"Investor Charlie Munger once noted that the world isn't driven by greed; it's driven by envy."
Morgan Housel, American author
Source: Morgan Housel. Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2023; p. 26.
via: Sketchbook M 13, 2024, p. 4.
"Those moments in our lives when a new question rises up in us, stops us in our tracks, are pivot points. They are openings for discovery and new possibility to break in."
–– Krista Tippett (b. 1960), American journalist, author, and entrepreneur
Source: Jeff Karp. LIT: Use Nature's Playbook to Energize Your Brain, Spark Ideas, and Ignite Action. New York: William Morrow, 2024; p. 22.
"We understand the world because of the way we were taught to see."
–– Philip Glass (b. 1937), American composer and musician
via: Commonplace Book 2024, p. 29.
"Creative expression is not just the actual work you create, but the person you become and the life you live as you become the person who is devoted to the ongoing practice of creating work and sharing it with the world."
–– Yumi Sakugawa (b. 1985), American interdisciplinary artist
Source: The Attention Habit, Instagram, December 14, 2024.
"Disappointment has gotten a bad reputation, but it's where you're going to spend most of your time if you're any kind of artist."
–– Agnes de Mille (1905-1993), American dancer and choreographer
"I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people."
–– Edith Sitwell (1887-1964), British poet and critic
"But isn't play the way we get limbered up for the work of the world?"
–– Robin Wall Kimmerer (b. 1953), American writer, ecologist, botanist, professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation
Source: Robin Wall Kimmerer. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Milkweed Editions, 2013; p. 94.
Listening to Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass and then reading a physical copy once the first lockdown was over got me through the pandemic. I would read a chapter before bed to calm my stressed mind.
"If you never question things, your life ends up being limited by other people's imaginations. Take the time to think and dream, to question and reconsider. It is better to be limited by what you can dream for yourself than by where you fit in someone else's dream."
–– James Clear (b. 1986), American writer, Atomic Habits.
Source: Jeff Karp. LIT: Use Nature's Playbook to Energize Your Brain, Spark Ideas, and Ignite Action. New York: William Morrow, 2024; p. 29.
"To ask the hard question is simple."
–– W.H. Auden (1907-1973), British-born American poet
"We go through life. We shed our skins. We become ourselves."
–– Patti Smith (b. 1946), American writer, poet, singer-songwriter and musician
via: Sketchbook N 14, 2024, p. 41.
"If you don't know what to do, there's actually a chance of doing something new. As long as you know what you're doing, nothing much of interest is going to happen."
–– Philip Glass (b. 1937), American composer and musician
via: Commonplace Book 2024, p. 29.
"Do not fear mistakes, there are none."
–– Miles Davis (1926-1991), American musician, bandleader, and composer
via: Commonplace Book 2024, p. 28.
"When young artists ask, "How can I get past [creative blocks]? I respond: "For one thing, try doing your worst work. Do the worst song you can possibly think of. At the very least, you'll get some idea of what your rules are. At the most, you're going to get something that's better than anything you've every done because it has a lot of pure energy." Just make it bad. Just make it really bad. You know, so pure and bad."
–– Laurie Anderson (b. 1947), American musician and multidisciplinary artist
Source: Laurie Anderson conversation with Brandon Stosuy, November 14, 2016, The Creative Independent (thecreativeindependent.com)
via: Commonplace Book 2024, p. 25-26.
"A colleague of mine in the political science department told me once that the priest who prepared her for her first communion said, 'Take whatever you want from life. Take it, but be prepared to pay for it.'"
–– Gail Bowen (b. 1942), Canadian author and playwright
Source: Gail Bowen. The Legacy: A Joanne Kilbourn Mystery. Toronto: ECW Press, 2023; p. 213.
via: Commonplace Book, 2024, p. 18.
"You are not going to be perfect every day. It's about turning up the next day and doing it again."
–– Krista Tippett (b. 1960), American journalist, author, and entrepreneur
via: Commonplace Book 2024, p. 17.
"There is no shortcut. I'm no accident. People like to say it's natural. You have to practice and you have to study."
–– Miles Davis (1926-1991), American musician, bandleader, and composer
Source: Nitch.com
via: Sketchbook N 14, 2024, p. 39.
