“
Your heart, Bessie, is an autumn garage.
”
”
J.D. Salinger (Franny and Zooey)
“
Okay. Look, why don't you take care of the half a million things you've been letting dangle in Roarke's Empire of Everything?"
"Catchy title. I may use it one day.
”
”
J.D. Robb (New York to Dallas (In Death, #33))
“
I try to think of something catchy to say, but there's nothing but irritation that something that was funny yo an eleven-year-old boy is still funny to a seventeen-year-old one.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Scorpio Races)
“
What do I sound like?" I asked, more breathily than I intended. God, so predictable.
He considered his answer for a moment before he gave it. "Dissonant," he said finally.
"Meaning?"
Another long pause. "Unstable."
Hmm.
He shook his head. "Not the way you're thinking," he said, the shadow of a smile on his lips. "In music, consonant chords are points of arrival. Rest. There's no tension," he tried to explain. "Most pop music hooks are consonant, which is why most people like them. They're catchy but interchangeable. Boring. Dissonant intervals, however, are full of tension," he said, holding my gaze. "You can't predict which way they're going to go. It makes limited people uncomfortable - frustrated, because they don't understand the point, and people hate what they don't understand. But the ones who get it," he said, lifting a hand to my face, "find it fascinating. Beautiful." He traced the shape of my mouth with his thumb. "Like you.
”
”
Michelle Hodkin (The Evolution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #2))
“
The dilemma of the eighth-grade dance is that boys and girls use music in different ways. Girls enjoy music they can dance to, music with strong vocals and catchy melodies. Boys, on the other hand, enjoy music they can improve by making up filthy new lyrics.
”
”
Rob Sheffield (Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time)
“
It was a full Spears album, apparently, and each song was as ridiculous as the one before. They were catchy, yes, but so was the plague.
”
”
Heidi Cullinan (Dance With Me (Dancing, #1))
“
It's my fault but the most violating thing I've felt this year is not the media exaggerations or the catchy gossip, but the rape of my personal thoughts.
”
”
Kurt Cobain (Journals)
“
The truth is, I don't have a catchy method of conversing and yet unfortunately suffer of a minute to minute basis the agony of the unexpressed thought.
”
”
Miriam Toews (Women Talking)
“
C'mon on down to the Whiff and Spit; snuff it up and cough it out," Lewis chanted, giving it a catchy rhythem.
”
”
L.J. Smith
“
Modern man is full of platitudes about living life to its fullest, with catchy keychain phrases and little plaques for kitchen walls. But if you've never retreated to the solitude of a dark room and listened to Beethoven's Ninth from start to finish, you know nothing. For music is a transcendental exploration of human emotion and experience, the very fabric of life in its purest form. And the Ninth our greatest musical achievement.
”
”
Tiffany Madison
“
It is no longer enough simply to solve crimes: We modern private detectives must also be able to come up with catchy names for our cases.
”
”
Alan Bradley (The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse (Flavia de Luce, #6.5))
“
So sure, start with a slogan. But don't bother wasting any time on it if you're merely going for catchy. Aim for true instead.
”
”
Seth Godin
“
Democrats suck at coming up with catchy propaganda slogans, because they don’t think like Nazis.
”
”
Oliver Markus Malloy (How to Defeat the Trump Cult: Want to Save Democracy? Share This Book)
“
So let’s start by just framing this not as “What kind of mom will you be?” but “What is the optimal configuration of adult work hours for your household?” Less catchy, yes, but also perhaps more helpful for decision-making.
”
”
Emily Oster (Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool (The ParentData Series))
“
She tapped out a beat on the edge of the piano as I tripped and plummeted through the refrain of “Spacebar,” trying to translate the synth chords into a piano bit on the fly. It had been a million years since I’d played it.
But it was still catchy.
Whoever had written this song had known what they were doing.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Sinner (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #4))
“
High school is nothing like it looks in the movies. No one sings, there’s no catchy dance numbers, and in Arizona no one even has lockers.
”
”
James Rallison (The Odd 1s Out: How to Be Cool and Other Things I Definitely Learned from Growing Up)
“
It was catchy though. The show wasn’t. It was like Lamb Chop’s Play-Along on acid but without the endearing weirdness of acid.
”
”
Karina Halle (Darkhouse (Experiment in Terror, #1))
“
Pick the three most interesting points about your story and make them fast, make them colorful, and make them catchy.
”
”
Keith Ferrazzi (Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time)
“
Who's this?" Dad asks when a catchy tune comes on the CD mix I made for the trip. We pass the skeleton tree that never has leaves, no matter what the time of year. Bare gray branches wave us on. "No one you know Dad," I say. It's me.
”
”
Cath Crowley (A Little Wanting Song)
“
Will looked at Evie funny. "Advertising?"
"Yes. You've heard of it, haven't you? Swell modern invention. It lets people know about something they need. Soap, lipstick, radios—or your museum, for instance. We could start with a catchy slogan, like, 'The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult—we've got the spirit!
”
”
Libba Bray (The Diviners (The Diviners, #1))
“
the idea that we’re “wired for story” is more than a catchy phrase. Neuroeconomist Paul Zak has found that hearing a story—a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end—causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human abilities to connect, empathize, and make meaning. Story is literally in our DNA.
”
”
Brené Brown (Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.)
“
Oppurtunity Makes the Thief
”
”
Stieg Larsson
“
KPS is not, and I say this with absolutely no slight intended, a brooding symphony of a novel. It’s a pop song. It’s meant to be light and catchy, with three minutes of hooks and choruses for you to sing along with, and then you’re done and you go on with your day, hopefully with a smile on your face. I had fun writing this, and I needed to have fun writing this. We all need a pop song from time to time, particularly after a stretch of darkness.
