Someone reads “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and learns techniques. Someone reads “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” and learns what it feels like to be every person in every kind of relationship, to watch love curdle into resentment, to see how societies constrain and shape individual choices. Which knowledge is more useful? Which... See more

I suspect this is why the smartest people I know tend to quote novels more than they quote non-fiction. They’ll reference the Grand Inquisitor or mention something about whales etc, and these literary touchstones carry more meaning than any TED talk summary ever could. The metaphors are load-bearing. They contain compressed wisdom that unfolds... See more

Pure information transfer fails to change people.

Stories work.