things I want to remember
I love reading. For over a decade now, I’ve been saving quotes, passages, and the occasional poem I come across that motivates me, surprises me, angers me, or just seems beautiful. I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I have.
I’ve historically just pasted everything into my Apple Notes and later into what became a 200+ page doc. As AI has gotten better it became a lot more feasible to classify and filter things and I’ve used some extra Grok quota to try and do attribution too. If you find any errors or better sources please let me know.
Wandering is an essential counter balance to efficiency
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I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do.
Attributed to Citation: The Work Required to Have an Opinion · Farnam Street
Notebook · Feb 3, 2018 – Mar 17, 2018I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do.
Whenever you find yourself saying something for a second time (to a second audience, or in a second situation), it is highly likely that you will end up saying it again and again in the future. To vastly improve the quality of the communication, and reduce the amount of time that you spend communicating it … write it down.
Attributed to Citation: The Great CEO Within (2019), “When you say it twice, write it down”
Notebook · May 6, 2019 – Aug 20, 2019Whenever you find yourself saying something for a second time (to a second audience, or in a second situation), it is highly likely that you will end up saying it again and again in the future. To vastly improve the quality of the communication, and reduce the amount of time that you spend communicating it … write it down.
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage
Attributed to Recorded source (unverified): The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. III (June 1941, p. 125, as cited by a secondary transcription)
Notebook · May 6, 2019 – Aug 20, 2019Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still i...
Attributed to Recorded source (unverified): Ira Glass on Storytelling (Current TV interview)
Excerpt · 2 min read
Notebook · Jun 2, 2021 – May 15, 2022Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
I think the most important questions we ask ourselves circle back to people you love and why, how to love them better, and how to let them love you back.Notebook · Jun 2, 2021 – May 15, 2022
I think the most important questions we ask ourselves circle back to people you love and why, how to love them better, and how to let them love you back.
Above all, don’t overestimate your own power as an individual. Founders are important not because they are the only ones whose work has value, but rather because a great founder can bring out the best work from everybody at his company. That we need individual founders in all their peculiarity does not mean that we are called to worship Ayn Randian “prime movers” who claim to be independent of everybody around them. In this respect Rand was a merely half-great writer: her villains were real, but her heroes were fake. There is no Galt’s Gulch. There is no secession from society. To believe yourself invested with divine self-sufficiency is not the mark of a strong individual, but of a perso...
Attributed to Citation: Zero to One, with Blake Masters (2014), The Founder’s Paradox
Excerpt · 1 min read
Notebook · Jul 4, 2016 – Feb 11, 2017Above all, don’t overestimate your own power as an individual. Founders are important not because they are the only ones whose work has value, but rather because a great founder can bring out the best work from everybody at his company. That we need individual founders in all their peculiarity does not mean that we are called to worship Ayn Randian “prime movers” who claim to be independent of everybody around them. In this respect Rand was a merely half-great writer: her villains were real, but her heroes were fake. There is no Galt’s Gulch. There is no secession from society. To believe yourself invested with divine self-sufficiency is not the mark of a strong individual, but of a person who has mistaken the crowd’s worship—or jeering—for the truth. The single greatest danger for a founder is to become so certain of his own myth that he loses his mind.
Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the concentration camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to your friend.
Attributed to Citation: All But My Life (raspberry passage also reproduced as a New England Holocaust Memorial inscription)
Notebook · Aug 28, 2018 – Oct 30, 2018Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the concentration camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to your friend.
You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, "How did he do it? He must be a genius!"
Attributed to Citation: Advice recorded by Gian-Carlo Rota, Notices of the AMS, 1997
Notebook · Sep 19, 2022 – Nov 28, 2022You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, "How did he do it? He must be a genius!"
A revision of Kant’s imperative for technologists: do not work on something if you yourself do not want to live in the world where you are massively successful.
Value Beyond Instrumentalization
Notebook · Nov 22, 2022 – May 24, 2023A revision of Kant’s imperative for technologists: do not work on something if you yourself do not want to live in the world where you are massively successful.
Things get more refined as you make mistakes. I've had a chance to make a lot of mistakes. Your aesthetics get better as you make mistakes. But the real big thing is: if you're going to make something, it doesn't take any more energy—and rarely does it take more money—to make it really great. All it takes is a little more time. Not that much more. And a willingness to do so, a willingness to persevere until it's r...
Attributed to Citation: Interview with Michael Moritz, 1984
Excerpt · 1 min read
Notebook · Mar 24, 2025 – Dec 1, 2025Things get more refined as you make mistakes. I've had a chance to make a lot of mistakes. Your aesthetics get better as you make mistakes. But the real big thing is: if you're going to make something, it doesn't take any more energy—and rarely does it take more money—to make it really great. All it takes is a little more time. Not that much more. And a willingness to do so, a willingness to persevere until it's really great
Grief is the price we pay for love
Attributed to Citation: Message read in New York, 20 September 2001
Notebook · Dec 16, 2018 – Jun 2, 2021Grief is the price we pay for love
I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.
Attributed to Citation: Apple Store interview, as broadcast on NBC Nightly News, 6 October 2011
Notebook · Apr 30, 2018 – Jul 7, 2018I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.
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