”
”
John Scalzi (The Kaiju Preservation Society)
“
What about lamppost?” I propose. “It’s innocent, catchy.”
“Lamppost?”
“Yeah, as in, lamppost will be our always.
”
”
Christine Riccio (Again, But Better)
“
Ooh,” Bernice said. “That’s catchy.” “Like chlamydia,” he muttered under his breath.
”
”
T.J. Klune (How to Be a Normal Person (How to Be, #1))
“
I don’t have a catchy method of conversing and yet, unfortunately, suffer on a minute-to-minute basis the agony of the unexpressed thought.
”
”
Miriam Toews (Women Talking)
“
A song isn’t impenetrable armor. They write songs about dead people too, you know.” “But are they quite so catchy?
”
”
Andrea Stewart (The Bone Shard Emperor (The Drowning Empire, #2))
“
The truth is, I don’t have a catchy method of conversing and yet, unfortunately, suffer on a minute-to-minute basis the agony of the unexpressed thought.
”
”
Miriam Toews (Women Talking)
“
All right. Let Lady Death get some rest.'
'That's not funny,' Nesta hissed.
Cassian winked, even as the others tensed. 'I think it's catchy.
Nesta glowered.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
“
The melody is a simple repetition, a catchy, easy-breezy tune, but soon breaks into improvised solos. As Alexander plays, Karina closes her eyes, and the notes become a summer-evening stroll down a country road drenched in moonlight, more of a mood than a melody, sultry and slow, in no hurry at all. Softened by vodka, she rides the notes, allowing herself to be carried, and her blood is flowing hotter. She’s turned on.
”
”
Lisa Genova (Every Note Played)
“
The latest literature says we’re supposed to call them “post-Kellis-Amberlee amplification manifestation syndrome humans,” but fuck that. If they really wanted some fancy new term for “zombie” to catch on, they should have made it easy to shout at the top of your lungs, or at least made sure it formed a catchy acronym
”
”
Mira Grant (Deadline (Newsflesh, #2))
“
Bear hence this body and attend our will. Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
“
This time, the record company had asked for, “catchy, fun, bubbly, with a hint of rock ‘n’ roll.” So of course my inner rebel wanted to dump a bunch of fourteen-minute tracks about politics and global warming onto their table. I didn’t even like politics,
”
”
L.J. Shen (Midnight Blue)
“
A note on language. Be even more suspicious than I was just telling you to be, of all those who employ the term "we" or "us" without your permission. This is another form of surreptitious conscription, designed to suggest that "we" are all agreed on "our" interests and identity. Populist authoritarians try to slip it past you; so do some kinds of literary critics ("our sensibilities are enraged...") Always ask who this "we" is; as often as not it's an attempt to smuggle tribalism through the customs. An absurd but sinister figure named Ron "Maulana" Karenga—the man who gave us Ebonics and Kwanzaa and much folkloric nationalist piffle—once ran a political cult called "US." Its slogan—oddly catchy as well as illiterate—was "Wherever US is, We are." It turned out to be covertly financed by the FBI, though that's not the whole point of the story. Joseph Heller knew how the need to belong, and the need for security, can make people accept lethal and stupid conditions, and then act as if they had imposed them on themselves.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Letters to a Young Contrarian)
“
Wakey wakey eggs and bacey!
”
”
Jayson James (Drifting (Finding Our Way, #3))
“
The photo-color forecast may not be as reliable as a supercomputer-simulation of the atmosphere, but it’s pretty impressive for an ancient method contained in a catchy rhyme.
”
”
Randall Munroe (How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems)
“
O femeie aparte seamana c-o melodie catchy: e greu sa ti-o mai scoti din cap, odata ce ti-a intrat.
”
”
Teodor Burnar (Viata mea)
“
A brick could be used to sway the voters. But if you really want to sway them, try using a catchy song.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Brick and Blanket Test in Brick City (Ocala) Florida)
“
They were interchangeable tools, and the catchy phrases continued without abatement.
”
”
Robert A. Caro
“
Peter Drucker had a catchy statement: “Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right thing.
”
”
Stanley McChrystal (Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World)
“
One day at a time means no end in sight, only another tomorrow. There are no catchy phrases to make suffering go away.
”
”
Rochelle B. Weinstein (When We Let Go)
“
Its catchy headlines were sheer propaganda, reminiscent of those run by the Communist mouthpieces of erstwhile East Germany.
”
”
Ullekh N.P. (War Room: The People, Tactics and Technology behind Narendra Modi's 2014 Win)
“
A name with a catchy story attached makes you less of a business, and more of a character in a story.
”
”
Oscar Auliq-Ice
“
Drucker had a catchy statement: “Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right thing.
”
”
General S McChrystal (Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World)
“
We were a song that howled with arrhythmic heartbeats and a never-ending bridge. But I wanted us to be the chorus. The good part. The catchy part that stayed with you forever.
”
”
Jennifer Hartmann (Older)
“
catchy acronym in the consulting world, “MECE,” which stands for “mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.
”
”
Stanley McChrystal (Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World)
“
Snooping scandal. As serious as the implications are, the media manages to give it a catchy little name. Not so much intruding, trespassing, invading, or spying. Snooping. You know, like a boyfriend snoops around on his girlfriend’s Facebook account. Or kids snoop through the closets for Christmas packages. It’s like dubbing HealthCare.gov’s disastrous launch a “glitch.
