David Pennington

The important tools will find you .

It is a mistake and a misreading of nature to think that you, a living creature, will be flourishing all the days of your life.

They ask, innocently enough, if I tasted any good scotch while I was in Scotland. And I answer, with a bit of spite – I have no idea.

National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • National Bestseller • A brilliantly conceived and illuminating reconsideration of a key period in the life of Ernest Hemingway that will forever change the way he is perceived and understood.

I should just write down and publish all of the best ideas I’ve ever had, as quickly and casually as I can, in succession.

“People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing—refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.”

We have become archivists of the self, I thought, curators of a life half-lived. Each countless photograph of a wonder, of dinner, of a view, of our children, of the utter banality of our everyday lives, was not a memento, a way of remembering the things we did, but instead evidence of the poverty of our engagement with the present moment.

The intent behind this meme is to evince the power of humor. In the face of two equal perils, just tread lightly; have fun; make jokes. The way to avoid both Scylla and Charybdis is to take neither too seriously.

“We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them,” she insisted, “but by waiting for them.”3