J. Brandon Barnes > Quotes

“In my youth, I spent nearly seven years in college, mostly because I changed majors four times. Those were the official changes, though there were many other shifts in focus that sent me down different paths for short periods. “You’re going to have to commit to something eventually,” my advisor often warned me during our regular meetings in his dim, stuffy office. “But there are so many great options,” I would say. “How can I choose just one?” My advisor’s response was always the same: “The real world beckons, Mr. John Lewis, and you aren’t the type to remain a professional student. You’ll figure it out.”
― J. Brandon Barnes, The Gates of Yoffa

“I’m enamored with knowledge,” he said. “There is no greater elixir.” He had a grasp of mathematics like a musician’s command of scales. In an hour’s time he revealed at least half a dozen tricks he used in mental calculations, and I could sense his profound fascination with how numbers worked.”
― J. Brandon Barnes, The Gates of Yoffa

“He was clearly the type of person valuable enough to a project that the overseers were willing to tolerate eccentricities. I had run across several of his kind in previous jobs. Usually they were so skilled at their vocation that no one else even understood what they did. They were sometimes referred to as “bus bait” because managers were terrified they would walk out into the street one day and be hit by a bus, thus dooming their project.”
― J. Brandon Barnes, The Gates of Yoffa