David Lapin

“While in the past people of rank or status were those and only those who took risks, who had the downside for their actions, and heroes were those who did so for the sake of others, today the exact reverse is taking place. We are witnessing the rise of a new class of inverse heroes, that is, bureaucrats, bankers, Davos-attending members of the I.A.N.D. (International Association of Name Droppers), and academics with too much power and no real downside and/or accountability. They game the system while citizens pay the price.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

“Good writing is true writing. If a man is making a story up it will be true in proportion to the amount of knowledge of life that he has and how conscientious he is; so that when he makes something up it is as it would truly be. By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, p. 215”
― Larry W. Phillips, Ernest Hemingway on Writing

“No matter how long I linger with any being, I cannot exhaust the dynamic enigma of its presence.”
― David Abram, Becoming Animal

“I have every useless thing in the world in my house there. The only thing wanting is the necessary thing, a great patch of open sky like this. Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life, little boy,” he added, turning to me. “You have a soul in you of rare quality, an artist’s nature; never let it starve for lack of what it needs.”
― Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time: The Complete Masterpiece