Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 461

"I grew up on a rice farm in Guyana. We didn’t have...

"I grew up on a rice farm in Guyana. We didn’t have running water or electricity, or anything like that. I didn’t come to America until I was 14. My friend has been struggling lately because she can’t get a job she wants, even though she’s really talented. She’s lived in New York her whole life and hasn’t travelled very much, and she said to me: ‘I don’t understand why anyone would want to immigrate to America.’ I told her:

“Trust me— if there’s a heaven, this is it.’”

"I was studying business but I recently switched to biological...

"I was studying business but I recently switched to biological sciences."

“Why the switch?”

“Because I like trees. And animals.”

“What’s your favorite animal?”

“Penguins.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because they’re cute. And fluffy.”

"I had my photo taken with Michelle Obama, but they never gave...

"I had my photo taken with Michelle Obama, but they never gave me the picture. And nobody believes me!"

"It’s important to tell your child ‘no.’ I...

"It’s important to tell your child ‘no.’ I want him to be prepared when life tells him ‘no.’"

“When has life told you ‘no’?”

“I’m an African-American female raised in Harlem. Life has always told me ‘no.’ It tried to say ‘no’ when I wanted to own my own business. And now I own three.”

"I’ve got four kids pointing at me and calling me Daddy....

"I’ve got four kids pointing at me and calling me Daddy. Not one of them are mine."

"It’s for my brother. He got killed on a jet ski on the...

"It’s for my brother. He got killed on a jet ski on the 4th of July. He was hanging off the back when his friend drove into a bridge. The last time I talked to him, we were arguing. It was something stupid. I’d loaned him money for rent, and he was taking too long to pay it back. So I started screaming at him. And he just walked out the door."

"He’s very attached."

"He’s very attached."

"I try to conserve my energy."“How do you...

"I try to conserve my energy."

“How do you mean?”

“Everybody is always wasting their energy on being against other people. They like to say ‘I’m against this,’ or ‘I’m against that.’ I say a lot of prayers when I wake up in the morning. But one of the prayers I always say is: ‘God, please send me someone that I can help today.’”

"It’s a Spaghetti Monster pin."“How would you...

"It’s a Spaghetti Monster pin."

“How would you describe the Spaghetti Monster?”

“It’s a semi-serious, semi-parody religion. If you substitute the word ‘Spaghetti Monster’ for the word God, it exposes religion to critical thinking. Because of the cultural reverence for the word ‘God,’ so much of religion flies under the radar of critical thinking. But if you think about it— the word ‘God’ is just a noise we make, just like ‘Spaghetti Monster’ is a noise. Both are placeholders for a concept, and neither is more valid than the other. The whole point of the Spaghetti Monster is not necessarily to say that God isn’t real, but to point out the flaws in our conceptualization of him.”

"If you could give one piece of advice to a large group of...

"If you could give one piece of advice to a large group of people, what would it be?"

“If something can be destroyed by truth, it should be.”

“I like that. Where’d it come from?”

“I’m not sure exactly. But it’s really just another way of stating the scientific method. We shouldn’t be clinging to hypotheses that are contradicted by observation.”