Book Mouse

I enjoy telling people what I do for a living because they are so often surprised. But something that also makes me sad about it is how many middle-aged and older folks say, “You know, I really wish I had been an English major / taken more English classes in college.”

Young men from ages 16-29 should be reading as much Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, and Whitman as possible Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, and Dante in their 30s

Writing is going to be a superpower soon. Not literary mastery, not being Shakespeare or Wordsworth or Lewis. I mean being able to express yourself spontaneously & coherently in paragraphs (or speech!) without an automated Wormtongue in your ear telling you what to think and say.

We don’t talk enough about how hilarious classics are. The authors back then had impeccable senses of humor. They’ll be talking about society and tragedy, then suddenly slip in jokes, shade, sarcasm, and wit that still hold up centuries later. Truly phenomenal

my most boomer take is that being endlessly gentle with yourself all the time and never forcing yourself to do anything you don’t want to do isn’t self care it’s lazy and it’s bad for you