#kindlehighlight

I never once thought I wanted to be a soldier. I wanted to be a teacher. As soon as I left college, though, they sent me my draft notice, stuck me in officers training, and I ended up on the continent for twelve years. My life went by like a dream. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#dreams

THE TRUTH ABOUT PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION • American fifteen-year-olds rank thirty-fifth out of fifty-seven developed countries in math and literacy. • 30 percent of public school students don’t graduate from high school. • Every day, 7,000 kids drop out of high school. • Of the 50 million children currently in public school, 15 million of them will drop out. • 25 percent of all public school math teachers did not major in mathematics or a math-related subject at a college or university. • Less than two-thirds of high school graduates are accepted to college every year. • One half... ↗

— Frank I. Luntz

#business

Like all failed experiments, that one taught me something I didn’t expect: one key ingredient of so-called experience is the delusional faith that it is unique and special, that those included in it are privileged and those excluded from it are missing out. ↗

— Jennifer Egan

#kindlehighlight #life-lessons #experience

We are primarily the products of thinking that happens below the level of awareness. ↗

— David Brooks

#love

When I was a junior, my school introduced badminton, which was clearly a P.E. department ploy to get me away from the wrestling room, and it worked, since the first time I played badminton was like the first time I tasted sushi or heard the Beatles or read Wordsworth. This was a sport? This counted for gym requirements? ↗

— Rob Sheffield

#love

because we all know that the books we’ve loved best are seldom the ones we esteem the most highly ↗

— Laura Miller

#love

First, love one another very deeply, and don’t be ashamed to express your love openly and often. Also, enjoy one another, and guard zealously your time together so as to enjoy it to the fullest extent. ↗

— Laura Greenwald

#love

Well, I don’t. Not absolutely. But adopting "making money’’ as the goal of a manufacturing organization looks like a pretty good assumption. Because, for one thing, there isn’t one item on that list that’s worth a damn if the company isn’t making money. ↗

— Eliyahu M. Goldratt

#money

They really cut to the chase in the urologist’s examination room, and I tried to laugh. If this office were a movie, it would have been rated R. ↗

— Mike Birbiglia

#movies

She laughed out loud, a warm, knowing laughter that made me once again wonder about the secret ingredient in these women’s lives. Whatever it was, I was clearly missing it. It was so much more than just self-confidence; it seemed to be the ability to love oneself, enthusiastically and unsparingly, body and soul, naturally followed by the assumption that every man on the planet is dying to get in on the act. ↗

— Anne Fortier

#love