”
”
Sharyl Attkisson (Stonewalled: One Reporter's Fight for Truth in Obama's Washington)
“
By some definitions I am a millennial. I was born in 1980 and entered adulthood in the early 2000s, and my transition from child to adult lasted over a decade. However, I don’t identify as a millennial. If I had been born five months earlier I would have been branded Generation X, a label I don’t feel a strong connection to either. And no brand savvy sociologist came up with a term catchy enough to enter the zeitgeist for the in-betweeners born on the cusp.
”
”
Steven Barker
“
Drew is the opening song on my favorite album. He’s the song that everyone loves, the song that draws me in and makes me want to listen to the whole album without stopping. He’s the catchy song with the great hook, fancy guitar solo, and soaring vocals. But Shane … Shane’s the hidden track. He’s the song I don’t listen to until I’ve devoured the whole album. He’s that quiet song with the unbelievable melody. The song that makes me understand myself a bit better. Once I discover a truly special hidden track, I never get sick of it.
”
”
Jennie Wexler (Where It All Lands)
“
Oedipus Rex vs. Tyrannosaurus Rex
Oedipus Rex, a tragedy by Sophocles, chronicles the story of Oedipus, a man who becomes the king of Thebes while in the process unwittingly fulfilling a prophecy that he would murder his pops Laius and marry his mom Jocasta.
Tyrannosaurus Rex , commonly abbreviated to T. Rex, was a big fucking dinosaur that kicked ass during the Jurassic period.
My point?
My point is there doesn't have to be a point if you have
already hooked the reader with a catchy title.
And the winner is...
Steven Spielberg
”
”
Beryl Dov
“
The right side of the screen then shows a close-up of the protestors. There are only about thirty of them, but Gods bless them they're energetic. And they have catchy picket signs, like: "Set the dragon-people free!" and "Dragons are people, too!" and "End Racial Segregation! Again!
”
”
Sarah Nicolas (Dragons Are People, Too)
“
In music, consonant chords are point of arrival. Rest. There's no tension. Most pop music hooks are consonant, which is why most people like them. They're catchy but interchangeable. Boring. Dissonant Intervals, however are full of tension, you can't predict which way they're going to go. It makes limited people uncomfortable -- frustrated, because they don't understand the point, and people hate what they don't understand. But the ones who get it,"
he said, lifting a hand to my face,
"find it fascinating. Beautiful."
He traced the shape of my mouth with his thumb.
"Like you.
”
”
Michelle Hodkin
“
Any guy who dates Taylor Swift knows she’ll eventually write a brutally vindictive yet insanely catchy pop hit that drags his name through the mud and trashes his reputation. Jack pursued you even after he knew you worked for the competition. You may as well have Date at your own risk tattooed on your forehead!
”
”
Devon Daniels (The Rom Con)
“
Voddie Baucham, a former all-American football player, offers a catchy athletic metaphor. “Sending young people into the world without a biblical worldview,” he says, “is like sending a ballplayer onto the field without a playbook.”17 Team spirit is not enough. An athlete needs to comprehend the game’s strategy.
”
”
Nancy R. Pearcey (Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning)
“
Maybe America just swallowed all of us, including our histories, and spat out whatever it wanted us to remember in the form of something flashy, cinematic, and full of catchy songs. And the rest of us, without that firsthand knowledge of civil unrest and political acts of disobedience, just inhaled what they gave us.
”
”
Gabby Rivera (Juliet Takes a Breath)
“
It is perhaps one of those imponderables of life that many people declare their dislike for poetry, yet it surrounds us in the lyrics of the songs and hymns we love, the catchy advertising jingles, in picture books, and remembered snippets from Shakespeare or remembered and much loved verses. " Jeanette O'Hagan 1 May 2017
”
”
Jeanette O'Hagan
“
But the idea that we’re “wired for story” is more than a catchy phrase. Neuroeconomist Paul Zak has found that hearing a story—a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end—causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human abilities to connect, empathize, and make meaning. Story is literally in our DNA.
”
”
Brené Brown (Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.)
“
The truly perfect pangram would contain all the letters of the alphabet in the right order, but the only thing that achieves that is the alphabet. There are phrases that use fewer characters, but they are not as catchy. And this is not for want of trying. Here are two of the shortest: 'Quick wafting zephyrs vex bold Jim.' 'Sphinx of black quartz judge my vow.
”
”
Simon Garfield (Just My Type: A Book About Fonts)
“
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” It’s a catchy maxim. It’s simple. On first glance it makes sense. The phrase was coined by Michael Pollan, renowned professor, journalist, and best-selling author of In Defense of Food, who was instructing his readers on how to navigate the “incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy.
”
”
Rip Esselstyn (The Engine 2 Seven-Day Rescue Diet: Eat Plants, Lose Weight, Save Your Health)
“
It would be irresponsible, I think, not to mention the oratorical similarities between Trump and Jim Jones, who shared the same love of coining zingy, incendiary nicknames for their opponents. (“Fake News” and “Crooked Hillary” were Trump’s analogs to Jones’s “Hidden Rulers” and “Sky God.”) Even when their statements didn’t contain any rational substance, the catchy phrases and zealous delivery were enough to win over an audience.
”
”
Amanda Montell (Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism)
“
After each mass shooting, students, parents and neighbors call for common sense gun laws while pundits and legislators distract us with talk of mental illness and catchy phrases about people killing people, not guns. Relatively lost in the din of the well-practiced post-shooting punditry is a path forward: if we want to stop mass shootings - whether in schools or yoga studios - we have a stake in working together to stop violence against women.