"Intimacy is the soul of great art."
–– Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907), German expressionist painter
via: Sketchbook N 14, 2024, p. 39.
"Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today. It's been that way all this year. It's been that way so many times."
–– Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), American writer and journalist
Source: Nitch, Instagram, December 9, 2024
"Darkness is generative, and generation, biological and artistic both, requires this amorous engagement with the unknown, this entry into the realm where you do not quite know what you are doing and what will happen next. Creation is always in the dark because you can only do the work of making by not quite knowing what you're doing, by walking into darkness, not staying in the light. Ideas emerge from edges and shadows to arrive in the light, and though that's where they may be seen by others, that's not where they're born."
–– Rebecca Solnit (b. 1961), American author
Source: Rebecca Solnit. The Faraway Nearby. New York: Viking, 2013; p. 185.
via: Commonplace Book 2013-2014, 2014, p 81-2.
"Would everyone simply return to their old habits once the pandemic was over, or would they have learned what Karen already knew –– that walking the city was its own reward? Time for thought, time to spy on the lives of others, time to discover new routes and expand the mental map."
–– Val McDermid (b. 1955), Scottish author
Source: Val McDermid. Past Lying: A Karen Pirie novel. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023; p. 442.
via: Commonplace Book 2024, p. 16.
"When you are face to face with a difficulty, you are up against a discovery."
–– William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (Lord Kelvin) (1824-1907), British mathematician, mathematical physicist, and engineer
Source: Ann-Marie MacDonald. Fayne. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2022; p. 589.
via: Sketchbook M 13, 2024, p. 6.
"The things that go wrong for you have a lot of potential to become part of your gift to the world."
–– Krista Tippett (b. 1960), American journalist, author, and entrepreneur
via: Commonplace Book 2024, p. 17.
"We have to be willing to let go of "that's just the way it is," even if just for a moment, to consider the possibility that there isn't a way it is or a way it isn't. There is the way we choose to act and what we choose to make of circumstances."
–– Lynne Twist, American writer and public speaker
Source: Jeff Karp. LIT: Use Nature's Playbook to Energize Your Brain, Spark Ideas, and Ignite Action. New York: William Morrow, 2024; p. 1.
"Sometimes you need to let go of the bad things so that you can hold on to the good things."
–– Character Tess McLeod on McLeod's Daughters 5.18, an Australian TV show, 2005.
via: Sketchbook M 13, 2024, p. 5.
"The first rule of a happy life is low expectations. If you have unrealistic expectations you're going to be miserable your whole life. You want to have reasonable expectations and take life's results, good and bad, as they happen with a certain amount of stoicism."
–– Charlie Munger (1924-2023), American philanthropist, investor, and businessman
Source: Morgan Housel. Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2023; p. 34.
via: Sketchbook M 13, 2024, p. 4.
"Humour is a way to show you're smart without bragging."
–– Mark Twain (1835-1910), pen name of Samuel Clemens, American writer
via: Sketchbook M 13, 2024, p. 4.
"Small wins are exactly what they sound like, and are part of how keystone habits create widespread changes. A huge body of research has shown that small wins have enormous power, an influence disproportionate to the accomplishments of the victories themselves. "Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage, one Cornell professor [Karl E. Weick] wrote in 1984. "Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favour another small win." Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach."
–– Charles Duhigg (b. 1974), American journalist and non-fiction author
Source: Charles Duhigg. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2012; p. 112.
via Commonplace Book 2013-2014, 2013, p. 18.
"Progress and inner work life feed each other. Mathematician Norbert Wiener called this sort of interaction a positive feedback loop or "cumulative causation." Progress enhances inner work life ... and positive inner work life leads to further progress ..., creating a virtuous cycle. The loop can operate as a vicious cycle, as well. Just as inner work life and progress improve in tandem, when one goes downhill, so does the other. ...
"Like any feedback loop, the progress loop is self-reinforcing. ... [A] vicious cycle can be broken by ... removing obstacles to progress and providing the supports necessary for success."
–– Teresa Amabile (b. 1950), American academic and author; and Steven J. Kramer, American independent researcher, writer, and consultant
Source: Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer. The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2011; p. 98-99.
via Commonplace Book 2013-2014, 2013, p. 29-30.
