David Shapiro > Quotes

“It is a life’s task to find the ways you want to play an endless game of uncontrol- lable beauty”
― David Shapiro

“52”
― David Shapiro, You're Not Much Use to Anyone: A Novel

“A Book of Glass
On the table, a book of glass. In the book only a few pages with no words But scratched in a diamond-point pencil to pieces in diagonal Spirals, light triangles; and a French curve fractures lines to
elisions.

The last pages are simplest. They can be read backwards and
thoroughly. Each page bends a bit like ludicrous plastic. He who wrote it was very ambitious, fed up, and finished. He had been teaching the insides and outsides of things

To children, teaching the art of Rembrandt to them. His two wives were beautiful and Death begins As a beggar beside them. What is an abstract persona? A painter visits but he prefers to look at perfume in vials.

And I see a book in glass—the words go off In wild loops without words. I should Wake and render them! In bed, Mother says each child Will receive the book of etchings, but the book will be
incomplete, after all.
But I will make the book of glass.”
― David Shapiro

“But on some days I will write a post and it does not get as manny Notes as the post I wrote the day before, and I will walk home and think nervously about it, like, "Am I out of good ideas?”
― David Shapiro, You're Not Much Use to Anyone

“Calling is connection: Uncovering our calling is a deliberate choice to serve others and to make a difference in the world. Our calling is made manifest in service to others...it is paradoxical but true; we are more likely to receive the meaning and fulfillment we seek when we enable others to achieve the meaning and fulfillment they seek, as well.”
― David Shapiro, Work Reimagined

“Our calling has little to do, in fact, with a particular job, and everything to do with how we approach it.”
― David Shapiro, Work Reimagined

“She cries in my arms and I try not to cry. We have never said “I love you” to each other, but it doesn’t matter, I don’t think.”
― David Shapiro, You're Not Much Use to Anyone: A Novel

“In short, there is no such thing as meaningful work; the meaning is what we bring to it, and that is what reimagining work is all about.”
― David Shapiro, Work Reimagined

“Burnout is overdoing; inner-kill is under-being. Inner-kill comes from feeling like we are not using our gifts in support of things we care about, or that we are stuck in an environment that is inconsistent with our values.”
― David Shapiro, Work Reimagined

“If you wish to share the petals of this amazing prophecy, be timely in arranging your compassionate attendance. This”
― David Shapiro, Gesar of Ling: A Bardic Tale from the Snow Land of Tibet

“Because everyone's, you know, Japanese. You'd have to hate everyone. It feels like everyone's on the same team here.”
― David Shapiro, Supremacist

“I buy us each a 40 oz. of Coors Light because right off the bat, it’s important that she knows I am the kind of guy who drinks 40s, not like wine or craft beer or stuff like that.”
― David Shapiro, You're Not Much Use to Anyone: A Novel

“While job stress can lead to burnout, burnout can lead to inner-kill. Inner-kill is the death of purpose.”
― David Shapiro, Work Reimagined