Darrell Baxter

“Most of us prefer to believe we are the active subjects of our victories but only the passive objects of our defeats. We triumph, but it is not really we who fail—we are ruined by forces beyond our control.”
― Hernan Diaz, Trust

“The real act of, say, building a friendship or creating a community involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well: disagreeing without poisoning the relationship; revealing vulnerability at the appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to end a conversation gracefully; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to let someone down without breaking their heart; knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

“Perhaps you know the story that is sometimes told of Jennie Jerome, who later became Winston Churchill’s mother. It’s said that when she was young, she dined with the British statesman William Gladstone and left thinking he was the cleverest person in England. Later she dined with Gladstone’s great rival, Benjamin Disraeli, and left that dinner thinking she was the cleverest person in England. It’s nice to be like Gladstone, but it’s better to be like Disraeli. Or”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

“Some people, under certain circumstances, hide their true emotions under exaggeration and hyperbole, not realizing their amplified caricature reveals the exact measure of the feelings it was meant to conceal.”
― Hernan Diaz, Trust