

“The real problem isn’t planning. It’s that we take our plans to be something they aren’t. What we forget, or can’t bear to confront, is that, in the words of the American meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein, “a plan is just a thought.” We treat our plans as though they are a lasso, thrown from the present around the future, in order to bring it under our command. But all a plan is—all it could ever possibly be—is a present-moment statement of intent. It’s an expression of your current thoughts about how you’d ideally like to deploy your modest influence over the future. The future, of course, is under no obligation to comply.”
― Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
― Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

“You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even but a millimeter the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”
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“Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.”
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“But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.”
― Three Men in a Boat
― Three Men in a Boat

“I don't understand German myself. I learned it at school, but forgot every word of it two years after I had left, and have felt much better ever since.”
― Three Men in a Boat
― Three Men in a Boat
Hazel’s 2024 Year in Books
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