Quantity overpowers perfectionism, as Altucher explains: ‘Perfectionism is your brain trying to protect you from harm. From coming up with an idea that is embarrassing and stupid and could cause you to suffer pain. We like the brain. But you have to shut the brain off to come up with ideas.’

What if you can’t think of ten? ‘Here’s the magic trick: if you can’t come up with ten ideas, come up with twenty ideas.’

often, the way to have the best ideas, and to produce the best work, is to develop an ability to forget entirely about trying to control the quality of your output. And the easiest way to do that is to focus on quantity instead. (‘Quantity has a quality all its own,’ as

‘There is neither a proportional relationship, nor an inverse one, between a writer’s estimation of a work in progress and its actual quality. The feeling that the work is magnificent, and the feeling that it is abominable, are both mosquitoes to be repelled, ignored, or killed, but not indulged.’ – ANNIE DILLARD

it’s central to an enjoyable and meaningful life that whenever we reach out to the world in this way, we don’t get to control how it responds. The value and depth of the experience relies on that unknowability.

the more we try to render the world controllable, the more it eludes us; and the more daily life loses what Rosa calls its resonance, its capacity to touch, move and absorb us.

this same inverse relationship between control and gratification crops up across the whole of a life.

Almost everything that happens, according to an adage of uncertain origin, is either a good time or a good story.

very often, the best way to benefit others is to focus on doing your thing.