Nonfiction Quotes

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them.

Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book." (Acceptance speech, National Book Award 2010 (Nonfiction), November 17, 2010)

Rejection is an opportunity for your selection.

No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious & charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.

How do you defeat terrorism? Don’t be terrorized.

Each of us is a book waiting to be written, and that book, if written, results in a person explained.

How else would you get to live a thousand lives in the span of only one? The beauty of fiction is that it makes you feel things on a visceral level. You can cry with those characters, laugh with them. It teaches you to look at another’s perspective, to have empathy. In nonfiction, you simply learn about something instead of feeling it.

Fiction has been maligned for centuries as being "false," "untrue," yet good fiction provides more truth about the world, about life, and even about the reader, than can be found in non-fiction.

A brand that feels human earns something no algorithm can replicate: trust

Just a middle-age man with all the privilege that unasked for gift affords. When in truth it seems, we see suffering as the province of children, mothers, wives and lovers. Broken, struck by the hand of a man’s blind ambition, brutish strength. What of the gentle-man with the soft voice…

Even if you are an introvert, you’ll still find many possibilities for meeting others. Everyone is so welcoming, and you will make friends regardless because the town is small!

blessed be she who is both furious and magnificent

You know, everybody's ignorant, just on different subjects.

He would write it for the reason he felt that all great literature, fiction and nonfiction, was written: truth comes out, in the end it always comes out. He would write it because he felt he had to.

Writers imagine that they cull stories from the world. I'm beginning to believe that vanity makes them think so. That it's actually the other way around. Stories cull writers from the world. Stories reveal themselves to us. The public narrative, the private narrative - they colonize us. They commission us. They insist on being told. Fiction and nonfiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons that I don't fully understand, fiction dances out of me, and nonfiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.

Education...has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

The child intuitively comprehends that although these stories are unreal, they are not untrue ...

To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.

The foundation of adult trust is not "You will never hurt me." It is "I trust myself with whatever you do.

I think how the world is still somehow beautiful even when I feel no joy at being alive within it.

New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it - once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough.

We imagine our paths are freely chosen. But there is a need to account for biology and history, the random intercession of other people, culture, race, and the mystery of the transcendent.


It’s hard to believe there are people that don’t read books. There’s so much magic in words and well told stories.

Bias in the workplace is a form of tribalism – you’re either in or out

Get immersed in the beauty that surrounds you. No filters, edits, or adjustments. Experience the colors, sounds, textures and smells within your reach. Live.

Low employee engagement is a symptom of a suboptimal workplace culture

Like a gloomy and sinister paradox since its apparition until now, socialism suffered terrible and terrifying metamorphoses. With the name of the most human doctrine—Socialism—the most ominous and naughty crimes against humanity were done. The National Socialism of Hitler created Auschwitz and Majdanek and the People’s socialism of Stalin — Gulag and Kolima! And both of them buried more than fifty million people! That’s monstrous!

Non-fiction can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies.

Sustain joy by anchoring yourself with gratitude.

...in real life I always seem to have a hard time winding up a conversation or asking somebody to leave, and sometimes the moment becomes so delicate and fraught with social complexity that I'll get overwhelmed trying to sort out all the different possible ways of saying it and all the different implications of each option and will just sort of blank out and do it totally straight -- 'I want to terminate the conversation and not have you be in my apartment anymore' -- which evidently makes me look either as if I'm very rude and abrupt or as if I'm semi-autistic and have no sense of how to wind up a conversation gracefully...I've actually lost friends this way.

People aren’t seeking more content; they want connection.

If reading makes you happy, do it. Whatever makes your heart sing and brings you joy, do that too.

Everything is more expensive. There is so much more to do in Madrid, so you’ll have to learn to say no to events so you can study.

Remember to celebrate the small accomplishments along your journey because they will provide the support needed when the road gets rocky. 

This acute, “a selfdissolving contradiction,” Marx had very precisely seen and foreseen that “it establishes a monopoly in certain spheres and thereby requires state interference.” This contradiction “reproduces a new financial aristocracy” (how much Marx was right!), no matter it will call itself Communist Party of Soviet Union or DuPont Financial Circle. It reproduces “a new variety of parasites . . . , a whole system of swindling and cheating by means of corporation promotion, stock issuance, and stock speculation.

Volume without value isn’t marketing. It’s clutter.

If you cannot answer all the questions, choose “C” as the answer. Chances are that you’ll accidentally get a few correct!

