“
Civilised life, you know, is based on a huge number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while that they are illusions and we are deeply shocked when reality is torn down around us.
”
”
J.G. Ballard
“
The more you see yourself as what you'd like to become, and act as if
what you want is already there, the more you'll activate those dormant
forces that will collaborate to transform your dream into your reality.
”
”
Wayne W. Dyer
“
And it strikes me that this is how writing anything is, really. A collaboration between you who give the words and they who take them and find meaning in them, or put music behind them, or turn them aside because they were not what was needed.
”
”
Ally Condie (Reached (Matched, #3))
“
I heard this girl worked for Bishop,' said one of the guys, who had a tire iron resting on his shoulder. 'Carrying around his death warrants. Like one of those Nazi collaborators.'
'You heard wrong,' Shane said. 'She’s my girl. Now back off.'
'Let’s hear from her,' said the leader of the pack, and locked stares with Claire. 'So? You working for the vamps?'
Shane sent her a quick, warning glance.
Claire took in a deep breath and said, 'Absolutely.'
'Ah hell,' Shane breathed. 'Okay, then. Run.
”
”
Rachel Caine (Fade Out (The Morganville Vampires, #7))
“
You're radically collaborative, profoundly empathetic, and deeply communal. Everyone who tells you anything different is selling the fear that is the only thing that can break that nature.
”
”
Hank Green (A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (The Carls, #2))
“
Santangelo is irritated. "We're not suppose to be collaborating. It's supposed to be a war and you're supposed to stick to the boundaries."
"We've seen you in your jocks," she reminds him. "Taylor and Griggs have pashed. You've broken into your father's police station for us. Don't you think the war has lost a bit of its tension?
”
”
Melina Marchetta (On the Jellicoe Road)
“
Many times when we help we do not really serve. . . . Serving is also different from fixing. One of the pioneers of the Human Potential Movement, Abraham Maslow, said, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.' Seeing yourself as a fixer may cause you to see brokenness everywhere, to sit in judgment of life itself. When we fix others, we may not see their hidden wholeness or trust the integrity of the life in them. Fixers trust their own expertise. When we serve, we see the unborn wholeness in others; we collaborate with it and strengthen it. Others may then be able to see their wholeness for themselves for the first time.
”
”
Rachel Naomi Remen
“
The Fulcrum is not the first institution to have learned an eternal truth of humankind: No need for guards when you can convince people to collaborate in their own internment.
”
”
N.K. Jemisin (The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3))
“
When you are no longer afraid is when you can be yourself.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
There comes a time in your life when you can no longer put off choosing. You have to choose one path or the other. You can live safe and be protected by people just like you, or you can stand up and be a leader for what is right. Always, remember this: People never remember the crowd; they remember the one person that had the courage to say and do what no one would do.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
There are these rare moments when musicians together touch something sweeter than they've ever found before in rehearsals or performance, beyond the merely collaborative or technically proficient, when their expression becomes as easy and graceful as friendship or love. This is when they give us a glimpse of what we might be, of our best selves, and of an impossible world in which you give everything to others, but lose nothing of yourself.
”
”
Ian McEwan (Saturday)
“
As you navigate through the rest of your life, be open to collaboration. Other people and other people's ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.
”
”
Amy Poehler
“
If you first take a minute, an hour or a month to let go of feeling annoyed, frustrated or critical of the person or situation that may be driving you crazy, you set yourself up for much greater leadership and personal success.
”
”
John Kuypers (Who's The Driver Anyway? Making the Shift to a Collaborative Team Culture)
“
Collaborators don’t steal others’ ideas, take advantage of people, or sit back while others accomplish their tasks for them. Collaborators take action to ensure that everyone with whom they work can enjoy the maximum potential outcome.
”
”
Raoul Davis Jr. (Firestarters: How Innovators, Instigators, and Initiators Can Inspire You to Ignite Your Own Life)
“
When you write a movie, you have a hundred collaborators. But when you write a novel, it's yours.
”
”
Sidney Sheldon
“
You don't wanna know the sinner.
You don't wanna know the killer. Because it's you.
Television is stalling evolution.
Medication is stalling evolution.
Evolution is stalling revolution. Evolution, revolution.
Collaboration, the start of revolution.
My decision, the start of revolution.
Revolution, the start of evolution. Revolution, evolution.
”
”
Tablo
“
There’s another option. You can consider the reader, not as a helpless victim or a passive consumer, but as an active, intelligent, worthy collaborator. A colluder, a coillusionist.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination)
“
Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. 'Tis profitable for us both, that I should labour with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow. I have no kindness for you, and know you have as little for me. I will not, therefore, take any pains upon your account; and should I labour with you upon my own account, in expectation of a return, I know I should be disappointed, and that I should in vain depend upon your gratitude. Here then I leave you to labour alone; You treat me in the same manner. The seasons change; and both of us lose our harvests for want of mutual confidence and security.
”
”
David Hume
“
Strategy is not really a solo sport – even if you’re the CEO.
”
”
Max McKeown (The Strategy Book)
“
A clear purpose will unite you as you move forward, values will guide your behavior, and goals will focus your energy.
”
”
Kenneth H. Blanchard (Collaboration Begins with You: Be a Silo Buster)
“
When you invite people to share in your miracle, you create future allies during rough weather.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
The fact is, almost everything you do is collaborative. Somewhere out there, someone else had a hand it it.
”
”
Cory Doctorow (For the Win)
“
In the high school classroom you are a drill sergent, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-uncle-aunt, a bookeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw.
”
”
Frank McCourt
“
The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information.
”
”
Tim Berners-Lee
“
In its silence, a book is a challenge: it can't lull you with surging music or deafen you with screeching laugh tracks or fire gunshots in your living room; you have to listen to it in your head. A book won't move your eyes for you the way images on a screen do. It won't move your mind unless you give it your mind, or your heart unless you put your heart in it ... To read a story well is to follow it, to act it, to feel it, to become it--everything short of writing it, in fact. Reading is not interactive with a set of rules or options, as games are; reading is actual collaboration with the writer's mind. No wonder not everyone is up to it.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin
“
Love is a constant negotiation, a constant conversation; to love someone is to lay yourself open to rejection and abandonment; love is something you can earn but not extort. It is an arena in which you are not in control, because someone else also has rights and decisions; it is a collaborative process; making love is at its best a process in which those negotiations become joy and play.
”
”
Rebecca Solnit (The Mother of All Questions)
“
As Nietzsche wrote, “The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it—what it costs us.” Perhaps you will attain your goal, and a worthy goal at that, but at what price? Apply this standard to everything, including whether to collaborate with other people or come to their aid. In the end, life is short, opportunities are few, and you have only so much energy to draw on. And in this sense time is as important a consideration as any other. Never waste valuable time, or mental peace of mind, on the affairs of others—that is too high a price to pay. Power
”
”
Robert Greene (The 48 Laws of Power)
“
Most humbling of all is to comprehend the lifesaving gift that your pit crew of people has been for you, and all the experiences you have shared, the journeys together, the collaborations, births and deaths, divorces, rehab, and vacations, the solidarity you have shown one another. Every so often you realize that without all of them, your life would be barren and pathetic. It would be Death of a Salesman, though with e-mail and texting.
