Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 459

"From the outside, Metal looks very aggressive and...

"From the outside, Metal looks very aggressive and nonconformist. But that’s just because we get all our aggression out in music, and not by doing some other shit. It’s actually a very loving community. No matter where you’re from, or how much money you make, a metalhead is a metalhead."

"She won’t talk to me until I get my shit...

"She won’t talk to me until I get my shit together."

“Who’s she?”

“Every man has a She.”

"It’s for my Queer and Feminist Comparative Literature...

"It’s for my Queer and Feminist Comparative Literature Theory class."

“Let me write that down…”

“I took it more for the teacher than the class. My school was all-male until the sixties, and she was one of the first teachers at the women’s college. She’s really respected.”

“So what’s one important thing she’s taught you?”

“… about how it’s important for feminists to evaluate everyday occurrences. How even routine personal interactions are political. Everything is significant, and even little things have meaning.”

“Is it possible to see too much meaning in little things?”

“Well, there does seem to be some people who go around looking for things to be angry about. But if the alternative is to be desensitized to how small things affect us, I think it’s better to be overly sensitive.”

"I used to be the Director of the NBA Players’ Union. Now...

"I used to be the Director of the NBA Players’ Union. Now I teach negotiation at NYU."

“What’s one thing that everyone can do to be a better negotiator?”

“Listen first. It does you no good to blurt out your interests. Always find out what the other person wants.”

"I got malaria in Ghana."

"I got malaria in Ghana."

"I was raised to blame myself instead of accepting myself."

"I was raised to blame myself instead of accepting myself."

"I find it really hard to feel a sense of accomplishment in...

"I find it really hard to feel a sense of accomplishment in retrospect. No matter what I achieve, my self-worth always seems to be tied to the next booking."

"The motion of knitting isn’t all that different from the...

"The motion of knitting isn’t all that different from the motion of plugging away at your smartphone all day. Except knitting promotes focus, and the phone promotes distraction."

"I feel like it’s easy for individualism to turn into...

"I feel like it’s easy for individualism to turn into pretentiousness. I see that a lot in film school. I’m hoping to find a way to carve out my own identity, while remaining approachable."

I asked: “What is your greatest struggle right now?”...

I asked: “What is your greatest struggle right now?” He made a confused face and began speaking to his girlfriend in Thai. Then, suddenly understanding, he turned back to me and said:

“English.”