”
”
Anne P. DePrince (Every 90 Seconds: Our Common Cause Ending Violence Against Women)
“
Shooting me an unrepentant look over her shoulder, she kept singing. It had a strangely upbeat quality to it that was catchy. Seaton linked arms with her and joined in. “Let your evil shiiiiiiiine~!” they sang cheerfully, thankfully on key. I deemed it just as well that we didn’t expect the thieves to be in any of the graveyards, as with this entrance, only the truly insane would linger. For my mental health, I decided to ignore the singing duo.
”
”
Honor Raconteur (Magic and the Shinigami Detective (The Case Files of Henri Davenforth, #1))
“
Political marketing...plays to people's emotions, not their thoughts. It operates on the belief that repeating a catchy phrase, even if it's untrue, will seal an idea in the mind of the unknowing or uncaring public. It assumes that citizens will always choose on the basis of their individual wants and not society's needs. It divides the country into "niche" markets and abandons the hard political work of knitting together broad consensus or national vision
”
”
Susan Delacourt (Shopping for Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and We Choose Them)
“
What do you reckon it is, that makes us see something all of a sudden? When we've passed by it a hundred times, and it suddenly jumps out? All of a sudden it's not just music that you're listening to, it's a feeling that you're feeling. And next thing you know you can't stop listening to the record without all the catchy tunes on it, or out of all five hundred channels, you can't stop watching that one old show. Why do we love the stuff we love? Especially when it doesn't make no regular sense." -Seth
”
”
Meagan Brothers (Weird Girl and What's His Name)
“
I knew how to make noise for a cause. It was natural, I understood, for Americans to feel disconnected from the struggles of people in faraway countries, so I tried to bring it home, calling up celebrities like Stephen Colbert to lend their star power at events and on social media. I'd enlist the help of Janelle Monae, Zendraya, Kelly Clarkson and other talents to release a catchy pop song written by Diane Warren called "This is for my Girls" the proceeds of which would go towards funding girls' education globally.
”
”
Michelle Obama (Becoming)
“
We listen to rap lyrics, but few study the history. One of the most significant contributions of hip hop. It offers a profound social commentary on the black experience. This is an aspect of the music that is overlooked because most people choose to pay more attention to “the hook” (the catchy repetitive phrase) than the complete body of work. In doing so, the listener misses the message: the essence of the music, the breakdown of the bars. That’s tantamount to someone who is able to quote scripture, but has never read the bible.
”
”
Carlos Wallace (The Other 99 T.Y.M.E.S: Train Your Mind to Enjoy Serenity)
“
The multiplicity of unstated assumptions behind this kind of reasoning is as much an asset in politics as it is a liability in logic. It would take pages to refute each sentence, because the implicit premises would have to be elaborated first. Even if they then collapsed of their own inconsistencies, it is not clear how many readers or listeners would have been willing to stay the course as the argument tediously unfolded. That is why it is a politically clever argument. Demagoguery flourishes where something can be said in a few catchy words that would take volumes to disprove.
”
”
Thomas Sowell (Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality?)
“
Who can blame the poor lad for not advertising his rather unique name? Especially when his mother’s maiden name is Jewel Diamond Sunrise and his grandmother’s is Dawn Moonbeam Sunrise. Dawn Sunrise, such a pretty name. And it is true that your mother was almost named Red Sky Sunrise, but your grandfather said he would divorce her mother if she didn’t change it. He was in the navy and thought that it was a bad omen. Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning, you know. And Max’s grandmother didn’t tell anyone that she considered calling her daughter Sunset Sunrise. Catchy isn’t it?
”
”
Oscar Eccentric
“
Hello! You are a Mission: Impossible agent. You dangle from ceilings into locked vaults, cling via suction cup to skyscrapers, and unmask your true identity to the double-crossers you’ve just triple-crossed. Also, you do not seem to get what “impossible” means. “Impossible” does not mean “as routine as a quarterly earnings report.” Nor does it mean “very rare” or “rather difficult” or “whew, it’s a good thing that knife blade halted a millimeter from Tom Cruise’s eye.” It means “not possible.” And yet it keeps happening. Your film’s title is as dishonest as its theme song is catchy.
”
”
Ben Orlin (Math with Bad Drawings)
“
Why It Matters: Clarity Reduces Friction AWeber conducted a study to determine what kinds of email subject lines performed best. They tested 20 subject lines, sent to a list of over 45,000 subscribers and found that clear subject lines out performed catchy ones by 366 percent. Overall, maintaining clarity is a good policy for any experience, and the principle holds true for confirmation emails from the subject line, to the CTAs and everything in between. Be clear with your new subscribers (potential customers) about how you’ll communicate with them, what they’ve subscribed to and what value you hope to add with your email communications.