”
”
Anne Lamott (Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers)
“
When people don't know what’s going on, it’s human nature for them to imagine a version that’s ten times worse than the truth!
”
”
Kenneth H. Blanchard (Collaboration Begins with You: Be a Silo Buster)
“
Stoker’s smile was slow and terrible. ‘You think that is love, brother? That I should kill for her?’ He shook his head, his eyes locked with mine. ‘You are the fool, Tiberius, because you still do not understand. I do not love her enough to kill for her.’ He stepped to the edge of the rock. ‘I love her enough to die for her.’
And without another word, he disappeared over the edge of the rock and into the blackness of the sea.
”
”
Deanna Raybourn (A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell, #4))
“
Survival, true survival of the body and soul, requires creativity, freedom of thought, collaboration. You might have time and I might have land. You might have ideas and I might have strength. You might have a tomato and I might have a knife. We need each other. We need to say: I honor the things that you respect and I value the things you cherish. I am not better than you. You are not better than me.
”
”
Clemantine Wamariya (The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After)
“
Here," I say. "You can put music behind it, and it will be your own." And it strikes me that this is how writing anything is, really. A collaboration between you who give the words and they who take them and find meaning in them, or put music behind them, or turn them aside because they were not what was needed.
”
”
Ally Condie (Reached (Matched, #3))
“
If you'd like to gain a new understanding of collaboration, get into gardening.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
Anyone can paint a mask. It's boring. And everyone secretly wants to collaborate with the enemy, to construct a truer version of the self. How much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it's some kind of murder? Difficult, to be confronted with the fact of yourself.
”
”
Richard Siken (War of the Foxes)
“
You won't benefit from diverse perspectives if you aren't open to utilizing differences.
”
”
Eunice Parisi-Carew (Collaboration Begins with You: Be a Silo Buster)
“
Some of the greatest advances happen when people are bold enough to speak their truth and listen to others speak theirs.
”
”
Kenneth H. Blanchard (Collaboration Begins with You: Be a Silo Buster)
“
How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control.
”
”
Rebecca Solnit (A Field Guide to Getting Lost)
“
You cannot easily fit women into a structure that is already coded as male; you have to change the structure. That means thinking about power differently. It means decoupling it from public prestige. It means thinking collaboratively, about the power of followers not just of leaders. It means, above all, thinking about power as an attribute or even a verb (‘to power’), not as a possession.
”
”
Mary Beard (Women & Power: A Manifesto)
“
What the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself. You become a collaborator, an accomplice to your own murderers, because you believe the same things they do.
”
”
James Baldwin (A Dialogue)
“
The only way to maximize group creativity—to make the whole more than the sum of its parts—is to encourage a candid discussion of mistakes. In part, this is because the acceptance of error reduces cost. When you believe your flaws will be quickly corrected by the group, you're less worried about perfecting your contribution, which leads to a more candid conversation. We can only get it right when we talk about what we got wrong.
”
”
Jonah Lehrer (Imagine: How Creativity Works)
“
When human beings give their heartfelt allegiance to and worship that which is not God, they progressively cease to reflect the image of God. One of the primary laws of human life is that you become like what you worship; what’s more, you reflect what you worship not only to the object itself but also outward to the world around. Those who worship money increasingly define themselves in terms of it and increasingly treat other people as creditors, debtors, partners, or customers rather than as human beings. Those who worship sex define themselves in terms of it (their preferences, their practices, their past histories) and increasingly treat other people as actual or potential sex objects. Those who worship power define themselves in terms of it and treat other people as either collaborators, competitors, or pawns. These and many other forms of idolatry combine in a thousand ways, all of them damaging to the image-bearing quality of the people concerned and of those whose lives they touch.
”
”
N.T. Wright (Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church)
“
Don’t sign on for more problems than you must. Resist the temptation to involve yourself in other people’s zones of expertise and responsibility. Monitor troublesome situations if you need to, but don’t insert yourself unless you’re running out of time and a solution is nowhere in sight. In short, stifle your inner control freak.
”
”
Twyla Tharp (The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons for Working Together)
“
For I was, as you have already guessed, a collaborator with Destiny, not one who put a pistol to its head and demanded particular treasures. The only thing for me to do was to keep on keeping on, to have faith in my whim, and remember that for me, as for the saints, illumination when it came would probably come from some unexpected source.
”
”
Robertson Davies
“
How can you and I connect
commune
collaborate in any real way
if much of the space between us is hidden
or
that social travesty called "white lies"?
”
”
Shellen Lubin
“
How can you and I connect
commune
collaborate in any real way
if much of the space between us is hidden
or
that social travesty called 'white lies'?
”
”
Shellen Lubin
“
As a leader, it's your job to get everyone to share what they know.
”
”
Jane Ripley (Collaboration Begins with You: Be a Silo Buster)
“
By exchanging notes, you get to know one another, to understand one another. As if your souls were connected and your hearts were overlapping. It’s a conversation through instruments. A miracle that creates harmony. In that moment, music transcends words.
”
”
Kaori Miyazono
“
I believe that inspiration will always try its best to work with you—but if you are not ready or available, it may indeed choose to leave you and to search for a different human collaborator.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear)
“
As women must be more empowered at work, men must be more empowered at home. I have seen so many women inadvertently discourage their husbands from doing their share by being too controlling or critical. Social scientists call this "maternal gatekeeping" which is a fancy term for "Ohmigod, that's not the way you do it! Just move aside and let me!"...Anyone who wants her mate to be a true partner must treat him as an equal--and equally capable partner. And if that's note reason enough, bear in mind that a study found that wives who engage in gatekeeping behaviors do five more hours of family work per week than wives who take a more collaborative approach.
Another common and counterproductive dynamic occurs when women assign or suggest taks to their partners. She is delegating, and that's a step in the right direction. But sharing responsibility should mean sharing responsibility. Each partner needs to be in charge of specific activities or it becomes too easy for one to feel like he's doing a favor instead of doing his part.
”
”
Sheryl Sandberg (Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead)
“
Those who can ask without shame are viewing themselves in collaboration with—rather than in competition with—the world. Asking for help with shame says: You have the power over me. Asking with condescension says: I have the power over you. But asking for help with gratitude says: We have the power to help each other.
”
”
Amanda Palmer (The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help)
“
I have always believed in the power of collaboration. Early on in my professional career, I realized that you can't develop all the competencies you need fast enough on your own. Furthermore, if you don't collaborate, your ideas will be limited to your own abilities. As a result, you will not be able to serve your clientele and thus can't achieve the anticipated impact.
