation when time slips out of joint. | Keith Donohue | ||
| 61bc3d5 | Love makes us do wicked things. | Keith Donohue | ||
| 9fdbc1d | I would not want to be a child again, for a child exists in uncertainty and danger. Our flesh and blood, we cannot help but fear for them, as we hope for them to make their way in this life. | Keith Donohue | ||
| 01b7d1a | Allure goes beyond appearances to the way they grace the world. Some women propel themselves by means of an internal gyroscope. Others glide through life as if on ice skates. Some women convey their tortured lives through their eyes; others encircle you in the music of their laughter. | Keith Donohue | ||
| 9b10501 | It infuriates him, this killing, this death. Infuriating that this is what we're known for now, drug cartels and slaughter. This my city of Avenida 16 Septembre, the Victoria Theater, cobblestone streets, the bullring, La Central, La Fogata, more bookstores than El Paso, the university, the ballet, garapinados, pan dulce, the mission, the plaza, the Kentucky Bar, Fred's--now it's known for these idiotic thugs. And my country, Mexico--the la.. | Don Winslow | ||
| e381e9d | And though there were no children playing, no doves, no blue-shadowed roof tiles, I felt that the town was alive. And that if I heard only silence, it was because I was not accustomed to silence - maybe because my head was still filled with sounds and voices. | Juan Rulfo | ||
| 24b33c8 | You asked how I'd define prejudice. That's it. Making assumptions about people you've never met. | Tony Horwitz | ||
| 177d510 | Music is everywhere," Maude said softly. "It is in the water, in the wind's hum, in the bird's cry, in the boat's horn. Rhythm surrounds us. That is one of life's greatest gifts." | Anna Adams | ||
| c926e9c | Our story ends happily ever after. It has to. We escape Battle Creek, pile into the car, and burn a strip of rubber down the highway. Fly away west, to the promised land. Our rooms will be lit by lava lamps and Christmas lights. Our lives will glow. Consciousness will rise and minds will expand, and beautiful boys in flannel shirts will make snow angels on our floor and write love letters on our ceiling with black polish and red lipstick. W.. | Robin Wasserman | ||
| d125e10 | Nobody likes me," he concluded at the tail end of a ten-minute pity fest. "Can't imagine why," Quinn murmured. I turned my snort of laughter into a fake cough, which was an embarrassingly feeble attempt at subterfuge when you consider the fact that I didn't have any lungs." | Robin Wasserman | ||
| 16c281c | One of the greatest tragedies of growing up is the discovery that your parents- and your teachers, and your sports heroes, and your favorite actors, singers, YouTube sensations- are fallible. Adults don't know all, and what they do know, they often won't tell you- because they've got their own agendas, or because they want to shield you from the hard truths "for your own good." Adults lie, they betray, they screw up in every way possible..... | childhood growing-up life | Robin Wasserman | |
| 69a129e | If you can't remember something, did it really happen? | Robin Wasserman | ||
| fe48be0 | Don't go looking in dark places, because dark things live there. | Robin Wasserman | ||
| 669cd65 | Your unconscious wants to express the pain you feel about your own lost innocence. But your ego wants to keep it repressed. To the compromise is anxiety. | mothers-and-daughters therapy unconscious | Alison Bechdel | |
| c5f5927 | Voltaire, Locke, Rousseau, and Hobbes never had a chance to speak with these men or even know of their existence--and here, at last, we begin to appreciate the enormity of the calamity, for the distintegration of native America was a loss not just to those societies but to the human enterprise as a whole. | Charles C. Mann | ||
| bbe57bd | Busy? The word loses all meaning under the canopy of this sky. | Barbara Brown Taylor | ||
| cce4ac1 | Free trade agreements] are trade agreements that don't | brilliant bush capitalism communism corporations corporatocracy corruption coup-d-état democratic dictator fascism free-trade genius gore government green-party inefficiency intelligent jefferson lincoln nader obama politics progressive protectionism ralph-nader reform rich socialism terrorism transparency washington | Ralph Nader | |
| 34beb06 | This is good, and all good things cast shadows. | Barbara Brown Taylor | ||
| 8d66c0a | During the day it is hard to remember that all the stars in the sky are out there all the time, even when I am too blinded by the sun to see them. | Barbara Brown Taylor | ||
| 54c5fee | Who would stick around to wrestle a dark angel all night long if there were any chance of escape? The only answer I can think of is this: someone in deep need of blessing; someone willing to limp forever for the blessing that follows the wound. | Barbara Brown Taylor | ||
| 29f2112 | Plato once said that pain restores order to the soul. Rumi said that it lops off the branches of indifference. "The throbbing vein / will take you further / than any thinking."14 Whatever else it does, pain offers an experience of being human that is as elemental as birth, orgasm, love, and death. Because it is so real, pain is an available antidote to unreality--not the medicine you would have chosen, perhaps, but an effective one all the .. | Barbara Brown Taylor | ||
| 3f474de | I wish I could turn to the church for help, but so many congregations are preoccupied with keeping the lights on right now that the last thing they want to talk about is how to befriend the dark. | Barbara Brown Taylor | ||
| fe8a262 | We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening. To use our own voice. To see our own light. --Hildegard of Bingen | Barbara Brown Taylor | ||
| 671755a | As many years as I have been listening to Easter sermons, I have never heard anyone talk about that part. Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets, bright streaming light. But it did not happen that way. If it happened in a cave, it happened in complete silence, in absolute darkness, with the smell of damp stone and dug earth in the air. Sitting deep in the heart of Organ Cave, I let this sink in: new life .. | Barbara Brown Taylor |