Ryan Holiday

I can’t say that this exercise is flawless or that it magically cured me of my jealousy. It’s not supposed to. It’s an exercise—a tool to use when envy appears.

On being a writer: “All the days of his life he should be reading as faithfully as his partaking of food; reading, watching, listening.” John Fante

Because of course the idea is good. Of course there’s something here. Of course the audiences will love what we create. Of course our breakthrough is legitimate. Except that isn’t always true.

Because guessing and hoping and trying to get lucky are dumb.

There are fundamentally two types of people in this world: 1) People who think they are entitled to other people’s time and 2) decent, civilized human beings.

And that’s how you find yourself in places you don’t want to be, stuck doing stuff you don’t want to do, frustrated and resentful, overloaded and impatient, distracted and confused.

There are well-researched stories of dogs who died of broken hearts, elephants with grudges, dolphins who commit suicide, and other oddities that make you think and say “Wow.”

The obstacles and adversity we face in life are not to be avoided but embraced.

“Money’s the cheapest thing. Liberty, freedom is the most expensive.”

These are books that might just take a few hours or even minutes to read—but will stay with you far longer than that.

One way to get more deep work done is to cultivate a disinterest with the trivial things that other people get distracted by (hint: watching debates/political maneuvering a year before an election).

I used to go around and ask every smart person I met—even emailing important people I didn’t know— “What books do you recommend to a kid like me?”