”
”
Anonymous
“
His reading habit was so varied that in his early teens, he was reading both Maxim Gorky’s Mother and the detective thrillers (Jasoosi Duniya) of Ibn-e-Safi. The detective thrillers—be it Indian or American pulp fiction—were a big favourite for their fast action, tight plots and economies of expression. He remembers the novels of Ibn-e-Safi for their fascinating characters with memorable names. ‘Ibn-e-Safi was a master at naming his characters. All of us who read him remember those names . . . There was a Chinese villain, his name was Sing Hi. There was a Portuguese villain called Garson . . . an Englishman who had come to India and was into yoga . . . was called Gerald Shastri.’ This technique of giving catchy names to characters would stay with him. The wide range of reading not only gave him the sensitivity with which progressive writers approached their subjects but also a very good sense of plot and speaking styles. Here, it would be apt to quote a paragraph from Ibn-e-Safi’s detective novel, House of Fear—featuring his eccentric detective, Imran. The conversation takes place just outside a nightclub: ‘So, young man. So now you have also starred frequenting these places?’ ‘Yes. I often come by to pay Flush,’ Imran said respectfully. ‘Flush! Oh, so now you play Flush . . .’ ‘Yes, yes. I feel like it when I am a bit drunk . . .’ ‘Oh! So you have also started drinking?’ ‘What can I say? I swear I’ve never drunk alone. Frequently I find hookers who do not agree to anything without a drink . . .’ This scene would find a real-life parallel as well as a fictional one in Javed’s life later. Javed
”
”
Diptakirti Chaudhuri (Written by Salim-Javed: The Story of Hindi Cinema's Greatest Screenwriters)
“
But at least the voices are sexy, not twangy.” “So it’s not what someone says, it’s how they say it?” “Exactly.” My head bobbed in an exaggerated nod. “So I could call you a whore, and tell you to bend over while I snort a line off your sweet ass with a hundred dollar bill before I fuck you, and if I said it in the right voice it would sound sexy to you?” “Pfft … no.” I rolled my eyes. Then, of course, I wondered if the “sweet ass” comment was literal or just a lyrical example. Okay, it might have sounded sexy to me. I wasn’t going to ask him to actually say that in his sexiest voice, but it sure left me thinking about the songs I liked. Then I focused on the actual lyrics … yeah, he could have said that to me and made me want to let him do it. The religious sector was right: music was corrupting young minds, and I was one of them. A unique and catchy beat could make people dance and celebrate some really terrible shit.
”
”
Jewel E. Ann (One)
“
This book has pushed back against the randomness thesis, emphasizing instead the skill in venture capital. It has done so for four reasons. First, the existence of path dependency does not actually prove that skill is absent. Venture capitalists need skill to enter the game: as the authors of the NBER paper say, path dependency can only influence which among the many skilled players gets to be the winner. Nor is it clear that path dependency explains why some skilled operators beat other ones. The finding that a partnership’s future IPO rate rises by 1.6 percentage points is not particularly strong, and the history recounted in these pages shows that path dependency is frequently disrupted.[5] Despite his powerful reputation, Arthur Rock was unsuccessful after his Apple investment. Mayfield was a leading force during the 1980s; it too faded. Kleiner Perkins proves that you can dominate the Valley for a quarter of a century and then decline precipitously. Accel succeeded early, hit a rough patch, and then built itself back. In an effort to maintain its sense of paranoia and vigilance, Sequoia once produced a slide listing numerous venture partnerships that flourished and then failed. “The Departed,” it called them. The second reason to believe in skill lies in the origin story of some partnerships. Occasionally a newcomer breaks into the venture elite in such a way that skill obviously does matter. Kleiner Perkins became a leader in the business because of Tandem and Genentech. Both companies were hatched from within the KP office and actively shaped by Tom Perkins; there was nothing lucky about this. Tiger Global and Yuri Milner invented the art of late-stage venture capital. They had a genuinely novel approach to tech investing; they offered much more than the equivalent of another catchy tune competing against others. Paul Graham’s batch-processing method at Y Combinator offered an equally original approach to seed-stage investing. A clever innovation, not random fortune, explains Graham’s place in venture history.
”
”
Sebastian Mallaby (The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future)
“
Rather, I found through this experience that there is significant similarity between meditating under a waterfall and tidying. When you stand under a waterfall, the only audible sound is the roar of water. As the cascade pummels your body, the sensation of pain soon disappears and numbness spreads. Then a sensation of heat warms you from the inside out, and you enter a meditative trance. Although I had never tried this form of meditation before, the sensation it generated seemed extremely familiar. It closely resembled what I experience when I am tidying. While not exactly a meditative state, there are times when I am cleaning that I can quietly commune with myself. The work of carefully considering each object I own to see whether it sparks joy inside me is like conversing with myself through the medium of my possessions. For this reason, it is essential to create a quiet space in which to evaluate the things in your life. Ideally, you should not even be listening to music. Sometimes I hear of methods that recommend tidying in time to a catchy song, but personally, I don’t encourage this. I feel that noise makes it harder to hear the internal dialogue between the owner and his or her belongings. Listening to the TV is, of course, out of the question. If you need some background noise to relax, choose environmental or ambient music with no lyrics or well-defined melodies. If you want to add momentum to your tidying work, tap the power of the atmosphere in your room rather than relying on music. The best time to start is early morning. The fresh morning air keeps your mind clear and your power of discernment sharp. For this reason, most of my lessons commence in the morning. The earliest lesson I ever conducted began at six thirty, and we were able to clean at twice the usual speed. The clear, refreshed feeling gained after standing under a waterfall can be addictive. Similarly, when you finish putting your space in order, you will be overcome with the urge to do it again. And, unlike waterfall meditation, you don’t have to travel long distances over hard terrain to get there. You can enjoy the same effect in your own home. That’s pretty special, don’t you think?
