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Kindle Notes & Highlights
“there are people in the world who think only about themselves. They don’t care what happens to other people so long as they get what they want. They put other people down to make themselves feel important. “Then there are people who do the opposite, who are able to imagine how others must feel, and make sure that they don’t do things that hurt people. “So,” she said, looking me squarely in the eye. “Which kind of person do you want to be?”
But I had two things going for me. I could take a punch. And I didn’t give up.”
in a single lifetime, accidents and happenstance determine more than we care to admit; and that the best we can do is to try to align ourselves with what we feel is right and construct some meaning out of our confusion, and with grace and nerve play at each moment the hand that we’re dealt.
most humans will commit five to ten gaffes a day, each of us counting on the forbearance and goodwill of our family, co-workers, and friends to fill in the blanks, catch our drift, and generally assume the best rather than the worst in us.
This is what separates even the most liberal writers from their conservative counterparts—the willingness to flay politicians on their own side.)
Bagram Air Base, a six-square-mile installation north of Kabul, set against the jagged peaks of the Hindu Kush, that served as the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan.
“When things are bad,” Axe said, walking next to me as we left the December meeting, “no one cares that ‘things could have been worse.’ ”
a decision by the Fed (over which a president by law has no authority) to raise or lower interest rates,
“I didn’t say they were stupid. I said they acted stupidly. There’s a difference.”
the U.S. soldier manning a post in Kandahar, the mother in Iran teaching her daughter to read, the Russian pro-democracy activist mustering his courage for an upcoming demonstration—all those who refused to give up on the idea that life could be better, and that whatever the risks and hardships, they had a role to play. Whatever you do won’t be enough, I heard their voices say. Try anyway.
In Europe, they said, even the far-right parties accept the reality of climate change—what is wrong with Americans?
