## Metadata - Author: [[James Lough, Alex Stein]] - Full Title: Short Flights - Category: #books ## Highlights - Our time is imperiled by tidal waves of trivia, hectored by a hundred emails a day, collared by this ad slogan or that list of things to do, each one sidetracking our steady, focused awareness. ([Location 80](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=80)) - In one sense the cosmos is a puzzle box that can be unlocked and is full of secret drawers and compartments, but in another sense there is no puzzle box and all the secrets are our own. ([Location 990](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=990)) - Poetry (all thought, really) is the ripple from a stone that has broken the surface of a still water. ([Location 991](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=991)) - Scribble, scribble, erase; Scribble, erase, scribble Scribble, scribble, scribble. Erase, erase, erase. ([Location 1004](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1004)) - Two people are arguing over an empty box: their struggle is its only content. ([Location 1010](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1010)) - The archetypal, from which the deepest poems are drawn, is an ancient machine that the gods left behind when they went off to found their next universe. ([Location 1019](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1019)) - For me an aphorism is a joke that went to college. ([Location 1027](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1027)) - Never trust a country whose army marches without bending its knees. ([Location 1036](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1036)) - Prison separates the guilty members of society from those not yet apprehended. ([Location 1039](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1039)) - All professions invent their own jargon in order to charge you for the translation. ([Location 1048](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1048)) - In the heat of the moment, lukewarm feels cold. ([Location 1108](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1108)) - Your flaws forgive mine. ([Location 1110](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1110)) - The man who consults every opinion must then decide which opinion to believe. ([Location 1111](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1111)) - Beggars can be choosers if they dare. ([Location 1112](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1112)) - A sigh is a sunken wish. ([Location 1114](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1114)) - Who worries that he will have regrets will regret having worried. ([Location 1115](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1115)) - Decisions: little murders that keep us alive. ([Location 1121](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1121)) - The early bird gets the worm. The early worm dies. ([Location 1124](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1124)) - I love originality so much I keep copying it. ([Location 1141](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1141)) - Show me a man with two feet firmly planted on the ground and I’ll show you a man who can’t get his pants on. ([Location 1148](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1148)) - Nothing lasts these days except what we throw away. ([Location 1208](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1208)) - People are at their most brilliant while defending themselves against their own conscience. ([Location 1241](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1241)) - As an investment in the future, there is nothing more risky than parenthood. ([Location 1245](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1245)) - Impossible not to wonder what Hitler’s mother listened to while she was pregnant. ([Location 1248](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1248)) - Allying yourself with the Left or the Right guarantees one outcome: you’re left without the right to think for yourself. ([Location 1250](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1250)) - Time is the deepest wilderness in which we wander. ([Location 1268](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1268)) - Sun lights the top of cedars: I will rest my chin in my hand for another hour. ([Location 1269](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1269)) - The senses, when glorified, turn into idle, bloated aristocrats. Reason, when deified, becomes a superstition. The imagination, when subpoenaed, vanishes into thin air. ([Location 1416](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1416)) - Mixed motives need not discredit each other. When one rich person marries someone equally rich, only a purist would object that economic objectives had been tainted by any actual love. ([Location 1419](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1419)) - The fundamental anxiety in writing arises from the contradiction of being entirely oneself for others – an aesthetic instance of the dilemma faced by anyone who tries to be honest and social at the same time. ([Location 1421](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1421)) - In the margin for error lies all our room for maneuver. ([Location 1517](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1517)) - You must understand a thing completely before you can safely ignore it. ([Location 1519](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1519)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Jealousy’s geometry: no right triangles. ([Location 1543](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1543)) - Every word is a lazy anagram of itself. ([Location 1585](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1585)) - Whoever invented the pocket attempted to make up for the body’s one great deficiency. ([Location 1639](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1639)) - The aphorism: conclusion detached from tedious argument. The aphorist says: “I am going to make a claim in one sentence, and make it so neatly and squarely, the reader will be dazzled and convinced—or unconvinced, but tough noogies, she’ll have to figure out what led me to this.” ([Location 1648](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01AR4ZJEA&location=1648))