To merge on the road you are meant to travel, means making a choice and then taking action.

Today is the day you choose to find joy, fulfillment and the path that will make your heart sing. It's your choice, never lose sight of that.

Imagination is not bound by possibilities. The creative mind will always break the shackles—making the impossible, possible.

Blessings! Count them and be thankful. Ask for an abundance of them and accept with gratitude.

Read everything. Read fiction and non-fiction, read hot best sellers and the classics you never got around to in college.

Freaks become norms, and norms become extinct. Monster by monster, evolution advanced

People might try a product for its features, but they stick with it because of feelings.

Do not procrastinate reading the book, or you won’t have time to study it all before the exam.

Since there are many IE events in Madrid, networking opportunities abound

Belief arises from honesty, consistency, and care.

Inspiration ignites the spark of magic. Creativity is magic.

The elements of the written word can be purely magical. I read and I write...I inspire and I’m living.

Keep writing, dreaming and creating. There are no boundaries to your imagination. Writers are gifts to the world.

Writers create impressions that inspire, stir emotions, evoke questions and sprinkle seeds of awe.

It’s not just the big moments that count, it’s all of the small actions that feed our heart and soul on a daily basis. Cherish those moments and reflect on how to replicate them often.

Writers have influenced thoughts, principals, viewpoints and experiences throughout history. A talented writer’s pen is anointed with magic!

Handled properly, a single resolved mistake can build more trust than a hundred flawless transactions.

Life’s too short to walk around with your arms crossed and bottom lip poked out. Find a way to smile for yourself even if it’s as simple as licking the spoon clean or putting clean sheets on your bed.

During class, make sure to actively participate and engage with the material. This shows that you are invested in the class and are eager to learn

Tomorrow’s brands will not out-code each other. They will out-care each other.

Being surrounded by books was the closest she'd ever gotten to feeling like the member of a gang. The books had her back, and the nonfiction, at least, was ready to fight if necessary.

Life is complicated. If life was simple, wouldn’t that make us simpletons?

So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs.

Many professionals on LinkedIn are experts who are always willing to help students; they like young ambition, and they would like to pass their expertise on to others!

Remember that they often contain “distractors” (answer choices designed to mislead you); stay focused to avoid getting tripped up by these distractors.

By being proactive, engaged, and committed to personal growth, you can create lasting connections that will benefit you academically and professionally.

Trust isn’t based on words—it’s established through proof.

Remember to personalize your messages, explaining why you’re reaching out to them specifically.

The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.

You don’t need to exaggerate, hype, or over-optimize your message. You just need to mean it.

All you need to do is care.

You could fight, take drugs, maybe even kill—but the behavior had to be confined to the inside of the prison. You could not escape.

Review your notes within 24 hours of class, and highlight any areas where you have questions or need more clarification.

How well opposed to grand Theft Auto are you?

As a child, Michael never once heard anyone tell him “I love you.

When we feel unsafe with someone and still stay with him, we damage our ability to discern trustworthiness in those we will meet in the future.

Public ‘career feminists’ have been more concerned with getting more women into ‘boardrooms’, when the problem is that there are altogether too many boardrooms, and none of them are on fire.

Don't worry about having the right words; worry more about having the right heart. It's not eloquence he seeks, just honesty.

Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.

You don’t need to be loud to get noticed. You don’t have to be big to make a difference. You don’t need to be perfect to earn trust.

Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it's true; it goes beyond the garland of facts to get to emotional and psychological truths.

I never knew before, what such a love as you have made me feel, was; I did not believe in it; my Fancy was afraid of it, lest it should burn me up. But if you will fully love me, though there may be some fire, 'twill not be more than we can bear when moistened and bedewed with Pleasures.

Home is where the heart begins, but not where the heart stays.

Don’t try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience—every reader is a different person.

Brands don’t exist in decks; they exist in decisions.

I had a teacher who told me fiction is the future. Nonfiction is the past. One can be shaped and created. One cannot,” she said.

Freaks are called freaks and are treated as they are treated – in the main, abominably – because they are human beings who cause to echo, deep within us, our most profound terrors and desires.

Focus on giants - you stumble. Focus on God - Giants tumble.

I used to think a drug addict was someone who lived on the far edges of society. Wild-eyed, shaven-headed and living in a filthy squat. That was until I became one...

You can no more read the same book again than you can step into the same river.

Before you can kill the monster you have to say its name.