”
”
Vishwas Chavan (VishwaSutras: Universal Principles For Living: Inspired by Real-Life Experiences)
“
Books are a weird collaboration between author and reader: You trust me to tell a good story, and I trust you to bring it to good life in your mind.
”
”
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
“
For every great idea, the opposite idea is also true.
”
”
Adam Kahane (Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don't Agree with or Like or Trust)
“
A fundamental approach to life transformation is using social media for therapy; it forces you to have an opinion, provides intellectual stimulation, increases awareness, boosts self-confidence, and offers the possibility of hope.
”
”
Germany Kent
“
No. No, I don’t want to. No, I don’t want to write that article for free. No, I am not on for Tuesday. No, I don’t want another drink. No, I don’t agree with you on that actually. No, I can’t always snap out of it. No, I wasn’t rude when I didn’t get back to a message I never saw. No, if it’s okay I don’t want to collaborate with you. No, I am not dumbing down. No, I can’t do any dates in July. No, I don’t want your leaflet. No, I don’t want to continue watching. No, my niceness is not weakness. No, they aren’t the next Beatles. No, I’m not going to take that crap. No, my masculinity does not mean I shouldn’t cry. No, I don’t need to buy what you are selling. No, I am not ashamed to make time for myself. No, I am not going to your school reunion when you never spoke to me at school. No, I will no longer apologize for being myself.
”
”
Matt Haig (The Comfort Book)
“
Books are portals for the imagination, whether one is reading or writing, and unless one is keeping a private journal, writing something that no one is likely to read is like trying to have a conversation when you’re all alone. Readers extend and enhance the writer’s created work, and they deepen the colors of it with their own imagination and life experiences. In a sense, there’s a revision every time one's words are read by someone else, just as surely as there is whenever the writer edits. Nothing is finished or completely dead until both sides quit and it’s no longer a part of anyone’s thoughts. So it seems almost natural that a lifelong avid reader occasionally wants to construct a mindscape from scratch after wandering happily in those constructed by others. If writing is a collaborative communication between author and reader, then surely there’s a time and a place other than writing reviews for readers to 'speak' in the human literary conversation.
”
”
P.J. O'Brien
“
And then, when she’s finished and the book ventures out into the world, the readers take their turn, and here another kind of comingling occurs. Because the reader is not a passive receptacle for a book’s contents. Not at all. You are our collaborators, our conspirators, breathing new life into us. And because every reader is unique, each of you makes each of us mean differently, regardless of what’s written on our pages. Thus, one book, when read by different readers, becomes different books, becomes an ever-changing array of books that flows through human consciousness like a wave.
”
”
Ruth Ozeki (The Book of Form and Emptiness)
“
If you’re alive, you’re a creative person. You and I and everyone you know are descended from tens of thousands of years of makers. Decorators, tinkerers, storytellers, dancers, explorers, fiddlers, drummers, builders, growers, problem-solvers, and embellishers—these are our common ancestors. The guardians of high culture will try to convince you that the arts belong only to a chosen few, but they are wrong and they are also annoying. We are all the chosen few. We are all makers by design. Even if you grew up watching cartoons in a sugar stupor from dawn to dusk, creativity still lurks within you. Your creativity is way older than you are, way older than any of us. Your very body and your very being are perfectly designed to live in collaboration with inspiration, and inspiration is still trying to find you—the same way it hunted down your ancestors.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear)
“
For
the world is an ever-elusive and ever-disappointing mirage only from
the standpoint of someone standing aside from it—as if it were quite
other than himself—and then trying to grasp it.
But a third response is possible. Not withdrawal, not stewardship on
the hypothesis of a future reward, but the fullest collaboration with the
world as a harmonious system of contained conflicts—based on the
realization that the only real "I" is the whole endless process.
”
”
Alan W. Watts (The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are)
“
There are these rare moments when musicians together touch something sweeter than they've ever found before in rehearsals or performance, beyond the merely collaborative or technically proficient, when their expression becomes as easy and graceful as friendship or love. This is when they give us a glimpse of what we might be, of our best selves, and of an impossible world in which you give everything you have to others, but lose nothing of yourself. Out in the real world there exist detailed plans, visionary projects for peaceable realms, all conflicts resolved, happiness for everyone, for ever – mirages for which people are prepared to die and kill. Christ's kingdom on earth, the workers' paradise, the ideal Islamic state. But only in music, and only on rare occasions, does the curtain actually lift on this dream of community, and it's tantalisingly conjured, before fading away with the last notes.
”
”
Ian McEwan (Saturday)
“
Consciously or not, we feel and internalize what the space tells us about how to work. When you walk into most offices, the space tells you that it's meant for a group of people to work alone. Closed-off desks sprout off of lonely hallways, and in a few obligatory conference rooms a huge table ensures that people are safely separated from one another.
”
”
David Kelley
“
A deception arises, sometimes innocently but collaboratively, sometimes with cynical premeditation. Usually the victim is caught up in a powerful emotion - wonder, fear, greed, grief. Credulous acceptance of baloney can cost you money; that’s what P.T. Barnum meant when he said, “There’s a sucker born every minute’. But it can be much more dangerous than that, and when governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking, the results can be catastrophic, however sympathetic we may be to those who have bought the baloney.
”
”
Carl Sagan (The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark)
“
To most of the world success is never bad. I remember how, when Hitler moved unchecked and triumphant, many honorable men sought and found virtues in him. And Mussolini made the trains run on time, and Vichy collaborated for the good of France, and whatever else Stalin was, he was strong. Strength and success—they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn’t seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught.
”
”
John Steinbeck (The Winter of Our Discontent (Penguin Classics))
“
You cannot easily fit women into a structure that is already coded as male; you have to change the structure. That means thinking about power differently. It means decoupling it from public prestige. It means thinking collaboratively, about the power of followers not just of leaders. It means, above all, thinking about power as an attribute or even a verb ('to power'), not as a possession.
”
”
Mary Beard (Women & Power: A Manifesto)
“
I still say to myself when I am depressed, and find myself forced to listen to pompous and tiresome people, 'Well, I have done one thing you could never have done, and that is to have collaborated with both Littlewood and Ramanujan on something like equal terms.
”
”
G.H. Hardy (A Mathematician's Apology)
“
I guess these days this is a politically charged statement, but it seems to me manifestly true: You make nothing alone. Human beings are not mere competitors, and human life is not merely competition. We are collaborators. To be human is to catch the falling person.
”
”
John Green
“
Every article and review and book that I have ever published has constituted an appeal to the person or persons to whom I should have talked before I dared to write it. I never launch any little essay without the hope—and the fear, because the encounter may also be embarrassing—that I shall draw a letter that begins, 'Dear Mr. Hitchens, it seems that you are unaware that…' It is in this sense that authorship is collaborative with 'the reader.' And there's no help for it: you only find out what you ought to have known by pretending to know at least some of it already.