”
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Marie Kondō (The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (Magic Cleaning #1))
“
Not long after I learned about Frozen, I went to see a friend of mine who works in the music industry. We sat in his living room on the Upper East Side, facing each other in easy chairs, as he worked his way through a mountain of CDs. He played “Angel,” by the reggae singer Shaggy, and then “The Joker,” by the Steve Miller Band, and told me to listen very carefully to the similarity in bass lines. He played Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” and then Muddy Waters’s “You Need Love,” to show the extent to which Led Zeppelin had mined the blues for inspiration. He played “Twice My Age,” by Shabba Ranks and Krystal, and then the saccharine ’70s pop standard “Seasons in the Sun,” until I could hear the echoes of the second song in the first. He played “Last Christmas,” by Wham! followed by Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” to explain why Manilow might have been startled when he first heard that song, and then “Joanna,” by Kool and the Gang, because, in a different way, “Last Christmas” was an homage to Kool and the Gang as well. “That sound you hear in Nirvana,” my friend said at one point, “that soft and then loud kind of exploding thing, a lot of that was inspired by the Pixies. Yet Kurt Cobain” — Nirvana’s lead singer and songwriter — “was such a genius that he managed to make it his own. And ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’?” — here he was referring to perhaps the best-known Nirvana song. “That’s Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling.’ ” He began to hum the riff of the Boston hit, and said, “The first time I heard ‘Teen Spirit,’ I said, ‘That guitar lick is from “More Than a Feeling.” ’ But it was different — it was urgent and brilliant and new.” He played another CD. It was Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” a huge hit from the 1970s. The chorus has a distinctive, catchy hook — the kind of tune that millions of Americans probably hummed in the shower the year it came out. Then he put on “Taj Mahal,” by the Brazilian artist Jorge Ben Jor, which was recorded several years before the Rod Stewart song. In his twenties, my friend was a DJ at various downtown clubs, and at some point he’d become interested in world music. “I caught it back then,” he said. A small, sly smile spread across his face. The opening bars of “Taj Mahal” were very South American, a world away from what we had just listened to. And then I heard it. It was so obvious and unambiguous that I laughed out loud; virtually note for note, it was the hook from “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.” It was possible that Rod Stewart had independently come up with that riff, because resemblance is not proof of influence. It was also possible that he’d been in Brazil, listened to some local music, and liked what he heard.
”
”
Malcolm Gladwell (What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures)
“
Everywhere you look with this young lady, there’s a purity of motivation,” Shultz told him. “I mean she really is trying to make the world better, and this is her way of doing it.” Mattis went out of his way to praise her integrity. “She has probably one of the most mature and well-honed sense of ethics—personal ethics, managerial ethics, business ethics, medical ethics that I’ve ever heard articulated,” the retired general gushed. Parloff didn’t end up using those quotes in his article, but the ringing endorsements he heard in interview after interview from the luminaries on Theranos’s board gave him confidence that Elizabeth was the real deal. He also liked to think of himself as a pretty good judge of character. After all, he’d dealt with his share of dishonest people over the years, having worked in a prison during law school and later writing at length about such fraudsters as the carpet-cleaning entrepreneur Barry Minkow and the lawyer Marc Dreier, both of whom went to prison for masterminding Ponzi schemes. Sure, Elizabeth had a secretive streak when it came to discussing certain specifics about her company, but he found her for the most part to be genuine and sincere. Since his angle was no longer the patent case, he didn’t bother to reach out to the Fuiszes. — WHEN PARLOFF’S COVER STORY was published in the June 12, 2014, issue of Fortune, it vaulted Elizabeth to instant stardom. Her Journal interview had gotten some notice and there had also been a piece in Wired, but there was nothing like a magazine cover to grab people’s attention. Especially when that cover featured an attractive young woman wearing a black turtleneck, dark mascara around her piercing blue eyes, and bright red lipstick next to the catchy headline “THIS CEO IS OUT FOR BLOOD.” The story disclosed Theranos’s valuation for the first time as well as the fact that Elizabeth owned more than half of the company. There was also the now-familiar comparison to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. This time it came not from George Shultz but from her old Stanford professor Channing Robertson. (Had Parloff read Robertson’s testimony in the Fuisz trial, he would have learned that Theranos was paying him $500,000 a year, ostensibly as a consultant.) Parloff also included a passage about Elizabeth’s phobia of needles—a detail that would be repeated over and over in the ensuing flurry of coverage his story unleashed and become central to her myth. When the editors at Forbes saw the Fortune article, they immediately assigned reporters to confirm the company’s valuation and the size of Elizabeth’s ownership stake and ran a story about her in their next issue. Under the headline “Bloody Amazing,” the article pronounced her “the youngest woman to become a self-made billionaire.” Two months later, she graced one of the covers of the magazine’s annual Forbes 400 issue on the richest people in America. More fawning stories followed in USA Today, Inc., Fast Company, and Glamour, along with segments on NPR, Fox Business, CNBC, CNN, and CBS News. With the explosion of media coverage came invitations to numerous conferences and a cascade of accolades. Elizabeth became the youngest person to win the Horatio Alger Award. Time magazine named her one of the one hundred most influential people in the world. President Obama appointed her a U.S. ambassador for global entrepreneurship, and Harvard Medical School invited her to join its prestigious board of fellows.
”
”
John Carreyrou (Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup)
“
As Krona and Anston collected themselves and walked toward the locker rooms, black and red cheerleaders poured from a side door, and I knew who sent them the moment I saw them. They were carrying pom poms that looked to be made out of actual fire but didn’t burn them. Each wore the burning fist symbol of my father on their chests, and they danced out to form up in front of the stands reserved for him. “I-N-F-E-R-N-O, he’s our lord, our H-E-R-O!” they cheered. “Blessed be his name, blessed be, blessed be, Innnnferno!” “Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.” I buried my head in my hands and muttered, “He brought the Infernets. Of course.” Eric was absolutely enthralled. “The what now?” He eyed the cheerleaders like anyone would, admiring their high-cut skirts and the bizarre fiery pom poms they wielded. My father was clapping along to their chant in the front row like a toddler being shown an especially catchy song. He bounced in his seat and whistled enthusiastically. “The Infernettes,” I explained as I resisted the urge to groan. “He has his own cheerleading squad.