I lay on my floor crying again… shaking. Searching for inner strength and coming up empty. My eyes burned and my mouth was dry as I sucked on air that seemed to keep getting thicker and harder to breathe. I tried to leave again, but ended up leaning my forehead against the door, feeling defeated and wishing the Grim Reaper would come for me in all his silky, black glory.

My reasons? Michael’s relationship with God is real whether or not God is the transcendent power represented in the Bible.

The more novels you read, the better you were at reading other people’s emotions. It was a huge effect. This wasn’t just a sign that you were better educated—because reading nonfiction books, by contrast, had no effect on your empathy.

Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it.

Non fiction? Non fiction?! Listen, reality is what got me into this mess in the first place.

He left the hearing feeling liberated, lighter, and more transparent.

Starting over can be the scariest thing in the entire world, whether it’s leaving a lover, a school, a team, a friend or anything else that feels like a core part of our identity but when your gut is telling you that something here isn’t right or feels unsafe, I really want you to listen and trust in that voice.

I am Not, but the Universe is my Self.

Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose.

Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.

For many years Rembrandt basked in the limelight because of his dramatic style of chiaroscuro, while Caravaggio being the true pioneer of the style remained in the shadows, forgotten for centuries.


Consistency is the playground of dull minds

But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me; and, if I stop to consider what is proper to be said to this or that person, I shall soon come to doubt whether any part at all is proper.

The story you are about to read is a work of fiction. Nothing - and everything - about it is real.

This statement of the jurors’ sense of justice may be the most succinct and forthright declaration of white privilege and racial paternalism I have ever heard.

Ever hear the expression "write what you know?" My version says "write what you want to know." If you want to know about the history of Spain, write about the history of Spain - fiction or nonfiction. If your fascinated by the old west, maybe your character lives there.

Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.

They shared a doom against which virtue was no defense

The problem with fiction, it has to be plausible. That's not true with non-fiction.

Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different. And while we're on the subject, I'd like to say a few words about escapism. I hear the term bandied about as if it's a bad thing. As if "escapist" fiction is a cheap opiate used by the muddled and the foolish and the deluded, and the only fiction that is worthy, for adults or for children, is mimetic fiction, mirroring the worst of the world the reader finds herself in. If you were trapped in an impossible situation, in an unpleasant place, with people who meant you ill, and someone offered you a temporary escape, why wouldn't you take it? And escapist fiction is just that: fiction that opens a door, shows the sunlight outside, gives you a place to go where you are in control, are with people you want to be with(and books are real places, make no mistake about that); and more importantly, during your escape, books can also give you knowledge about the world and your predicament, give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real. As JRR Tolkien reminded us, the only people who inveigh against escape are jailers.

A city is a place where interesting always beats beautiful.

This is your life – not your parents’, teachers’ or significant other’s. If you ever find yourself on a path that just doesn’t feel safe anymore, you have every right to stop the car, get out – change your shoes and start walking.

I never want you to deny anything about yourself because you have grown up thinking it’s unacceptable or inconvenient for the people around you.

—a knowledgeable man is a free man, or at least a man who longs for freedom.

I cannot change the past, but today and every day to come, I will strive to be the best human I can be. I ask for your forgiveness in that light.

At a certain point I need to go wandering. My feet need to hit earth, again and again, that bone-filling drumbeat. I need the sky's colored threads to tangle inside me, pull me somewhere new.

Why do you like reading fiction so much?” he asks without a hint of judgment. “How else would you get to live a thousand lives in the span of only one? The beauty of fiction is that it makes you feel things on a visceral level. You can cry with those characters, laugh with them. It teaches you to look at another’s perspective, to have empathy. In nonfiction, you simply learn about something instead of feeling it.

Your limits are somewhere up there, waiting for you to reach beyond infinity.

We were fearfully and wonderfully created by the Creator to be unique in our own way . . .even down to our fingerprint (Psalms 139:14).

What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing you can do with words is to surrender to them.

He must trust, and he must have faith. And so he builds, because what is building, and rebuilding and rebuilding again, but an act of faith?

This journey has taught me that we are, in essence, already whole. It is our limited perception which keeps us from experiencing this wholeness. As we expand and unify our perception, with the help of the Resonance Alchemy processes and Sacred Syllables, we re-member the greater wholeness that we are, and have been all along. In reclaiming our wholeness, we reclaim our sovereignty, the Divine One that is the core and essence of our being.

