“Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and O. J. Simpson have a lot in common. We don’t normally lump them together, because certain key contrasts are tricky — for example, one man is a Muslim intellectual and the other more or less decapitated his ex-wife.”
― I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains
― I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains
“As a human being, the ability to reach for the stars is what gets us through every day. If you have no hope, you have no life.”
― My Last Fight: The True Story of a Hockey Rock Star
― My Last Fight: The True Story of a Hockey Rock Star
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Dune
― Dune
“Up until the mid-eighties, there was always a shared assumption that the Right controlled the currency of outrage; part of what made conservatives “conservative” was their discomfort with profanity and indecency and Elvis Presley’s hips. But then — somewhat swiftly, and somehow academically — it felt as if the Left was suddenly dictating what was acceptable to be infuriated over (and always for ideological motives, which is why the modifier “politically” felt essential). This created a lot of low-level anxiety whenever people argued in public.”
― I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains
― I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains
“Is there anything more attractive than a polite person with limitless self-belief? There is not. Avoiding villainy is not that different from avoiding loneliness: First, you must love yourself. And if you do that convincingly enough, others will love you too much.”
― I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains
― I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains
Nick’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Nick’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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