Jonathan Simcoe

It seemed extraordinary that Hermione’s mania for upholding rules could have abandoned her at this crucial juncture.

What the hell kind of video game consigns you to a mortgage when you boot it up? But Animal Crossing had taught my young son about the trap of long-term debt before he ever had a bank account

But there is another kind of restlessness that can be experienced on the road, a fatigue that stems from knowing where home is but also realizing you’re not there yet—a kind of “directed” impatience.25 The first is a baseline aimlessness that keeps looking for home; the second is the weariness of being en route, burdened by trials and distracted by

TWO YEARS HE WALKS THE EARTH. NO PHONE, NO POOL, NO PETS, NO CIGARETTES. ULTIMATE FREEDOM. AN EXTREMIST. AN AESTHETIC VOYAGER WHOSE HOME IS THE ROAD. ESCAPED FROM ATLANTA. THOU SHALT NOT RETURN, ’CAUSE “THE WEST IS THE BEST.” AND NOW AFTER TWO RAMBLING YEARS COMES THE FINAL AND GREATEST ADVENTURE. THE CLIMACTIC BATTLE TO KILL THE FALSE BEING WITHIN

The deeper problem, as my father would put it, is the “triumph of hope over expectation.” The only way to change the path of expectation is to face and dissect why our resolutions failed before. That road leads to many unexpected destinations far beyond willpower.

Curiositas is the anxious burden of having to always be clever.

Although LDS leaders were initially loath to abandon plural marriage, eventually they adopted a more pragmatic approach to American politics, emphatically rejected the practice, and actually began urging government agencies to prosecute polygamists.

“But look at all the good that’s come from it!” people said, as if the good that resulted made the evil somehow less evil.

We’ve said that a story is a system for the transfer of energy. Energy made in the early pages gets transferred along through the story, passed from section to section, like a bucket of water headed for a fire, and the hope is that not a drop gets lost.