”
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Simon Archer (Arch Rivals (Super Hero Academy, #2))
“
Cornbread Nation is not a term freighted with any profound or universal meaning; it’s just a catchy little phrase that calls to mind, for some of us, a timeless South where corn has been the staff of life forever, and cornbread in myriad forms has held a central place in the cookery of the region since the original people hunkered down to bake and break bread together.
”
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John Egerton (Cornbread Nation 1: The Best of Southern Food Writing)
“
My life. My lane. My pace. My rules.
”
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Mitta Xinindlu
“
We need . . . church leadership that risks a robust correlation of its scripture and theology with the very best that secular leadership studies can offer. What we get is church leadership that congratulates itself for dabbling in secular leadership studies twice borrowed, church leadership with a preference for simplistic formulas, catchy buzz words, and inane parables.” Such “Church Leadership Lite” is both “short on biblical and theological integrity and oblivious to serious leadership study.
”
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Arthur Boers (Servants and Fools: A Biblical Theology of Leadership)
“
A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “That should be a thing. Domi-Nate. It’s quite catchy.
”
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Shayne Silvers (Nine Souls (The Nate Temple Series, #9))
“
The five of them sat talking for a while — and Carl and Alex did some more work on their comic. “I was thinking,” said Alex, “maybe instead of the title being The Legend of Carl the Creeper, what if it was The Legend of Carl the Creeper and also Alex?” “It’s not quite so catchy,” said Carl. “Let’s just stick with The Legend of Carl the Creeper. If you want, we could add an extra word in there, like The Legend of Carl the Awesome Creeper. What do you think?” “Er, yeah, I guess that’s pretty good,” said Alex. “The Legend of Carl the Awesome Creeper it is,” said Carl.
”
”
Dave Villager (Dave the Villager 32: An Unofficial Minecraft Series (The Legend of Dave the Villager))
“
few seconds to capture eyeballs with a catchy headline. It’s true that complexity doesn’t always make for good sound bites, but it does seed great conversations.
”
”
Adam M. Grant (Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know)
“
René Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, saw attention as a kind of intellectual divining rod, a tool that enabled us to distinguish between dubious ideas and “clear and distinct” ones that lie beyond doubt. The philosopher who famously said “I think, therefore I am” also said, in so many words, I pay attention; therefore I am able to transcend doubt. Not as catchy, I admit, but probably more accurate.
”
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Eric Weiner (The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers)
“
Thomas and Rose stood against the wall, sipping on a mixture of juices sparked up with ginger ale. The Homecoming king and queen led off, two fiddlers playing a catchy Michif march. The spotlight cast a wavering patch where Sharlo appeared. Her crown, topped by a silver star, caught what light there was and she seemed to float along as she advanced. Perhaps she wasn’t even touching the floor. That’s what Thomas thought, disoriented, watching her move magically along through the gloom. She was one of the star beings, given, for her time on earth, human shape and form
”
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Louise Erdrich (The Night Watchman)
“
People used to sacrifice to kelpies?” Feyre asked, nose crinkling with disgust and dread. “Yes,” Amren said, scowling. “The most ancient Fae and humans believed kelpies to be river and lake gods, though I always wondered if the sacrifices started as a way to prevent the kelpies from hunting them. Keep them fed and happy, control the deaths, and they wouldn’t crawl out of the water to snatch the children.” Her teeth flashed. “For this one to still be speaking that ancient dialect … He must have retreated to Oorid a long time ago.” “Or been raised by parents who spoke that dialect,” Azriel countered. “No,” Amren said. “The kelpies do not breed. They rape and torment, but they do not reproduce. They were made, legend says, by the hand of a cruel god—and deposited throughout the waters of this land. The kelpie you slew, girl, was perhaps one of the last.” Nesta gazed at the Mask again. Rhys said, “It flew to you. The Mask.” He must have seen it in her head. “I was trying to reach for my power,” Nesta murmured, and they all stilled—she’d never spoken of her power so explicitly. “This answered instead.” “Like calls to like,” Feyre repeated. “Your power and the Mask’s are similar enough that to reach for one was to reach for the other.” “So you admit your powers remain, then,” Amren said drily. Nesta met her stare. “You already knew that.” Cassian stepped in before things went south. “All right. Let Lady Death get some rest.” “That’s not funny,” Nesta hissed. Cassian winked, even as the others tensed. “I think it’s catchy.
”
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Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
“
I ate some ramen out of a mug and watched the only channel on the television, which happened to be Evangelical TV—twenty-four-seven hymns to heal your soul. I sang along, not because I was particularly religious, but damn, some of these songs were as catchy as Chlamydia in Vegas.
