Caroline Mays

“A writer’s heart, a poet’s heart, an artist’s heart, a musician’s heart is always breaking. It is through that broken window that we see the world.”

You should attempt things that are difficult enough to guarantee some early embarrassment, but important enough that long-term regret is unlikely.

In a single sentence, author Virginia Woolf encourages us to live with a strong foundation — to know our values and be grounded in a strong sense of self — but to remain adaptable and open to life:

"I am rooted, but I flow."

"In the long-run (and often in the short-run), your willpower will never beat your environment. The more disciplined your environment is, the less disciplined you need to be. Don't swim upstream."

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that interestingness is the very thing I feel falling away whenever I discover, or begin to suspect, that something I’m reading or watching was generated by artificial intelligence. It might continue to be impressive, or informative, but the flame that kept me fascinated sputters and dies. Which speaks to my point... See more

I think there should be more art in the world. I think there should be more art in corporations. I think artists in residence have proven to be powerful within corporations. I think artists should be more comfortable in their role. And again, what they’re doing is often useless and that’s hard to justify in a corporation. But we know that actually... See more

Because of the 20 years he’s been cultivating his ability in the craft of writing, what he thinks to do is just different from what I would think to do. I’ve seen the differences in what people get out of AI. The people who can get the best out of it need it the least.

My process is that I’m constantly reading, listening, and watching things. I do all my reading with physical books, so I have a pen in hand and I’m making notes in the margins. Once I finish a book, I put it aside for a bit and then go back through it with the note cards. Anything that holds up as interesting or potentially useful I write on a... See more