300 Arguments

Think of this as a short book composed entirely of what I hoped would be a long book’s quotable passages.

I like writing that is unsummarizable, a kernel that cannot be condensed, that must be uttered exactly as it is.

I annotated my friend’s book manuscript with scribbles on every page. She annotated mine with a single note: This needs to be better. She trusted that I would know what to do, and I did.

There are two kinds of people: those who can’t perform the act when they’re sad and those who perform it only to escape sadness. I have a theory that the second kind of person lives longer.

You aren’t the same person after a good night’s sleep as you are after a sleepless night. But which person is you?

I’ve never seen a ghost and I don’t believe in them. I might see one tonight, but even then I wouldn’t believe in ghosts. I’d believe in that ghost.

It’s easier to speak to a crowd, to stare into the spotlight, than it is to look into a human face.

Is it a failure of my imagination that I’ve never been able to summon any genuine feeling about a sports team?

It can be worth forgoing marriage for sex, and it can be worth forgoing sex for marriage. It can be worth forgoing parenthood for work, and it can be worth forgoing work for parenthood. Every case is orthogonal to all the others. That’s the entire problem.

It isn’t so much that geniuses make it look easy; it’s that they make it look fast.