SO GOOD QUOTES

  • “If you have all pleasure, then life is miserable. If you have no pleasure, life is miserable.”

    —Ryan Nicodemus

  • I was thinking about these two characters from Jojo Rabbit and how much I wished the whole movie was just about them, and I remembered Errol Morris saying:

    I believe that there are no good movies, no good books, no good music compositions just great scenes, great passages, great moments.

    THERE ARE NO GOOD MOVIES

  • Quiet your thoughts and listen to your feelings instead. Decision fatigue is exhausting because it’s a side effect of living inside your thoughts. Circular thoughts are caused by the deep-seated belief that there is ONE RIGHT ANSWER. You want to know the correct course of action. Naps, good or bad? Exercise, good or bad? Food, good or bad? Booze, good or bad? Every action is a binary moral toggle.

    Feel your way forward instead. Sometimes a nap is delicious. Other times, a nap is a way to avoid exercise or work. Sometimes work is delicious. Sometimes not working is not only necessary but sublime. If you work too much when you’re really, truly not feeling it, that can slow your productivity down a lot. You rebel against your own edict.

    Yesterday, I woke up at 2 am and walked 7 miles on my treadmill desk while writing a new chapter of my book. I took at nap at 11 am. The day before that, I walked 8 miles, worked 12 hours, and finished the draft of huge chapter of my book. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to write for that long before, but it just kept coming. The week before that, I had been struggling to even look at either my treadmill or my book, but my writing (and my entire body maybe?) fell into a hallucinatory wormhole and I went with it.

    ASK MOLLY | Glory – Maybe you want some for yourself.

  • The way I live can look manic or bipolar or narcissistic or self-indulgent or self-abnegating depending on who’s looking. But I’m not depressed or anxious and I’ve never been more productive or happier, because I follow my body and my mind catches up. Or my mind leaps in and my body follows.

    ASK MOLLY | Glory – Maybe you want some for yourself.

  • it’s easy for a depressed person to look like he’s not working when just lying in bed can feel like work for him.

    ASK MOLLY | Hungry!

  • In your life, you will be evaluated on your output. Your boss will evaluate you on your output. If you’re a writer like me, the audience will evaluate you on your output.

    But your input is just as important. If you don’t have good input, you cannot maintain good output.

    The problem is no one manages your input. The boss never cares about your input. The boss doesn’t care about what books you read. Your boss doesn’t ask you what newspapers you read. The boss doesn’t ask you what movies you saw or what TV shows or what ideas you consume.

    But I know for a fact I could not do what I do if I was not zealous in managing high-quality inputs into my mind every day of my life. That’s why I spend maybe two hours a day writing. I’m a writer. I spend two hours a day writing, but I spend three to four hours a day reading and two to three hours a day listening to music.

    People think that that’s creating a problem in my schedule, but in fact, I say, “No, no, this is the reason why I’m able to do this. Because I have constant good-quality input.” That is the only reason why I can maintain the output.

    —Ted Gioia
    Your output depends on your input

  • Home is not where you are born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.

    — ​Naguib Mahfouz

  • You are always trying to “be something” or to be noticed for your spirituality. There are a lot of people who have an outward spirituality, but inwardly they still think too much of themselves. People who think they are lowering themselves have a lot of conceit. They think they are doing others a favor in “getting down to their level.”

    True humility is not like this. A truly humble person is content in all situations. He doesn’t notice if he is being praised or blamed, and isn’t always weighing if what is being said to him or about him is to his advantage.

    François Fénelon, The Seeking Heart

  • I tend not to think of myself as a writer primarily. It’s something that I do from time to time—well, I hate writing. I hate, hate, hate writing. The only thing I enjoy about the writing process is being done with it.

    Brandy Jensen, On writing, giving advice, and understanding yourself

  • Where do you do most of your writing? Do you have a space in your home?

    Yeah. There’s a room that would be too cruel to be anyone’s bedroom, but it’s the perfect size for a desk. I’m a ridiculously self-disciplined person, so I’m not tempted to do other things. I actually get dressed to go to work every day—that makes me feel like I’m getting ready to work—and then I don’t leave the house all day.

    Myla Goldberg on inviting criticism, redefining success, and how parenting enhances your art