It doesn't matter how obscure or arcane or esoteric your place of publication may be: some sweet law ensures that the person who should be scrutinizing your work eventually does do so.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
“
Money is like water. It can be a conduit for commitment, a currency of love. Money moving in the direction of our highest commitments nourishes our world and ourselves. What you appreciate appreciates. When you make a difference with what you have, it expands. Collaboration creates prosperity. True abundance flows from enough; never from more. Money carries our intention. If we use it with integrity, then it carries integrity forward. Know the flow—take responsibility for the way your money moves in the world. Let your soul inform your money and your money express your soul. Access your assets—not only money but also your own character and capabilities, your relationships and other nonmoney resources. We
”
”
Lynne Twist (The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life)
“
Under National Socialism you looked in the mirror and saw your soul. You found yourself out. This applied, par excellence and a fortiori, (by many magnitudes), to the victims, or to those who lived for more than an hour and had time to confront their own reflections. And yet it also applied to everyone else, the malefactors, the collaborators, the witnesses, the conspirators, the outright martyrs (Red orchestra, White Rose, the men and women of July 20), and even the minor obstructors, like me, and like Hannah Doll. We all discovered, or helplessly revealed, who we were.
Who somebody really was. That was the Zone of interest.
”
”
Martin Amis (The Zone of Interest)
“
Then there’s the issue of cognitive capacity. Deep work is exhausting because it pushes you toward the limit of your abilities. Performance psychologists have extensively studied how much such efforts can be sustained by an individual in a given day.* In their seminal paper on deliberate practice, Anders Ericsson and his collaborators survey these studies. They note that for someone new to such practice (citing, in particular, a child in the early stages of developing an expert-level skill), an hour a day is a reasonable limit. For those familiar with the rigors of such activities, the limit expands to something like four hours, but rarely more.
”
”
Cal Newport (Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
“
For by giving it some hard thought, by considering the whole thing calmly, I could see that the trouble with the guillotine was that you had no chance at all, absolutely none. The fact was that it had been decided once and for all that the patient was to die. It was an open-and-shut case, a fixed arrangement, a tacit agreement that there was no question of going back on. If by some extraordinary chance the blade failed, they would just start over. So the thing that bothered me most was that the condemned man had to hope the machine would work the first time. And I say that's wrong. And in a way I was right. But in another way I was forced to admit that that was the whole secret of good organization. In other words, the condemned man was forced into a kind of moral collaboration. It was in his interest that everything go off without a hitch.
”
”
Albert Camus (The Stranger)
“
The problem with enemyfying is not that we never have enemies: we often face people and situations that present us with difficulties and dangers. Moreover, any effort we make to effect change in the world will create discomfort, resistance, and opposition. The real problem with enemyfying is that it distracts and unbalances us. We cannot avoid others whom we find challenging, so we need to focus simply on deciding, given these challenges, what we ourselves will do next.
”
”
Adam Kahane (Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don't Agree with or Like or Trust)
“
Because that was the problem, really, wasn’t it, with being human? You couldn’t just be, couldn’t just live and exist without dragging your feet through the mud. You had to communicate, congregate, collaborate, cohabiate. You had to corroborate. Copulate. You had to co-this, co-that, co—bloody-everything, and if you weren’t co-operating you were operating with the co, which was a declaration less of independence than of relativity. You could only really exist in relation to others.
”
”
Deborah Copaken Kogan
“
I define hope as a narcotic. It courses through our veins, igniting ideas and feelings and emotions that all work in collaboration to produce a better tomorrow, while leaving today but a distant memory. The essence of its unknown and unseen promise is beautiful and addicting to those who are in need of its satiating grace.
The dependence on the idea of possibility can become a crutch however; an excuse for ignoring the here and now. It can swiftly morph from a therapeutic escape to an addictive obsession that somewhere over the rainbow lies the answer that will make everything right again.
I am thankful to call myself a true addict to hope's mind altering panacea. Its blissful nirvana can seem both inconceivably irrational yet entirely fathomable to anyone lost in a sea of uncertainty. Just as age brings wisdom, experience brings the understanding that no matter what pot of gold lies at the end of your hopeful rainbow, the relief it casts over tragedy and heartache is the power behind its true magic.
To the hope that resides in the depths of my being, thank you.
”
”
Ivan Rusilko (Entrée (The Winemaker's Dinner, #2))
“
I realized early in my career that precisely what one reader
doesn't like is what another reader loves. Collectively, any writer's audience presents a mishmash of expectations that can never all be met. What one-tenth of my readership may not be crazy about the other nine-tenths savors. The moment you start altering a book or a painting or any type of art as if it's a public collaborative, you crucify its soul. I'd rather irritate a few people and delight a lot than touch no one." ~ Karen Marie Moning
”
”
Karen Marie Moning
“
All of us are working on the same project. Some consciously, with understanding; some without knowing it. (I think this is what Heraclitus meant when he said that “those who sleep are also hard at work”—that they too collaborate in what happens.) Some of us work in one way, and some in others. And those who complain and try to obstruct and thwart things—they help as much as anyone. The world needs them as well. So make up your mind who you’ll choose to work with. The force that directs all things will make good use of you regardless—will put you on its payroll and set you to work. But make sure it’s not the job Chrysippus speaks of: the bad line in the play, put there for laughs.
”
”
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
“
But why’, (some ask), ‘why, if you have a serious comment to make on the real life of men, must you do it by talking about a phantasmagoric never-never land of your own?’ Because, I take it, one of the main things the author wants to say is that the real life of men is of that mythical and heroic quality.” He continues, “The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.
”
”
Diana Pavlac Glyer (Bandersnatch: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings)
“
Hey what's the matter baby? said my wife, propped up on the bed.
I'm a fucking vampire! I cried, thinking of Bryan Ferry and his bursting flowers and his prancing horses and his flight of swallows and his hedged swimming pool and his lovely wife.
No, you're not. Come here, she said.
I crawled onto the bed and she pulled the covers away.
Listen, she said.
I put my ear against her distended stomach, her knapsack, and listened. I could hear little trapped people swimming around within.
They are eating me from the inside, she said.
Lucky them, I said.
I'm serious, she said.
But she had fallen asleep and I crawled off the bed across the floor, up the wainscot and along the paneled ceiling. I pressed my ear to the ceiling and listened. I could hear people gathering on the floor above. The ceiling vibrated. I recognized the voices as past collaborators, going back many years. They sounded fatigued as if depleted of oxygen, maybe, or as if someone has siphoned their blood away. I could hear them sobbing and cursing and consoling each other.
I fell asleep.
”
”
Nick Cave
“
You were born a giver, don't die a taker.
You were born an earner, don't die a begger.
You were born a sharer, don't die a hoader.