We mark with light in the memory the few interviews we have had with souls that made our souls wiser, that spoke what we thought, that told us what we knew, that gave us leave to be what we inly are.

There seems to be a requirement for just so many people to be in the poor class, just as the need for a middle class exists. One class actually supports the other. The only way to get out of that cycle is to fight your way out. Never pass up an opportunity, and stick your foot into every open door, even if it’s just to see what’s inside. If there’s a possibility of seeing something you never have seen to experiencing something new. Do it. 

When you imagine, anything is possible.

A writer, or any man, must believe that whatever happens to him is an instrument; everything has been given for an end. This is even stronger in the case of the artist. Everything that happens, including humiliations, embarrassments, misfortunes, all has been given like clay, like material for one’s art. One must accept it. For this reason I speak in a poem of the ancient food of heroes: humiliation, unhappiness, discord. Those things are given to us to transform, so that we may make from the miserable circumstances of our lives things that are eternal, or aspire to be so.

And I went on reading; and, since if you read enough books you overflow, I eventually became a writer.

I need the sky's colored threads to tangle inside me, pull me somewhere new.

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.

I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn't be—basically, gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful—nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mash-ups à la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children's books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and—I imagine this goes without saying—vampires.

If we're not enough without it, we'll never be enough with it.

95% of economics is common sense

The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis.

I will take a serious approach to a subject usually treated lightly, which is a nerdy thing to do.

We are not always humiliated by failing at things; we are humiliated only if we first invest our pride and sense of worth in a given achievement, and then do not reach it.

No matter how uncertain and unpredictable life gets, some people really do walk next to you for ever.

To be a mass tourist, for me,...is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.

How you spend your time when you are not working or studying says everything about who you are and what is motivating your life.

I believe we have an obligation to read for pleasure, in private and in public places. If we read for pleasure, if others see us reading, then we learn, we exercise our imaginations. We show others that reading is a good thing.

The non-fiction bestseller lists frequently prove that we all want to know more about everything, even if we didn't know that we wanted to know - we're just waiting for the right person to come along and tell us about it.

What I have learned so far had been an incredible journey and adventure. I remained in my own character even when I was not well liked. I now enter a room looking for people I may like rather than for those who will like me. There are people who change their demeanor between regular people and professional people. Just try to be who you are consistently and let those closest to you see your best, along with those you work with. People around you should not be the cause of change in your personal character.

Combat isn't where you might die -- though that does happen -- it's where you find out whether you get to keep on living. Don't underestimate the power of that revelation. Don't underestimate the things young men will wager in order to play that game one more time.

Literature does not occur in a vacuum. It cannot be a monologue. It has to be a conversation, and new people, new readers, need to be brought into the conversation too.

I believe that in the battle between guns and ideas, ideas will, eventually, win. Because the ideas are invisible, and they linger, and, sometimes, they can even be true. Eppur si muove: and yet it moves.

Life is an obstacle course. You succeed at one thing and then you move on to the next. When an obstacle is tough, you try harder. When an obstacle is insurmountable, you change course. But you never sit down and refuse to finish.

I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. Then even death, where you're going no matter how you live, cannot you part.

My name is Zak Bagans. I've never believed in ghosts until I came face to face with one. So I set out on a quest to capture what I once saw onto video....With no big camera crews following us around, I am joined only by my fellow investigator Nick Groff and our equipment tech Aaron Goodwin. The three of us will travel to the some of most highly active paranormal locations, where we will spend an entire night, being locked down from dusk until dawn....Raw...Extreme...These are our Ghost Adventures.

Many gnostics, on the contrary, insisted that ignorance, not sin, is what involves a person in suffering.

We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story.

You don’t discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do not like is the gateway drug to other books you may prefer them to read. And not everyone has the same taste as you.

You want fantasy? Here's one... There's this species that lives on a planet a few miles above molten rock and a few miles below a vacuum that'd suck the air right out of them. They live in a brief geological period between ice ages, when giant asteroids have temporarily stopped smacking into the surface. As far as they can tell, there's nowhere else in the universe where they could stay alive for ten seconds. And what do they call their fragile little slice of space and time? They call it real life.

(about organizing books in his home library, and putting a book in the "Arts and Lit non-fiction section) I personally find that for domestic purposes, the Trivial Pursuit system works better than Dewey.

