This is truly one of my favorite quotes:

I can explain all the poems that ever were invented — and a good many that haven’t been invented just yet. 

• Humpty Dumpty

Two standard deviations above asshole is ‘brilliant.’

-RJC

I forgot how I got onto this topic with my friend Tom, but it made sense at the time. Promise.

It is certainly true that what a person is determines how he writes or speaks. But the converse is also true, at least in part. In the struggle to give clear and natural and forceful and sometimes beautiful expression to one’s experience, one becomes a more honest and genuine and decisive and imaginative person.

Ellsworth Barnard, English for Everybody 135 (1979).

This quote brought to mind the variety of conversations I’ve had over the time since I started talking to more women. Although I was ostensibly happy before things fell apart, circumstances led me to question things I thought were true about myself. (Apparently,  I’m not as shy as I thought nor as disorganized. I’m stronger, more loving, and more resilient than I expected.) I also undertook to figure out what I liked and wanted in my friends and those who might become more.

Someone recently referred to one online profile as a self-marketing piece. That’s true on its face of course, but I think of it as a self-discovery piece. Writing down what I want and like is an important step in my “recovery.” It’s partly troubleshooting and after-action review (What worked? What didn’t? Why did you do x instead of y?) but also a stake in the ground, a statement of values and attributes that are like a surveyor’s orange paint marking metes and bounds.

In the same vein, then, the best conversations I’ve had have stretched me in ways that my mind responds to, dragging my emotions fervently into the mix. The idea of being energized, of being interesting by being interested, stokes me more than I would have guessed. And, as the quote hints, it fosters growth in many ways.

“And hanging crooked above his desk is a cheap black frame that contains an inspirational quote that has been attributed to Calvin Coolidge. Under the heading PRESS ON, it reads:”

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

From an article re: the fellow who invented the Super Soaker. Takeaway: got to get my ass in gear. Too many smart thoughts, even some really, really great ones; I’m not a professor, getting paid to sit at a big wooden desk and come up with ideas. If the “idea man” ever existed in US commerce, he doesn’t today. And even then, “unrewarded genius” is no claim to fame.

Got to ship. (I’m not sure that shipping blog posts counts, but it’s part of the process as long as they get written and posted.)

I recently saw this Lifehacker post on Quotabl.es, which is a standalone website that will collect and keep quotes that you like. It allows for tagging quotes and the [now-obligatory] ability to share on Twitter or Facebook.

But to/for me, this is the wrong approach! Why hoard quotes that are meaningful to you? Aren’t they important enough to share with the world? Just like no plan survives contact with the enemy, no idea spreads in a vacuum.

Tell people who you are, tell them what inspires you, tell them what moves you. Don’t store ’em in some antiseptic webapp: claim them, publish them (meaning someplace public, where people will find them), and share them.

(I think even Lifehacker understands things my way.)

Here are two related quotes that resurfaced in my life today (well, one did and that always makes me think of the second):

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

-Hanlon’s Razor

The related quote tracks the famous Clarke’s [Third] Law:

Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.

-Grey’s Law

I love science fiction authors. This stuff never shows up in the literary section.