”
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Grace McGinty (Pay-Per-Heart)
“
Even with all of this plot to be dispensed, the songs do rise organically out of the script. Doris’s first entrance, in head-to-toe buckskin, finds her astride a stagecoach, belting out the very catchy Sammy Fain/Paul Francis Webster song “The Deadwood Stage (Whip Crack Away).” The rollicking tune and exuberant Day vocal match the physical staging of the song, and character is revealed. Similarly, later in the film there is a lovely quiet moment when Calamity, Bill, the lieutenant, and Katie all ride together in a wagon (with Calamity driving, naturally) to the regiment dance, softly singing the lilting “Black Hills of Dakota.” These are such first-rate musical moments that one is bound to ask, “So what’s the problem?” The answer lies in Day’s performance itself. Although Calamity Jane represents one of Day’s most fondly remembered performances, it is all too much by half. Using a low, gravelly voice and overly exuberant gestures, Day, her body perpetually bent forward, gives a performance like Ethel Merman on film: She is performing to the nonexistent second balcony. This is very strange, because Day is a singer par excellence who understood from her very first film, at least in terms of ballads, that less is more on film. Her understated gestures and keen reading of lyrics made every ballad resonate with audiences, beginning with “It’s Magic” in Romance on the High Seas. Yet here she is, fourteen films later, eyes endlessly whirling, gesturing wildly, and spending most of her time yelling both at Wild Bill Hickok and at the citizens of Deadwood City. As The New York Times review of the film held, in what was admittedly a minority opinion, “As for Miss Day’s performance, it is tempestuous to the point of becoming just a bit frightening—a bit terrifying—at times…. David Butler, who directed, has wound her up tight and let her go. She does everything but hit the ceiling in lashing all over the screen.” She is butch in a very cartoonlike manner, although as always, the tomboyish Day never loses her essential femininity (the fact that her manicured nails are always evident helps…). Her clothing and speech mannerisms may be masculine, but Day herself never is; it is one of the key reasons why audiences embraced her straightforward assertive personality. In the words of John Updike, “There’s a kind of crisp androgynous something that is nice—she has backbone and spunk that I think give her a kind of stiffness in the mind.
”
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Tom Santopietro (Considering Doris Day: A Biography)
“
Fashion in Africa has always been Sustainable for decades. We just didn’t use the catchy buzzwords
”
”
Belinda Smetana
“
the intimate moments with god in my life
can best be likened to an 80s pop ballad:
honest, raw, conflicted–
with a catchy hook
and possibly a synthesizer.
”
”
Steve Veasey (Thin Spaces)
“
Their publicity model was the marketing strategy for another rather stimulating product, produced by none other than the Coca-Cola Company, which—with the catchy slogan “ice cold”—had enjoyed enormous success with their brown brew.
”
”
Norman Ohler (Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich)
“
One catchy descriptor that SBX advocates use to explain how powerful the SBX is, is to say if placed in the Chesapeake Bay, its radars would be able to see a baseball-sized object in San Francisco from an observation post in Washington, D.C., some 2,900 miles away. This is true, sort of. The baseball needs to be hovering 870 miles above San Francisco in a direct line of sight with the radar in D.C. in order to be seen.
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”
Annie Jacobsen (Nuclear War: A Scenario)
“
According to my orientation classes, the one thing I needed to know about America above everything else was this: “There is no such thing as hakuna matata in America.” I laughed the first time the instructor said this. Hakuna matata means “no worries.” In Africa, it is more than a catchy saying. It is a way of life in the camp. Time simply does not matter. From presidents and kings and judges all the way down to boys in a refugee camp, arriving somewhere “on time” is a very foreign concept. If you say, “Be here by nine,” that means, to us, “Show up sometime before noon.” If you are late, hakuna matata—no worries. In Africa, no one expects you to show up on time, anyway.
”
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Lopez Lomong (Running for My Life: One Lost Boy's Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games)
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Arthur’s answer was to adopt the seductive pizzazz of more traditional advertising—catchy copy, splashy graphics—and to market directly to an influential constituency: the prescribers. Arthur had inherited from his parents a reverence for the medical profession.
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Patrick Radden Keefe (Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction)
“
Some people, in some situations, are from Mars, and others, in other situations, are from Venus, and it's often men who are one and women who are the other but not necessarily, and you might be both at different times in different situations." That is a somewhat less catchy title.
”
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Eugenia Cheng (x + y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender)
“
The name “Charlie,” though it would become quite catchy to fans of spy novels and films over the years, had a more prosaic backstory. The Allied checkpoints covering entry into East Germany, and then into Berlin, derived their names, simply, from the letters in the NATO phonetic alphabet
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Iain MacGregor (Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth)
“
She’s lodged in my mind like a catchy tune. One of those damned songs you just can’t get out of your head no matter how hard you try. Yeah…that’s Hailey Ford — stuck on rewind.
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Gigi Sloan (Fixing Mr. Billionaire (The Billionaire Romance Collection))
“
No. We clean our own houses and catch our own vermin here.” “Catchy.” She checked around her ankles for hungry critters. “Put that on the town welcome sign and watch real estate prices soar.
”
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Tessa Bailey (It Happened One Summer (Bellinger Sisters, #1))
“
For the narcos, getting a ballad about them is like getting a doctorate,” Conrado says.
Conrado tells me the story of one low-level trafficker who paid to get a particularly catchy ballad made about him. Soon everyone played it on his car stereo.
“The crime bosses were like, ‘Bring me the guy from that song. I want him to do the job for me.’ So he rose through the ranks because of the song.”
“So what has happened to him now?” I asked.
“Oh, they killed him. He got too big. It was because of the song, really.
”
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Ioan Grillo (El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency)
“
William Jennings Bryan had once written and often said, “It is better to trust in the Rock of Ages than to know the age of the rocks.” It was admittedly a catchy play on words, but the Rock of Ages, as people knew it, was Christianity, and the opening lines of the hymn were Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee. I couldn’t avoid these two questions: Why were we hiding? And from what? —
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Lisa Grunwald (The Evolution of Annabel Craig)