Make my life my favorite movie. Live my favorite character. Write my own script. Direct my own story. Be my biography. Make my own documentary on me. Non-fiction, live, not recorded. Time to catch that hero I've been chasing. See if the sun will melt the wax that holds my wings or if the heat is just a mirage. Live my legacy now. Quit acting like me. Be me.

...these stories are a kind of beacon. By making stories full of empathy and amusement and the sheer pleasure of discovering the world, these writers reassert the fact that we live in a world where joy and empathy and pleasure are all around us, there for the noticing.

If you spend any amount of time doing media analysis, it’s clear that the most frenzied moral panic surrounding young women’s sexuality comes from the mainstream media, which loves to report about how promiscuous girls are, whether they’re acting up on spring break, getting caught topless on camera, or catching all kinds of STIs. Unsurprisingly, these types of articles and stories generally fail to mention that women are attending college at the highest rates in history, and that we’re the majority of undergraduate and master’s students. Well-educated and socially engaged women just don’t make for good headlines, it seems.

That was the real secret of the Tarahumara: they'd never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembered that running was mankind's first fine art, our original act of inspired creation. Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. And when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what were the first designs? A downward slash, lightning bolts through the bottom and middle--behold, the Running Man. Distance running was revered because it was indispensable; it was the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet. You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running, or you wouldn't live to love anything else. And like everyhing else we ove--everything we sentimentally call our 'passions' and 'desires' it's really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run. We're all Running People, as the Tarahumara have always known.

Mystery readers were everywhere, voracious, highly partisan, and passionate. They were among the store’s best customers, and unfailingly polite. In private they embraced a bloodthirsty desire for vengeance and the use of arcane poisons and sneaky sleuthing, but in public they were charming and generous. Romance readers tended to be fun and have strong opinions. Nonfiction readers asked a lot of questions and were easily amused. It was the serious novel folks and poetry fans you had to watch out for.

Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.

Our higher needs include making full use of our gifts, finding and fulfilling our calling, being loved and cherished just for ourselves, and being in relationships that honor all of these. Such needs are fulfilled in an atmosphere of the five A’s by which love is shown: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing.

the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.

One of the paradoxes of writing is that when you write non-fiction everyone tries to prove that it's wrong, and when you publish fiction, everyone tries to see the truth in it.

It's in the spirit of male loneliness to imagine that someone has to suffer for it.

Albert Einstein was asked once how we could make our children intelligent. His reply was both simple and wise. “If you want your children to be intelligent,” he said, “read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.

The thought came over me that never would one full and absolute moment, containing all the others, justify my life, that all of my instants would be provisional phases, annihilators of the past turned to face the future, and that beyond the episodic, the present, the circumstantial, we were nobody.

Libraries are about Freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education (which is not a process that finishes the day we leave school or university), about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information.

Perhaps this is the purpose of all art, all writing, on the murders, fiction and non-fiction: Simply to participate.

Silicon Valley is awash in wooden Montessori toys and shrouded in total screen bans. Parents at work talk about how they don't allow their teens to have mobile phones, which only underscores how well these executives understand the real damage their product inflicts on young minds.

The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. There are tyrants, not Muslims. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that we should now define ourselves not only by what we are for but by what we are against. I would reverse that proposition, because in the present instance what we are against is a no brainer. Suicidist assassins ram wide-bodied aircraft into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and kill thousands of people: um, I'm against that. But what are we for? What will we risk our lives to defend? Can we unanimously concur that all the items in the preceding list -- yes, even the short skirts and the dancing -- are worth dying for? The fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his world-view, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons. Not by making war but by the unafraid way we choose to live shall we defeat them. How to defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized. Don't let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared.

Jumping to conclusions is efficient if the conclusions are likely to be correct and the costs of an occasional mistake acceptable. Jumping to conclusions is risky when the situation is unfamiliar, the stakes are high and there is no time to collect more information.

I don't really care for fiction." "How can you not? The best thing about reading is to escape from your life, to be able to live hundreds or even thousands of different lives. Non-fiction doesn't have that power- it doesn't change you like fiction does." "Change you?" He raises his brow. "Yes, change you. If you aren't affected somehow, even in the slightest bit, you aren't reading the right book. I would like to think that every novel I've read has become a part of me, created who I am, in a sense.

Similarly, when we denigrate our bodies—whether through neglect or staring at our faces and counting up our flaws—we are belittling a sacred site, a worship space more wonderous than the most glorious, ancient cathedral. We are standing before the Grand Canyon or the Sistine Chapel and rolling our eyes.