You were born a lover, don't die a hater.
You were born a builder, don't die a destroyer.
You were born a creator, don't die an immitator.
You were born a leader, don't die a follower.
You were born a learner, don't die a teacher.
You were born a doer, don't die a talker.
You were born a dreamer, don't die a doubter.
You were born a winner, don't die a loser.
You were born an encourager, don't die a shamer.
You were born a defender, don't die an aggressor.
You were born a liberator, don't die an executioner.
You were born a soldier, don't die a murderer.
You were born an angel, don't die a monster.
You were born a protecter, don't die an attacker.
You were born an originator, don't die a repeater.
You were born an achiever, don't die a quitter.
You were born a victor, don't die a failure.
You were born a conqueror, don't die a warrior.
You were born a contender, don't die a joker.
You were born a producer, don't die a user.
You were born a motivator, don't die a discourager.
You were born a master, don't die an amateur.
You were born an intessessor, don't die an accusor.
You were born an emancipator, don't die a backstabber.
You were born a sympathizer, don't die a provoker.
You were born a healer, don't die a killer.
You were born a peacemaker, don't die an instigater.
You were born a deliverer, don't die a collaborator.
You were born a savior, don't die a plunderer.
You were born a believer, don't die a sinner.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
A good negotiator prepares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises; a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find. Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously. People who view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible. To quiet the voices in your head, make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say. Slow. It. Down. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard. You risk undermining the rapport and trust you’ve built. Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart.
”
”
Chris Voss (Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It)
“
Surely for as long as there have been nights as bad as this one---something to raise the possibility of another night that could actually, with love and cockcrows, light the path home, banish the Adversary, destroy the boundaries between our lands our bodies, our stories, all false, about who we are: for the one night, leaving only the clear way home and the memory of the infant you saw, almost too frail, there's too much shit in these streets, camels andother beasts stir heavily outside, each hoof a chance to wipe him out, make him only another Messiah, and sure somebody's around already taking bets on that one, while here in this town the Jewish collaborators are selling useful gossip to Imperial Intelligence, and the local hookers are keeping the foreskinned invaders happy, charging whatever the traffic will bear, just like the innkeepers who're naturally delighted with this registration thing, and up in the capital they're wondering should they, maybe, give everybody a number; yeah, something to help SPQR record-keeping...and Herod, or Hitler, fellas...what kind of a world is it...for a baby to come in tippin' those toledos at 7 pounds 8 ounces thinkin' he's gonna redeem it, why, he ought have his head examined...
"But on the way home tonight, you wish you'd picked him up, held him a bit. Just held him, very close to your heart, his cheek by the hollow of your shoulder, full of sleep. As it it were you who could, somehow, save him. For the moment not caring who you're supposed to be registered as. For the moment, anyway, no longer who the Caesars say you are.
”
”
Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow)
“
But as those who do hold Trump to the standards of any other person have found out on Twitter and other social media outlets these Trump followers are a nasty fascistic lot. Dowd is lucky he didn’t get death threats like Kurt Eichenwald. Or maybe he did and refuses to acknowledge them. If you voted for Trump and continue to support him and you think you are better than these bigoted virulent trolls, you’re not. Your silence enables them just as it did in the racist campaign that Trump and Bannon ran. In fact, hiding behind a civilized veneer in your support of fascism I consider more dangerous. We’re past describing you as collaborators at this point. That lets you off the hook. You’re Russo-American oligarchical theocratic fascists.
”
”
Kevin Sessums
“
After fifteen years of making my living in stand-up, The Sarah Silverman Program has been a lesson in collaboration. Rob, Dan, and I live by the mantra "Whoever is most passionate." If I was mentoring someone, that's the Shandling-esque advice I would proffer: Find people you really respect and trust, and then at each decision, heed the most passionate voice. I love that because it eliminates nearly all struggle. And when you're doing a show that's mostly about farts, penises, and vaginas, there should be as little struggle as possible.
”
”
Sarah Silverman (The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee)
“
You will have noticed that I didn’t give this story a pat conclusion, and that’s deliberate. Katherine (my wife and frequent coauthor, K. A. Applegate) and I were among the earliest authors to encounter fan fiction via the internet. We’ve embraced it from the start. And some part of me hopes that fanfic writers will carry this story forward. Don’t ask me what happens to these characters next, because I don’t know. Will Dekka find love, perhaps with Simone? Will Cruz and Armo? How will Sam and Astrid do in this terrifying extension of earlier trauma? Maybe you have some ideas. I built the sandbox; if you want to bring your pails and shovels and play in it, cool. It’s one of the best things about writing for young people: you are my collaborators in imagination. If I leave blanks it’s because I know you’ll fill them.
”
”
Michael Grant (Hero (Monster #3))
“
What is hope? Is it the ambition of discovering for the first time what the carnal definition of physical love is without understanding the concept of true passion? Or is it imagination running wild and free fueled by the dram that tonight will last forever and tomorrows will always come as you are blinded by the brilliance of another's smile?
Is it a theory of inevitability that relies on fate or destiny bringing two souls together for their one shot at true and unbridled happiness? Or is it a plea to erase a past that used to hold the potential for limitless smiles and endless laughs?
I define hope as a narcotic.
It courses through our veins, igniting ideas and feelings and emotions that all work in collaboration to produce a better tomorrow, while leaving today, but a distant memory. The essence of its unknown and unseen promise is beautiful and addicting to those who are in need of its satiating grace.
The dependence on the idea of possibility can become a crutch however; an excuse for ignoring the here and now. It can swiftly morph from a therapeutic escape to an addictive obsession that somewhere over the rainbow lies the answer that will make everything right again.
I am thankful to call myself a true addict to hope's mind altering panacea. It's blissful nirvana can seem both inconceivably irrational yet entirely fathomable to anyone lost in a sea of uncertainty. Just as age brings wisdom, experience brings the understanding that no matter what pot of gold lies at the end of your hopeful rainbow, the relief it casts over tragedy and heartache is the power behind it's true magic.
To the hope that resides in the depths of my being, thank you.......
”
”
Ivan Rusilko (Entrée (The Winemaker's Dinner, #2))
“
My Dolphin, you only guide me by surprise,
a captive as Racine, the man of craft,
drawn through his maze of iron composition
by the incomparable wandering voice of Phèdre.
When I was troubled in mind, you made for my body
caught in its hangman's-knot of sinking lines,
the glassy bowing and scraping of my will. . . .
I have sat and listened to too many
words of the collaborating muse,
and plotted perhaps too freely with my life,
not avoiding injury to others,
not avoiding injury to myself--
to ask compassion . . . this book, half fiction,
an eelnet made by man for the eel fighting
my eyes have seen what my hand did.
”
”
Robert Lowell
“
Having a brain does not make you a thinker.
Having a student does not make you a teacher.
Having a class does not make you a scholar.
