@habits

Tucker Max’s monthly quotes post is full of gems.

A CEO’s job is to interpret external realities for a company – A. G. Lafley

Courtesy of Venkatesh Rao, whose writing will change your view of human nature and how you interpret motivation and behavior. Powerful, powerful stuff.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. – George Bernard Shaw

Ironic.

You ok? – Butch
No, man. I’m pretty far from okay. – Wallace

A great movie reveals itself in layers. You notice beautiful new details with every viewing.

Only men need to be loved, sweetheart. Women need to be wanted. – Gemma to Nero

Yes, I streamed all 5 Sons of Anarchy seasons. As a friend told me, sometimes you want steak, and other times you just want McDonald’s.

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist’s way of scribbling “Kilroy was here” on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass. – William Faulkner

Definition of happiness […] is the moment before you need more happiness. – Don Draper

Dr. Drew says something similar. That if you want to know happiness, look at a heroin addict.

I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot and you think that of me? No. I am the one who knocks! – Walter White

I wonder why they use “of me” and not “is me”.

Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters. – Neil Gaiman

If you’re new to Gaiman, I recommend reading Graveyard and How To Talk To Girls At Parties.

It doesn’t matter how you get knocked down in life; that’s going to happen. All that matters is you’ve got to get up. – Ben Affleck (Oscar acceptance speech for Argo)

The best lovers do not have the best bodies. They are not the best-looking, and they do not have the largest respective body parts. What they do have is the best attitude: they are completely enthusiastic. – Lou Paget

[When Vonnegut tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope] Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore. – Kurt Vonnegut

I love how Vonnegut writes. A style and voice so crisp, memorable, and yet completely unique. Good writers follow the rules. Great writers know when to break them, to beautiful effect.

My complete list of quotes is here.