Learning, thinking, and writing should not be about accumulating knowledge, but about becoming a different person with a different way of thinking. This is done by questioning one’s own thinking routines in light of new experiences and facts.

Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the possibility that evil can be defused by talking. The fantasy of justice is more interesting than the fantasy of fairies, and more truly fantastic.

Escapism isn't good or bad of itself. What is important is what you are escaping from and where you are escaping to. I write from experience, since in my case I escaped to the idea that books could be really enjoyable, an aspect of reading that teachers had not hitherto suggested.

When shall we pass a day alone? I have had a thousand kisses, for which with my whole soul I thank love - but if you should deny me the thousand and first - 'twould put me to the proof how great a misery I could live through.

The Holy Spirit doesn't need to equip you for what you're not going to do, so if you're in rebellion against Jesus and refusing His right to be Lord, He doesn't need to send the Holy Spirit to equip you for service. And, tragically, you miss out on the joy that He brings. So let the Holy Spirit deal with anything that's keeping you from obeying Christ.

Fiction and non-fiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons I do not fully understand, fiction dances out of me. Non-fiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.

The only authority my mother recognized was God's. God is love and the Bible is truth--everything else was up for debate. She taught me to challenge authority and question the system. The only way it backfired on her was that I constantly challenged and questioned her.

Your life is a trajectory. Every choice you make alters that trajectory, in a positive or negative way. Will you categorize that dinner with friends as a business expense? Will you be honest with your daughter? Will you take more credit than you’re due? These are just the small questions that we face every day, and little by little, the answers influence the trajectory of our lives and beings.

There are many good reasons for writing that have nothing to do with being published. Writing is a powerful search mechanism, and one of its satisfactions is to come to terms with your life narrative. Another is to work through some of life’s hardest knocks—loss, grief, illness, addiction, disappointment, failure—and to find understanding and solace.

I've been in auditions without screens, and I can assure you that I was prejudiced. I began to listen with my eyes, and there is no way that your eyes don't affect your judgement. The only true way to listen is with your ears and your heart. (p.251)

Being a Dream Girl is never going to be about what you look like or how much you weigh. After all, our physical appearances are just reflections of our inner worlds. What makes you a Dream Girl is your emotional sensitivity, your self-awareness, and your ability to communicate who you are effectively and compassionately in the world.

If you don't feel you have any choice in a situation, self-esteem and confidence plummet. But once you understand that you do have a choice, self-esteem will improve. You aren't a helpless victim anymore. You decide how you deal with a situation. You aren't just reacting to life; you're creating your life.

Why does the third of the three brothers, who shares his food with the old woman in the wood, go on to become king of the country? Why does James Bond manage to disarm the nuclear bomb a few seconds before it goes off rather than, as it were, a few seconds afterwards? Because a universe where that did not happen would be a dark and hostile place. Let there be goblin hordes, let there be terrible environmental threats, let there be giant mutated slugs if you really must, but let there also be hope. It may be a grim, thin hope, an Arthurian sword at sunset, but let us know that we do not live in vain.

Honesty matters. Vulnerability matters. Being open about who you were at a moment in time when you were in a difficult or an impossible place matters more than anything. Having a place the story starts and a place it's going, that's important. Telling your story as honestly as you can and leaving out the things you don't need, that's vital.

The writer's object should be to hold the reader's attention. I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning until the end. This is accomplished only when the narrative moves steadily ahead, not when it comes to a weary standstill, overloaded with every item uncovered in the research.

We all have stories. Or perhaps it's because, as humans, we are already an assemblage of stories and the gulf that exists between us as people is that when we look at each other we might see faces, skin color, gender, race, or attitudes. But we don't see - we can't see the stories. And once we hear each other's stories, we realize the things we see as dividing us are all too often illusions; falsehoods. That the walls between us are, in truth, no thicker than scenery.

River smiled sweetly at his tormentors and told them, "If you want to kick my ass, go ahead. Just explain to me why you're doing it." After a confused pause, one of the skinheads said, "Ah, you wouldn't be worth it." "We're all worth it, man," River said with a beatific smile. "We're all worth millions of planets and stars and galaxies and universes.

Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self: in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one's nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one's nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one's robes.

Decades from now, people will look back and wonder how societies could have acquiesced in a sex slave trade in the twenty-first century that is... bigger than the transatlantic slave trade was in the nineteenth. They will be perplexed that we shrugged as a lack of investment in maternal health caused half a million women to perish in childbirth each year.