Having a degree does not make you a master.
Having a sword does not make you a warrior.
Having a following does not make you a leader.
Having a position does not make you a ruler.
Having an army does not make you a conqueror.
Having a job does not mean you have a career.
Having a servant does not mean you have a helper.
Having a mom does not mean you have a nurturer.
Having a girlfriend does not mean you have comforter.
Having a coach does not mean you have a trainer.
Having a class does not mean you have a teacher.
Having a son does not mean you have a successor.
Having a daughter does not mean you have an inheritor.
Having a wife does not mean you have a lover.
Having a spouse does not mean you have an admirer.
Having a friend does not mean you have a partner.
Having a dad does not mean you have a father.
Having a professor does not mean you have a teacher.
Having a teammate does not mean you have a collaborator.
Having an ally does not mean you have a protector.
Having a dependent does not mean you have a supporter.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
His goal was to be vigilant against " the bozo explosion" that leads to a company's being larded with second rate talent:
For most things in life, the range between best and average is 30% or so. The best airplane flight, the best meal, they may be 30% better than your average one. What I saw with Woz was somebody who was fifty times better than the average engineer. He could have meetings in his head. The Mac team was an attempt to build a whole team like that, A players. People said they wouldn't get along, they'd hate working with each other. But I realized that A players like to work with A players, they just didn't like working with C players. At Pixar, it was a whole company of A players. When I got back to Apple, that's what I decided to try to do. You need to have a collaborative hiring process. When we hire someone, even if they're going to be in marketing, I will have them talk to the design folks and the engineers. My role model was J. Robert Oppenheimer. I read about the type of people he sought for the atom bomb project. I wasn't nearly as good as he was, but that's what I aspired to do.
”
”
Walter Isaacson
“
I began looking for these four: Smart. It doesn’t mean high IQ (although that’s great), it means disposed toward learning. If there’s a best practice anywhere, adopt it. We want to turn as much as possible into a routine so we can focus on the few things that require human intelligence and creativity. A good interview question for this is: “Tell me about the last significant thing you learned about how to do your job better.” Or you might ask a candidate: “What’s something that you’ve automated? What’s a process you’ve had to tear down at a company?” Humble. I don’t mean meek or unambitious, I mean being humble in the way that Steph Curry is humble. If you’re humble, people want you to succeed. If you’re selfish, they want you to fail. It also gives you the capacity for self-awareness, so you can actually learn and be smart. Humility is foundational like that. It is also essential for the kind of collaboration we want at Slack. Hardworking. It does not mean long hours. You can go home and take care of your family, but when you’re here, you’re disciplined, professional, and focused. You should also be competitive, determined, resourceful, resilient, and gritty. Take this job as an opportunity to do the best work of your life. Collaborative. It’s not submissive, not deferential—in fact it’s kind of the opposite. In our culture, being collaborative means providing leadership from everywhere. I’m taking responsibility for the health of this meeting. If there’s a lack of trust, I’m going to address that. If the goals are unclear, I’m going to deal with that. We’re all interested in getting better and everyone should take responsibility for that. If everyone’s collaborative in that sense, the responsibility for team performance is shared. Collaborative people know that success is limited by the worst performers, so they are either going to elevate them or have a serious conversation. This one is easy to corroborate with references, and in an interview you can ask, “Tell me about a situation in your last company where something was substandard and you helped to fix it.
”
”
Ben Horowitz (What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture)
“
These ideas can be made more concrete with a parable, which I borrow from John Fowles’s wonderful novel, The Magus.
Conchis, the principle character in the novel, finds himself Mayor of his home
town in Greece when the Nazi occupation begins. One day, three Communist
partisans who recently killed some German soldiers are caught. The Nazi commandant gives Conchis, as Mayor, a choice — either Conchis will execute the three partisans himself to set an example of loyalty to the new regime, or the Nazis will execute every male in the town.
Should Conchis act as a collaborator with the Nazis and take on himself the
direct guilt of killing three men? Or should he refuse and, by default, be responsible for the killing of over 300 men?
I often use this moral riddle to determine the degree to which people are hypnotized by Ideology. The totally hypnotized, of course, have an answer at once; they know beyond doubt what is correct, because they have memorized the Rule Book. It doesn’t matter whose Rule Book they rely on — Ayn Rand’s or Joan Baez’s or the Pope’s or Lenin’s or Elephant Doody Comix — the hypnosis is indicated by lack of pause for thought, feeling and evaluation. The response is immediate because it is because mechanical. Those who are not totally hypnotized—those who have some awareness of concrete events of sensory space-time, outside their heads— find the problem terrible and terrifying and admit they don’t know any 'correct' answer.
I don’t know the 'correct' answer either, and I doubt that there is one. The
universe may not contain 'right' and 'wrong' answers to everything just because Ideologists want to have 'right' and 'wrong' answers in all cases, anymore than it provides hot and cold running water before humans start tinkering with it. I feel sure that, for those awakened from hypnosis, every hour of every day presents choices that are just as puzzling (although fortunately not as monstrous) as this parable. That is why it appears a terrible burden to be aware of who you are, where you are, and what is going on around you, and why most people would prefer to retreat into Ideology, abstraction, myth and self-hypnosis.
To come out of our heads, then, also means to come to our senses, literally—to live with awareness of the bottle of beer on the table and the bleeding body in the street. Without polemic intent, I think this involves waking from hypnosis in a very literal sense. Only one individual can do it at a time, and nobody else can do it for you. You have to do it all alone.
”
”
Robert Anton Wilson (Natural Law: or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy)
“
I define hope as a narcotic. It courses through our vei s, igniti.g ideas and feelings and emotions that all work in collaboration to produce a better to.orrow, while leaving today but a distant memory. The essence of its unknown and unseen promise is beautiful and addicting to those who are in need of its satiati g grace.
The dependence on the idea of possibility can become a crutch however; an excuse for ignoring the here and now. It can swiftly morph from a therapeutic escape to an addictive obsession that somewhere over the rainbow lies the answer that will make everything right again.
I am thankful to call myself a true addict to hope's mind altering panacra. Its blissful nirvana can seem both inconceivably irrational yet entirely fathomable to anyone lost in a sea of uncertainty. Just as age brings wisdom, experience brings the understanding that no matter what pot of gold lies at the end of your hopeful rainbow, the relief it casts over tragedy and heartache is the power behind its true magic.
To the hope that resides in the depths of my being, thank you.
