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123 books
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35 voters
I wanted to institute a toll for people driving into Manhattan during rush hour, creating the congestion that chokes the city, and use its revenue to make these new public transportation options possible.
“no iron spike can pierce a human heart as icily as a period in the right place.”
― A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
― A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
“I don’t really care much for hearing “both sides” or “opposing points of view,” so much as I care about understanding the literary tools deployed to advance those views—the discipline of voice, the use of verbs, the length and brevity of sentences, and the curiosity of mind behind those sentences.”
― The Message
― The Message
“We’re always rationally explaining and articulating things. But we’re at our most intelligent in the moment just before we start to explain or articulate. Great art occurs—or doesn’t—in that instant. What we turn to art for is precisely this moment, when we “know” something (we feel it) but can’t articulate it because it’s too complex and multiple. But the “knowing” at such moments, though happening without language, is real. I’d say this is what art is for: to remind us that this other sort of knowing is not only real, it’s superior to our usual (conceptual, reductive) way.”
― A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
― A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
“But when the light cleared I had new eyes, and I could see my own words in new ways—and the words from which they were derived—the stories, columns, speeches, and talks presented by “willing intellectuals.” So much seemed obvious. I now noted a symmetry in the bromides—that those who claimed Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East were just as likely to claim that America was the oldest democracy in the world.”
― The Message
― The Message
“people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are. That man who is forced each day to snatch his manhood, his identity, out of the fire of human cruelty that rages to destroy it knows, if he survives his effort, and even if he does not survive it, something about himself and human life that no school on earth—and, indeed, no church—can teach. He achieves his own authority, and that is unshakable. This is because, in order to save his life, he is forced to look beneath appearances, to take nothing for granted, to hear the meaning behind the words. If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring; whatever it brings must be borne. And at this level of experience one’s bitterness begins to be palatable, and hatred becomes too heavy a sack to carry.”
― The Fire Next Time
― The Fire Next Time
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Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more
NerdFighters Book Club
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NerdFighters Book Club - Each month we read either a book recommended by John Green or we vote on a book recommended by one of our members - feel fr ...more
Allison’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Allison’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
7,415 books
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1,863 friends
459 books
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122 friends
328 books
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137 friends
1,016 books
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43 friends
946 books
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70 friends
292 books
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89 friends
590 books
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963 friends
268 books
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16 friends
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