Some people look like they sound better than they actually sound, because they look confident and have good posture," once musician, a veteran of many auditions, says. "Other people look awful when they play but sound great. Other people have that belabored look when they play, but you can't hear it in the sound. There is always this dissonance between what you see and hear" (p.251).

I was coming to fully appreciate the shamanic wisdom that has long understood that the healing journey does not always take us directly into the light, but instead often requires us to enter the dark places within that are the home of our demons and shadows, the realm of the Soul’s separation and wounding, and therefore the home of its deepest healing and renewal as well.

We all—adults and children, writers and readers—have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine. It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that we are in a world in which society is huge and the individual is less than nothing: an atom in a wall, a grain of rice in a rice field. But the truth is, individuals change their world over and over, individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.

We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. We have an obligation to use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside. We have an obligation to use the language. To push ourselves: to find out what words mean and how to deploy them, to communicate clearly, to say what we mean. We must not attempt to freeze language, or to pretend it is a dead thing that must be revered, but we should use it as a living thing, that flows, that borrows words, that allows meanings and pronunciations to change with time.

I recommend readers to be adventurous and to try things they’ve never heard of or considered reading before. Get out of the comfort zone and discover something new and exciting. If you’d never be caught dead in the mystery section go and read some George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly or many others. If you only read thrillers get deep into the literary fiction aisle and let yourself be seduced. If you only read non-fiction pick up a Ian McDonald novel or a Joyce Carol Oates novel. If you only read comic books, get acquainted with the great Charles Dickens or a certain Monsieur Dumas. Pick up something at random and read a page. Feel the texture of the language, the architecture of the imagery, the perfume of the style… There’s so much beauty, intelligence and excitement to be had between the pages of the books waiting for you at your local bookstore the only thing you need to bring is an open mind and a sense of adventure. Disregard all prejudices, all pre-conceived notions and all the rubbish some people try to make you think. Think for yourself. Regarding books or anything in life. Think for yourself.

I want to suggest to you that citizens of free societies, democracies, do not preserve their freedom by pussyfooting around their fellow-citizen's opinions, even their most cherished beliefs. In free societies, you must have the free play of ideas. There must be argument, and it must be impassioned and untrammeled. A free society is not calm and eventless place - that is the kind of static, dead society dictators try to create. Free societies are dynamic, noisy, turbulent, and full of radical disagreements. Skepticism and freedom are indissolubly linked; and it is the skepticism of journalists, their show-me, prove-it unwillingness to be impressed, that is perhaps their most important contribution to the freedom of the free world. It is the disrespect of journalists-for power, for orthodoxies, for party lines, for ideologies, for vanity, for arrogance, for folly, for pretension, for corruption, for stupidity, maybe even for editors-that I would like to celebrate...and that I urge you all, in freedom's name, to preserve.

So Oz finally became home; the imagined world became the actual world, as it does for us all, because the truth is that once we have left our childhood places and started out to make our own lives, armed only with what we have and are, we understand that the real secret of the ruby slippers is not that "there's no place like home," but rather that there is no longer such a place as home: except, of course, for the homes we make, or the homes that are made for us, in Oz, which is anywhere and everywhere, except the place from which we began. In the place from which I began, after all, I watched the film from the child's - Dorothy's point of view. I experienced, with her, the frustration of being brushed aside by Uncle Henry and Auntie Em, busy with their dull grown-up counting. Like all adults, they couldn't focus on what was really important to Dorothy: namely, the threat to Toto. I ran away with Dorothy and then ran back. Even the shock of discovering that the Wizard was a humbug was a shock I felt as a child, a shock to the child's faith in adults. Perhaps, too, I felt something deeper, something I couldn't articulate; perhaps some half-formed suspicion about grown-ups was being confirmed. Now, as I look at the movie again, I have become the fallible adult. Now I am a member of the tribe of imperfect parents who cannot listen to their children's voices. I, who no longer have a father, have become a father instead, and now it is my fate to be unable to satisfy the longings of a child. This is the last and most terrible lesson of the film: that there is one final, unexpected rite of passage. In the end, ceasing to be children, we all become magicians without magic, exposed conjurers, with only our simply humanity to get us through. We are the humbugs now.

