Daniel R.

“Think of the corporate manager who gets two hundred emails per day and spends his time responding pell-mell to an incoherent press of demands. The way we experience this, often, is as a crisis of self-ownership: our attention isn’t simply ours to direct where we will, and we complain about it bitterly. Yet this same person may find himself checking his email frequently once he gets home or while on vacation. It becomes effortful for him to be fully present while giving his children a bath or taking a meal with his spouse. Our changing technological environment generates a need for ever more stimulation. The content of the stimulation almost becomes irrelevant. Our distractibility seems to indicate that we are agnostic on the question of what is worth paying attention to—that is, what to value.”
― Matthew B. Crawford, The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction

“After a lifetime of hounding authors for advice, I've heard three truths from every mouth: (1) Writing is painful -- it's 'fun' only for novices, the very young, and hacks; (2) other than a few instances of luck, good work only comes through revision; (3) the best revisers often have reading habits that stretch back before the current age, which lends them a sense of history and raises their standards for quality.”
― Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir

“When you make some great mistake,’ he philosophized, ‘it may very easily serve you better than the best-advised decision.”
― Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with Destiny

“The first time you meet Winston you see all his faults,’ she told him, ‘and the rest of your life you spend in discovering his virtues.”
― Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with Destiny