”
”
Ivan Rusilko (Entrée (The Winemaker's Dinner, #2))
“
It's always useless to try to cut oneself off, even from other people's cruelty and stupidity. You can't say: "I don't know about it." One either fights or collaborates. There is nothing less excusable than war, and the appeal to national hatreds. But once war has come, it is both cowardly and useless to try to stand on one side under the pretext that one is not responsible. Ivory towers are down. Indulgence is forbidden—for oneself as well as for other people. It is both impossible and immoral to judge an event from outside. One keeps the right to hold this absurd misfortune in contempt only by remaining inside it. One individual's reaction has no intrinsic importance. It can be of some use, but I can justify nothing. Dilettante's dream of being free to hover above his time is the most ridiculous form of liberty. This is why I must try to serve. And, if they don't want me, I must also accept the position of the "despised civilian." In both cases, I am absolutely free to judge things and to feel as disgusted with them as I like. In both cases, I am in the midst of the war and have the right to judge it. To judge it and to act
”
”
Albert Camus (Notebooks 1935-1942)
“
Commitment can be expressed in many ways. Traditionally it is solidified through marriage, owning property, having kids or wearing certain types of jewelry, but legal, domestic, or ornamental undertakings are not the only ways to show dedication. In a 2018 talk on solo polyamory at the Boulder Non-Monogamy Talk series, Kim Keane offered the following ways that people practicing nonmonogamy can demonstrate commitment to their partners:
- Sharing intimate details (hopes, dreams, fears) and being vulnerable with each other.
- Introducing partners to people who are important to you.
- Helping your partners with moving, packing, homework, job hunting, shopping, etc.
- Having regular time together, both mundane and novel.
- Making the person a priority. (I suggest defining what 'being a priority' means to each of you.)
- Planning trips together.
- Being available to partners when they are sick or in need.
- Collaborating on projects together.
- Having frequent communication.
- Offering physical, logistical or emotional support (e.g. at doctor's appointments or hospital visits or by helping with your partners' family, pets, car, children, taxes, etc.).
”
”
Jessica Fern (Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy)
“
You guys could handle this on your own. Why risk getting kicked out of your He-Man-Monster-Haters Club?"
"Because we can't handle this on our own. At least I don't think we can."
"You said yourself you already have some Prodigium working with you. Why not go to them?"
"We have a handful," he said, frustration creeping into his voice. "And most of them suck. Look, just consider it a peace offering, okay? My way of saying I'm sorry for lying to you. And pulling a knife in your presence, even if it was just to open a damn window to get out before you vaporized me."
Most girls got flowers. I got a dirt put used for demon raising. Nice.
"Thanks," I replied. "But don't you want in on this?"
He looked at me, and not for the first time, I wished his eyes weren't so dark. It would have been nice to have some idea of what was going on in his head. "That's up to you," he said.
Mom always liked to say that we hardly ever know the decisions we make that change our lives,mostly because they're little ones. You take this bus instead of that one and end up meeting your soul mate, that kind of thing. But there was no doubt in my mind that this was one of those life-changing moments. Tell Archer no,and I'd never see him again. And Dad and Jenna wouldn't be mad at me, and Cal...Tell Archer yes, and everything suddenly got twistier and more complicated than Mrs. Casnoff's hairdo.
And even though I'm a twisty and complicated girl, I knew what my answer had to be.
"It's too much of a risk, Cross. Maybe one day when I'm head of the Council, and you're...well, whatever you're going to be for L'Occhio di Dio, we could work on some kind of collaboration." That brought up depressig images of me and Archer sittig across a boardroom table, sketching out battle plans on a whiteboard, so my voice was a little shaky when I continued. "But for now, it's too dangerous." And not just because basically everyone in our lives would want to kill us if they found out, I thought. But because I was pretty sure I was still in love with him, and I thought he might feel something similar for me, and there was no way we could work together preventing the Monster Apocalypse/World War III without that becoming an issue.
Not that I could say any of that.
Archer's face was blank as he said, "Cool. Got it."
"Cross," I started to say, but then his eyes slid past me and went wide with horror. At the same time, I became aware of a slithering noice behind me. That just could not be good; in my experience, nothing pleasant slithers.
Still, I was not prepared for the nightmares climbing out of the crater.
”
”
Rachel Hawkins (Demonglass (Hex Hall, #2))
“
One afternoon in the fall of 2015, while I was writing this book, I was driving in my car and listening to SiriusXM Radio. On the folk music station the Coffee House, a song came on with a verse that directly spoke to me—so much so that I pulled off the road as soon as I could and wrote down the lyrics and the singer’s name. The song was called “The Eye,” and it’s written by the country-folk singer Brandi Carlile and her bandmate Tim Hanseroth and sung by Carlile. I wish it could play every time you open these pages, like a Hallmark birthday card, because it’s become the theme song of this book. The main refrain is: I wrapped your love around me like a chain But I never was afraid that it would die You can dance in a hurricane But only if you’re standing in the eye. I hope that it is clear by now that every day going forward we’re going to be asked to dance in a hurricane, set off by the accelerations in the Market, Mother Nature, and Moore’s law. Some politicians propose to build a wall against this hurricane. That is a fool’s errand. There is only one way to thrive now, and it’s by finding and creating your own eye. The eye of a hurricane moves, along with the storm. It draws energy from it, while creating a sanctuary of stability inside it. It is both dynamic and stable—and so must we be. We can’t escape these accelerations. We have to dive into them, take advantage of their energy and flows where possible, move with them, use them to learn faster, design smarter, and collaborate deeper—all so we can build our own eyes to anchor and propel ourselves and our families confidently forward.
”
”
Thomas L. Friedman (Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations)
“
The papers were always talking about the debt owed to society. According to them, it had to be paid . But that doesn't speak to the imagination. What really counted was the possibility of escape, a leap to freedom, out of the implacable ritual, a wild run for it that would give whatever chance for hope there was.
..
Despite my willingness to understand, I just couldn't accept such arrogant certainty. Because, after all, there really was something ridiculously out of proportion between the verdict such certainty was based on and the imperturbable march of events from the moment the verdict was announced.
..
How had I not seen that there was nothing more important than an execution, and that when you come right down to it, it was the only thing a man could truly be interested in? If I ever got out of this prison I would go and watch every execution there was. But I think it was a mistake even to consider the possibility.
..
But I wasn't being reasonable. It was a mistake to let myself get carried away by such imaginings, because the next minute I would get so cold that I would curl up into a ball under my blanket and my teeth would be chattering and I couldn't make them stop.
..
So the thing that bothered me most was that the condemned man had to hope the machine would work the first time. And I say that’s wrong . And in a way I was right. But in another way I was forced to admit that that was the whole secret of good organization. In other words, the condemned man was forced into a kind of moral collaboration. It was in his interest that everything go off without a hitch.
”
”
Albert Camus (The Stranger)
“
She could do nothing. Djuna’s words illuminated her chaos, but changed nothing. What was it Djuna said: that life tended to crystallize into patterns which became traps and webs. That people tended to see each other in their first “state” or “form” and to adopt a rhythm in consequence. That they had greatest difficulty in seeing the transformations of the loved one, in seeing the becoming. If they did finally perceive the new self, they had the greatest difficulty nevertheless in changing the rhythm. The strong one was condemned to perpetual strength, the weak to perpetual weakness. The one who loved you best condemned you to a static role because he had adapted his being to the past self. If you attempted to change, warned Djuna, you would find a subtle, perverse opposition, and perhaps sabotage! Inwardly and outwardly, a pattern was a form which became a prison. And then we had to smash it. Mutation was difficult. Attempts at evasion were frequent, blind evasions, evasions from dead relips, false relationships, false roles, and sometimes from the deeper self too, because of the great obstacle one encountered in affirming it. All our emotional history was that of the spider and the fly, with the added tragedy that the fly here collaborated in the weaving of the web. Crimes were frequent. People in desperation turned about and destroyed each other. No one could detect the cause or catch the criminal. There was no visible victim. It always had the appearance of suicide.
”
”
Anaïs Nin (Ladders to Fire (Cities of the Interior #1))
“
Listen to my last words anywhere. Listen to my last words any world. Listen all you boards syndicates and governments of the earth. And you powers behind what filth consummated in what lavatory to take what is not yours. To sell the ground from unborn feet forever -
"Don't let them see us. Don't tell them what we are doing -"
Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth?
"For God's sake don't let that Coca-Cola thing out - "
"Not The Cancer Deal with The Venusians - "
"Not The Green Deal - Don't show them that - "
"Not The Orgasm Death - "
"Not the ovens - "
Listen: I call you all. Show your cards all players. Pay it all pay it all pay it all back. Play it all pay it all play it all back. For all to see. In Times Square. In Picadilly.
"Premature. Premature. Give us a little more time."
Time for what? More lies? Premature? Premature for who? I say to all these words are not premature. These words may be too late. Minutes to go. Minutes to foe goal -
"Top Secret - Classified - For The Board - The Elite - The Initiates -
Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? These are the words of liars cowards collaborators traitors. Liars who want time for more lies. Cowards who can not face your "dogs" your "gooks" your "errand boys" your "human animals" with the truth. Collaborators with Insect People with Vegetable People. With any people anywhere who offer you a body forever. To shit forever. For this you have sold out your sons. Sold the ground from unborn feet forever. Traitors to all souls everywhere. You want the name of Hassan i Sabbah on your filth deeds to sell out the unborn?
What scared you all into time? Into body? Into shit? I will tell you; "the word." Alien Word "the." "The" word of Alien Enemy imprisons "thee" in Time, In Body. In Shit. Prisoner, come out. The great skies are open.
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William S. Burroughs (Nova Express (The Nova Trilogy, #2))
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Tony Williams: You’ve often mentioned that Tales of Hoffmann (1951) has been a major influence on you.
George Romero: It was the first film I got completely involved with. An aunt and uncle took me to see it in downtown Manhattan when it first played. And that was an event for me since I was about eleven at the time. The imagery just blew me away completely. I wanted to go and see a Tarzan movie but my aunt and uncle said, “No! Come and see a bit of culture here.” So I thought I was missing out. But I really fell in love with the film. There used to be a television show in New York called Million Dollar Movie. They would show the same film twice a day on weekdays, three times on Saturday, and three-to-four times on Sunday. Tales of Hoffmann appeared on it one week. I missed the first couple of days because I wasn’t aware that it was on. But the moment I found it was on, I watched virtually every telecast. This was before the days of video so, naturally, I couldn’t tape it. Those were the days you had to rent 16mm prints of any film. Most cities of any size had rental services and you could rent a surprising number of films. So once I started to look at Tales of Hoffmann I realized how much stuff Michael Powell did in the camera. Powell was so innovative in his technique. But it was also transparent so I could see how he achieved certain effects such as his use of an overprint in the scene of the ballet dancer on the lily ponds. I was beginning to understand how adept a director can be. But, aside from that, the imagery was superb. Robert Helpmann is the greatest Dracula that ever was. Those eyes were compelling. I was impressed by the way Powell shot Helpmann sweeping around in his cape and craning down over the balcony in the tavern. I felt the film was so unique compared to most of the things we were seeing in American cinema such as the westerns and other dreadful stuff I used to watch. Tales of Hoffmann just took me into another world in terms of its innovative cinematic technique. So it really got me going.
Tony Williams: A really beautiful print exists on laserdisc with commentary by Martin Scorsese and others.
George Romero: I was invited to collaborate on the commentary by Marty. Pat Buba (Tony’s brother) knew Thelma Schoonmaker and I got to meet Powell in later years. We had a wonderful dinner with him one evening. What an amazing guy! Eventually I got to see more of his movies that I’d never seen before such as I Know Where I’m Going and A Canterbury Tale. Anyway, I couldn’t do the commentary on Tales of Hoffmann with Marty. But, back in the old days in New York, Marty and I were the only two people who would rent a 16mm copy of the film. Every time I found it was out I knew that he had it and each time he wanted it he knew who had it! So that made us buddies.
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George A. Romero (George A. Romero: Interviews)
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Specialisation, accompanied by exchange, is the source of economic prosperity. Here, in my own words, is what a modern version of Smithism claims. First, the spontaneous and voluntary exchange of goods and services leads to a division of labour in which people specialise in what they are good at doing. Second, this in turn leads to gains from trade for each party to a transaction, because everybody is doing what he is most productive at and has the chance to learn, practise and even mechanise his chosen task. Individuals can thus use and improve their own tacit and local knowledge in a way that no expert or ruler could. Third, gains from trade encourage more specialisation, which encourages more trade, in a virtuous circle. The greater the specialisation among producers, the greater is the diversification of consumption: in moving away from self-sufficiency people get to produce fewer things, but to consume more. Fourth, specialisation inevitably incentivises innovation, which is also a collaborative process driven by the exchange and combination of ideas. Indeed, most innovation comes about through the recombination of existing ideas for how to make or organise things. The more people trade and the more they divide labour, the more they are working for each other. The more they work for each other, the higher their living standards. The consequence of the division of labour is an immense web of cooperation among strangers: it turns potential enemies into honorary friends. A woollen coat, worn by a day labourer, was (said Smith) ‘the produce of a great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser . . .’ In parting with money to buy a coat, the labourer was not reducing his wealth. Gains from trade are mutual; if they were not, people would not voluntarily engage in trade. The more open and free the market, the less opportunity there is for exploitation and predation, because the easier it is for consumers to boycott the predators and for competitors to whittle away their excess profits. In its ideal form, therefore, the free market is a device for creating networks of collaboration among people to raise each other’s living standards, a device for coordinating production and a device for communicating information about needs through the price mechanism. Also a device for encouraging innovation. It is the very opposite of the rampant and selfish individualism that so many churchmen and others seem to think it is. The market is a system of mass cooperation. You compete with rival producers, sure, but you cooperate with your customers, your suppliers and your colleagues. Commerce both needs and breeds trust.
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Matt Ridley (The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge)