Dan Becker > Dan's Quotes

“I’ve learned that disagreements with James often occur because one of us knows something that the other does not. Usually it’s not something obvious; it’s a hidden assumption. Sometimes you have to keep digging—keep arguing, but I mean that in a friendly, searching-for-the-truth kind of way—to figure out what the hidden assumption is, because once you expose it, then the right answer suddenly comes into clear focus. Given this experience, I was comfortable disagreeing with James, fully expecting that we’d eventually work it out. In this case, the discussion went on for many months. (This willingness to cooperatively disagree, working together to try and get to the right solution, is an aspect of our culture that I try to promote.)”
― Dave Hitz, How to Castrate a Bull: Unexpected Lessons on Risk, Growth, and Success in Business

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“I could tell that Peter, in the irritating way of very young men, had been mysterious about the whole episode.”
― Charlaine Harris, The Russian Cage

“Okay, when I play at my best, I’m not thinking. I’m in the ‘zone.’ Music is flowing through me, but this flow is broken sometimes when I make a mistake. My mistakes are often caused by frustration, and making mistakes often causes me to become frustrated. Many times, poor technique is at the root of the problem. Poor technique robs me of free expression. It’s like I hear what I wanna play, but my technique doesn’t allow it to come out. “Now,” I continued, “in order for me to play freely, I need good technique, but I don’t wanna be thinking about my technique while I’m playing any more than I wanna be thinking about my mouth when I’m talking. So, when I practice, I use ‘concentration’ to learn what the technique is. Then I use ‘not concentrating’ to get completely comfortable using the technique. Combining the two concentration methods allows me to get a complete grasp of the technique.” I surprised myself. Somehow, I was finally getting it. I didn’t know where the information was coming from, but I was open to it and it was flowing through me. I wasn’t ready to stop. Feeling the energy, I kept talking. “If ‘not concentrating’ is where I want to end up, I need to add it to my practice routine. Combining ‘concentrating’ with ‘not concentrating’ is necessary to complete the circle. This, like you said, is yin and yang. Both parts are needed to complete the whole. We know how to concentrate and we know how to practice concentrating, but do we know how to practice ‘not concentrating’? I need to figure that out for the circle to be complete.” “What can you use to practice ‘not concentrating’?” Michael asked as he removed the still smoldering hat from my head. “Television,” I replied. That was an easy one for me. “Do you think that television can be of any assistance?” “Of course, it can,” I responded. “If I practice my techniques while watching a television show it might allow another part of my brain to be activated. This would simulate ‘not concentrating’ while playing music.”
― Victor L. Wooten, The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music

“Here’s the four point battle plan, which we’ll return to at the end of the book: Disregard the Doomsayers: The misguided belief that “it’s too late” to act has been co-opted by fossil fuel interests and those advocating for them. It’s just another way of legitimizing business-as-usual and a continued reliance on fossil fuels. We must reject the overt doom and gloom that we increasingly encounter in today’s climate discourse. A Child Shall Lead Them: The youngest generation is fighting tooth and nail to save their planet, and there is a moral authority and clarity in their message that none but the most jaded ears can fail to hear. They are the game-changers that climate advocates have been waiting for. We should model our actions after theirs and learn from their methods and their idealism. Educate, Educate, Educate: Most hard-core climate-change deniers are unmovable. They view climate change through the prism of right-wing ideology and are impervious to facts. Don’t waste your time and effort trying to convince them. But there are many honest, confused folks out there who are caught in the crossfire, victims of the climate-change disinformation campaign. We must help them out. Then they will be in a position to join us in battle. Changing the System Requires Systemic Change: The fossil fuel disinformation machine wants to make it about the car you choose to drive, the food you choose to eat, and the lifestyle you choose to live rather than about the larger system and incentives. We need policies that will incentivize the needed shift away from fossil fuel burning toward a clean, green global economy. So-called leaders who resist the call for action must be removed from office.”
― Michael E. Mann, The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet

“I may not always have this, but I have this now,” I thought. “I am perfectly happy in this moment and I know it.”
― Jo Walton, The Just City

“Snake!” screamed a woman, and Vick recoiled, then realised it wasn’t a warning but a sales pitch. “Best snake meat!”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Trouble with Peace

“And in my dream, if the fathers and mothers loved their sons and daughters and sang to them in their cradles, they made a good country, and if they didn’t, they made a tyranny, so whether existence is a bloodbath or a bubble bath could hinge on whether a little child got kissed good night with a story and a glass of water or sent to bed without snuggles or a snack or a cohesive philosophy of justice.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Past Is Red

“Lots of us up for first run today,” Alfie said, in the bright sort of way that someone might say, Well, looks like rain, doesn’t it! when it’s sheeting down and you’ve taken shelter under an awning with five people who’ve all got knives drawn, and you’re quietly reaching into your pocket for a handgun.”
― Naomi Novik, The Last Graduate

“How exactly have you managed to spend your entire career until now pretending to be a nice person?” I demanded grouchily as I stomped down to the cafeteria on Monday the next week: in our library session after the English run that morning, she’d brought out a long checklist of the many, many things I’d done wrong or inefficiently that needed correcting, all of which she’d carefully observed while somehow managing to sail through the run completely undistressed herself. She was still demanding my attention for a few more of them on the stairs even after the lunch bell rang. She sniffed disparagingly. “It is not a complex problem to appear nice to people! You identify the most popular targets in each of your classes, learn what they value about themselves, and give them a minimum of three relevant compliments each week. So long as they think you are agreeable, others will follow their lead.” It hadn’t occurred to me that there was an answer to my question, complete presumably with regularly tended checklists. I must have looked aghast,”
― Naomi Novik, The Last Graduate

“I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed.”
― Lloyd Dobler "Say Anything"

“Time slips slowly away until Iris’s coffee is a memory of bitterness dusted with cocoa,”
― Charles Stross, The Delirium Brief

“All large organizations are either superorganisms whose cells are human bodies, or very slow artificial intelligences that use human beings as gears in the Babbage engines that run their code.”
― Charles Stross, The Labyrinth Index

“But better an imperfect dome in Florence than cathedrals in the clouds.”
― Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

“Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box”
― Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

“I was fifty-eight years old when I finally felt like a “master choreographer.” The occasion was my 128th ballet, The Brahms-Haydn Variations, created for American Ballet Theatre. For the first time in my career I felt in control of all the components that go into making a dance—the music, the steps, the patterns, the deployment of people onstage, the clarity of purpose. Finally I had the skills to close the gap between what I could see in my mind and what I could actually get onto the stage. Why did it take 128 pieces before I felt this way? A better question would be, Why not? What’s wrong with getting better as you get more work under your belt? The libraries and archives and museums are packed with early bloomers and one-trick ponies who said everything they had to say in their first novel, who could only compose one good tune, whose canvases kept repeating the same dogged theme. My respect has always gone to those who are in it for the long haul. When people who have demonstrated talent fizzle out or disappear after early creative success, it’s not because their gifts, that famous “one percent inspiration,” abandoned them; more likely they abandoned their gift through a failure of perspiration.”
― Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

“As we age, it’s hard to recapture the recklessness of youth, when new ideas flew off us like light from a pinwheel sparkler. But we more than compensate for this with the ideas we do generate, and with our hard-earned wisdom about how to capture and, more importantly, connect those ideas. When I was young I understood very little about the value of a spine to a piece; I wasted time and energy by moving blindly in many directions, when a clearer understanding of spine would have kept me on the path I wanted. I’ve learned so much more about my own preferences. I know that my best work comes out of my creative DNA that seeks to reconcile the competing forces of zoe and bios. I’ve grown more efficient in my efforts; I’ve seen enough dead ends to know when an enticing trail will get me nowhere. And I’ve learned to see continuity in all I do.”
― Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

“If you’re privileged enough to be able to do that for forty-five minutes a few days a week, you have been given something wonderful.”
― Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

“First, you must generate the idea, usually from memory or experience or activity. Then you have to retain it—that is, hold it steady in your mind and keep it from disappearing. Then you have to inspect it—study it and make inferences about it. Finally, you have to be able to transform it—alter it in some way to suit your higher purposes. Some people are good at some of these but not all four. They can generate an idea, but they can’t hold on to it or transform it. My problem was that I was generating a lot of ideas, but generating was at odds with my need to retain, inspect, and transform.”
― Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

“So the logosphere is a real place,” I ventured. “It is literally a surreal place,”
― Scotto Moore, Battle of the Linguist Mages

“Didn’t think God had much to say to a socialist.” “God has been a socialist since 1848 when Karl Marx explained things to him. Ever since.”
― Nick Harkaway, Titanium Noir

“I had one mission and one mission only: to recover. Not working became healing. That was the job.”
― Twyla Tharp, Keep It Moving: Lessons for the Rest of Your Life

“The ultimate retirement is one in which you discover who you truly are and you love that person. That, my friends, is what genuine happiness is about. Clearly, KT and I are very fortunate to be able to afford this beautiful way of life, but the lesson here is not about how wonderful our experience is. It has everything to do with the promise that awaits you in retirement. And the lesson is this: You are not defined by your work, no matter what it is or was. You are defined by who you are, how you live, and the love and respect you show to yourself and to others. There really is life after work. The ultimate retirement is one in which you wake up and greet the sunrise each day with joy. In the ultimate retirement, you find meaning in every single day. If you make the time to look inside yourself, to marvel at the wonderment of life, you will be amazed at what you discover.”
― Suze Orman, The Ultimate Retirement Guide for 50+: Winning Strategies to Make Your Money Last a Lifetime

“adding “Why?” to the end of any question will take it deeper. Adding “How has society shaped my answer?” to any question will take it wider.”
― Joe Dominguez, Your Money or Your Life

“There’s a word in Spanish that encompasses all this: aprovechar. It means to use something wisely—be it a sunny day at the beach or leftovers made into a delicious new meal. It’s getting full value from life, enjoying all the good that each moment and each thing has to offer. You can aprovecha a simple meal, a bowl of ripe strawberries, or a cruise in the Bahamas. There’s nothing miserly about aprovechar; it’s a succulent word, full of sunlight and flavor. If only frugal sounded so sweet.”
― Joe Dominguez, Your Money or Your Life

“Oh. My. God. Aspirational urban planning is so fucking hot,” she hissed in my ear.”
― Cory Doctorow, The Lost Cause

“These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.”
― Najwa Zebian

“The world is much better; the world is still awful; the world can do much better.’10 All three statements are true.”
― Hannah Ritchie, Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet

“There are some tricks to staying light and getting back to that childlike play state. The writer Kurt Vonnegut wrote a letter to a group of high school students and assigned them this homework: Write a poem and don’t show it to anybody. Tear it up into little pieces and throw them into the trash can. “You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.” That, said Vonnegut, was the whole purpose of making art: “Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.”
― Austin Kleon, Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald”
― Austin Kleon, Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad