#pen

Life with Ilona was invariably lived on two levels, or rather in two simultaneous and parallel directions. On the one hand, your feet were always on the ground, you were always intelligently but not obsessively alert to what each day offered in response to the routine question of surviving. On the other hand, imagination and unbounded fantasy suggested a spontaneous and unexpected sequence of scenarios that were always aimed at the radical subversion of every law ever written or established. This was a permanent, organic, rigorous subversion that never permitted travel on the beaten path, the road preferred by most people, the traditional patterns that offer protection to those whom Ilona, without emphasis or pride but without any concessions either, would call "the others. ↗

— Álvaro Mutis

#life #women #imagination

Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. These were its assets: a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Then there was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe – the only lady private detective in Botswana – brewed redbush tea. And three mugs – one for herself, one for her secretary, and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had in abundance. No inventory would ever include those, of course. ↗

— Alexander McCall Smith

#intelligence

In (hyper-loyal) cultures, loyalty is so highly prized that it covers a multitude of leadership sins. I’ve seen numerous bad leaders cover their ineptitude by stressing the importance of loyalty over competence. They teach that loyalty is more important than excellence and they use that idea to distract the team from their own inability to perform. ↗

— Phil Cooke

#loyalty #openness #leadership

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view. ↗

— George Eliot

#open-mindedness #perspective #life

They tell us that Suicide is the greatest piece of Cowardice... That Suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in this world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person. ↗

— Arthur Schopenhauer

#death #right #schopenhauer #suicide #title

When it was over, she gathered him in her arms. And told him the terrible irony of her life. That she had wanted to be dead all those years while her brother had been alive. That had been her sin. And this was her penance. Wanting to live when everyone else seemed dead. ↗

— Melina Marchetta

#live #penance #sin #life

We make such messes in this life, both accidently and on purpose. But wiping the surface clean doesn't really make anything any neater. It just masks what is below. It's only when you really dig down deep, go underground, that you can see who you really are. ↗

— Sarah Dessen

#mclean-sweet #sarah-dessen #self-discovery #what-happened-to-goodbye #life

Or, God, maybe this was just life. For everyone on the planet. Maybe the Survivor's Club wasn't something you "earned," but simply what you were born into when you came out of your mother's womb. Your heartbeat put you on the roster and then the rest of it was just a question of vocabulary: the nouns and verbs used to describe the events that rocked your foundation and sent you flailing were not always the same as other people's, but the random cruelties of disease and accident, and the malicious focus of evil men and nasty deeds, and the heartbreak of loss with all its stinging whips and rattling chains... At the core, it was all the same. ↗

— J.R. Ward

#shit-happens #suck-it-up #life

Effective listening is more than simply avoiding the bad habit of interrupting others while they are speaking or finishing their sentences. It's being content to listen to the entire thought of someone rather than waiting impatiently for your chance to respond. ↗

— Richard Carlson

#learning #realisation #truth #life

The essential truth of life, he was coming to realize, wasn't romantic an took only two words to label: Shit. Happens. ↗

— J.R. Ward

#truth-of-life #life