Caroline Mays

I was a huge fan of the comic journalist Ronson, and his book Them

“Montaigne, the great French philosopher, adopted these seventeen words as the motto of his life: ‘A man is not hurt so much by what happens, as by his opinion of what happens.’ And our opinion of what happens is entirely up to us.”

Writers serve the public as historians of vibe: they tell us what it feels like to be here, now.

"Let us ask the gods not for possessions, but for things to do; happiness is in making things rather than in consuming them. In Utopia, said Thoreau, each would build his own home; and then song would come back to the heart of man, as it comes to the bird when it builds its nest. If we cannot build our homes, we can at least walk and throw and run;... See more

Art critic and writer Robert Hughes reminds us that the closer you get to excellence, the more you notice what is missing:

"The greater the artist, the greater the doubt; perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize."