Di > Di's Quotes

“Disruption has been a favorite word of the Tech economy, but old-timers saw homes, communities, traditions, and relationships being disrupted.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises

“Only in the eleventh paragraph, at the end, did he add that he was also an artist. “Likewise in painting, I can do everything possible,” he wrote.”
― Walter Isaacson, Leonardo da Vinci

“It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“What the link between abortion and crime does say is this: when the government gives a woman the opportunity to make her own decision about abortion, she generally does a good job of figuring out if she is in a position to raise the baby well.”
― Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

“No matter how good you are at something, or how you rank your accomplishments, there is someone out there who makes you look incompetent.”
― Jordan B Peterson, 12 Rules for Life

“Leonardo had almost no schooling and could barely read Latin or do long division. His genius was of the type we can understand, even take lessons from. It was based on skills we can aspire to improve in ourselves, such as curiosity and intense observation. He had an imagination so excitable that it flirted with the edges of fantasy, which is also something we can try to preserve in ourselves and indulge in our children.”
― Walter Isaacson, Leonardo da Vinci

“I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“Intuitively, we think that rational decision-making means exhaustively enumerating our options, weighting each one carefully, and then selecting the best. But in practice, when the clock - or the ticker - is ticking, few aspects of decision-making (or of thinking more generally) are as important as this one: when to stop.”
― Algorithms to Live By By Tom Griffiths & Tom Griffiths

“The effort of retrieval [from long term memory] is a testament to how much you know. And the rarity of those lags is a testament to how well you’ve arranged it: keeping the most important things closes to hand.”
― Algorithms to Live By By Tom Griffiths & Tom Griffiths

“A little girl shouldn’t have to worry about her entire family,’ Grandpa says to me one afternoon….

‘What?’ I ask, not because I didn’t hear what he said, but because I’m confused. Of course a little girl should worry about her entire family. That’s what little girls do.

“I just...” He steps closer to me. “I just think... you deserve to be a kid.”

My eyes well with tears, and not from me forcing them to. This is a natural welling. I can’t remember the last time I cried naturally. I’m taken off guard. I shuffle my feet.”
― Jeannette McCurdy

“I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is inprobably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“I find the idea of a world without meaning terrifying. I studied literature and continue to read indiscriminately and greedily, like I'm sinking and books are a lifeline. Literature provides reassurance that the world is not a meaningless place. It offers a mirror and a shield, a reflection of my own lived experience and a promise that our struggles matter.”
― Irena Smith, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays

“[Ba Ba] asked fewer and fewer questions in America. Somehow, by leaving China, Ba Ba had grown more Chinese, starting to adopt our government's silly ideas about how asking questions was bad and disrespectful.”
― Qian Julie Wang, Beautiful Country

“There is no such thing as a woman who doesn’t work. There is only a woman who isn’t paid for her work.”
― Caroline Criado-Perez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

“The solution to the sex and gender data gap is clear: we have to close the female representation gap.”
― Caroline Criado Pérez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men