Why is it deemed justifiable and appropriate for cops/police officers to kill other cops (friendly–fire) and citizens? Why do cops kill? Are they not taught to maim or slow down someone running or reaching for a weapon? If not, why not? Why do cops kill first and ask questions last? Why are police officers being military trained? What can we as citizens, taxpayers, and voters do to stop these killings and beatings of unarmed people? Why do we let this continue? How many more must die or get beat up before we realize something is wrong and needs to be changed? Will you, a friend, or a family member have to be killed or beaten by a cop before we realize that things have to change? Who's here to protect us from the cops when they decide to use excessive force, shoot multiple shells, and/or murder us?

How come you write the way you do?” an apprentice writer in my Johns Hopkins workshop once disingenuously asked Donald Barthelme, who was visiting. Without missing a beat, Don replied, “Because Samuel Beckett was already writing the way he does.” Asked another, smiling but serious, “How can we become better writers than we are?” “Well," DB advised, “for starters, read through the whole history of philosophy, from the pre-Socratics up through last semester. That might help.” “But Coach Barth has already advised us to read all of literature, from Gilgamesh up through last semester...” “That, too,” Donald affirmed, and twinkled that shrewd Amish-farmer-from-West-11th-Street twinkle of his. “You’re probably wasting time on things like eating and sleeping. Cease that, and read all of philosophy and all of literature. Also art. Plus politics and a few other things. The history of everything.

Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community building. A vigorous totalitarian order requires that the people be invested in the leader's scheme, and while genocide may be the most perverse and ambitious means to this end, it is also the most comprehensive. In 1994, Rwanda was regarded in much of the rest of the world as the exemplary instance of chaos and anarchy associated with collapsed states. In fact, the genocide was the product of order, authoritarianism, decades of modern political theorizing and indoctrination, and one of the most meticulously administered states in history. And strange as it may sound, the ideology–or what Rwandans call "the logic"–of genocide was promoted as a way not to create suffering but alleviate it. The specter of an absolute menace that requires absolute eradication binds leader and people in a hermetic utopian embrace, and the individual–always an annoyance to totality–ceases to exist.

Jonathan Safran Foer’s 10 Rules for Writing: 1.Tragedies make great literature; unfathomable catastrophes (the Holocaust, 9/11) are even better – try to construct your books around them for added gravitas but, since those big issues are such bummers, make sure you do it in a way that still focuses on a quirky central character that’s somewhat like Jonathan Safran Foer. 2. You can also name your character Jonathan Safran Foer. 3. If you’re writing a non-fiction book you should still make sure that it has a strong, deep, wise, and relatable central character – someone like Jonathan Safran Foer. 4. If you reach a point in your book where you’re not sure what to do, or how to approach a certain scene, or what the hell you’re doing, just throw in a picture, or a photo, or scribbles, or blank pages, or some illegible text, or maybe even a flipbook. Don’t worry if these things don’t mean anything, that’s what postmodernism is all about. If you’re not sure what to put in, you can’t go wrong with a nice photograph of Jonathan Safran Foer. 5. If you come up with a pun, metaphor, or phrase that you think is really clever and original, don’t just use it once and throw it away, sprinkle it liberally throughout the text. One particularly good phrase that comes to mind is “Jonathan Safran Foer.” 6. Don’t worry if you seem to be saying the same thing over and over again, repetition makes the work stronger, repetition is good, it drives the point home. The more you repeat a phrase or an idea, the better it gets. You should not be afraid of repeating ideas or phrases. One particularly good phrase that comes to mind is “Jonathan Safran Foer.” 7. Other writers are not your enemies, they are your friends, so you should feel free to borrow some of their ideas, words, techniques, and symbols, and use them completely out of context. They won’t mind, they’re your friends, just like my good friend Paul Auster, with whom I am very good friends. Just make sure you don’t steal anything from Jonathan Safran Foer, it wouldn’t be nice, he is your friend. 8. Make sure you have exactly three plots in your novel, any more and it gets confusing, any less and it’s not postmodern. At least one of those plots should be in a different timeline. It often helps if you name these three plots, I often use “Jonathan,” “Safran,” and “Foer.” 9. Don’t be afraid to make bold statements in you writing, there should always be a strong lesson to be learned, such as “don’t eat animals,” or “the Holocaust was bad,” or “9/11 was really really sad,” or “the world would be a better place if everyone was just a little bit more like Jonathan Safran Foer.” 10. In the end, don’t worry if you’re unsuccessful as a writer, it probably wasn’t meant to be. Not all of us are chosen to become writers. Not all of us can be Jonathan Safran Foer.