Category: Bookshelf

“I was more than happy to accept being a not-that-funny comedian over any other conceivable option.” – pg. 5

“I love hearing a laugh that’s never existed in the world before. Because every laugh is slightly different. Unique even.” – pg. 11

“We all try and save time. All our little shortcuts. But no matter how much time you save, at the end of your life, there’s no extra time saved up.” – pg. 67

“We don’t know what we want. We only know we don’t want what we have.” – pg. 134

“I love cars. It’s my favorite physical object. I don’t know why I think this. My only theory is, when you’re driving: You’re outside and you’re inside. You’re moving and you’re completely still, all at the same time.” – pg. 152

“I’m a ‘Go with’ guy. I really don’t want to do most things. But, I will ‘Go with.'” – pg. 223

“This has happened to me over and over again in my life. You get so used to doing what you do, you don’t see what it is anymore.” – pg. 254

“The essential building blocks of comedy, very often, are an elegant intertwining of really dumb and really smart.” – pg. 254

“One of the nice things about getting married, besides making the commitment to the person you want to be with, is the rejection of a lot of people you don’t want to be with.” – pg. 267

“Stand-up is about a brief, fleeting moment of human connection.” – pg. 255

“People often ask me where I like to work. What kind of places, theaters, which cities? The place I like to work is in my head. To try and reach someone else’s.” – pg. 356

“All men put all things into one of two categories. It’s either, ‘That’s my problem,’ or ‘That is not my problem.'” – pg. 362

“A man wants the same thing from a woman that he wants from his underwear. Certain amount of support and a certain amount of freedom.” – pg. 363

“The bored female is a very dangerous individual.” – pg. 367

“I have millions of comedy friends and I really do love them all. Especially the way they shake their heads all the time like ‘How the hell do you even do this?’ And of course, we never really do figure it out. The real point of our lives is that we try anyway.” – pg. 454

“One song is all it takes to make a connection.” – pg. 11

“I want to be a person who encourages more humans to do that – to have some private moments of creativity.” – pg. 13

“Inspiration has to be invited.” – pg. 17

“So if you can give yourself over to a process and get comfortable with disappearing, you’re likely to harvest some hard-to-find truth along the way, both about yourself and about what you’re trying to say.” – pg. 19

“In the end, learning how to disappear is the best way I’ve found to make my true self visible to myself and others.” – pg. 19

“Not knowing how to do something is a poor excuse not to try.” – pg. 26

“Writing a song is really just the ability to hear it.” – pg. 32

“When I write […] I’m simultaneously more me and also free of me.” – pg. 54

“It’s something people walk by all the time, something so ingrained in our environment that it’s become invisible, something so obvious nobody sees it anymore, but then someone figures out how to say what it is, or how to see it, and everyone else says, ‘Of course!'” – pf. 55

“Everyone I’ve ever met who has impressed me as a musician or a songwriter has also taught me about someone else’s music besides their own.” – pg. 112

“When they’re well constructed, finished songs often sound effortless, and I’m here to tell you that takes work.” – pg. 113

“None of it means anything if you’re not excited by the discovery of what you’re making.” – pg. 136

“Don’t undervalue things that come easy.” – pg. 148

“I believe we stop ourselves sometimes when we’re happy. […] Sometimes you’re stuck because you’re anxious about something you love. […] Just let a song be itself. […] A song will always love you back, but sometimes it just needs a little space.” – pg. 149

“I don’t like every song I write, but I like that I wrote it.” – pg. 156

“Songs are pleas. It’s all about reaching out and pulling in… or pushing out and looking in.” – pg. 158

“It is risky to reveal oneself, but I am compelled to do it.” – pg. 5

“I was born with the talent for fucking off so majorly.” – pg. 13

“Hello, I am a woman on a blue and green sphere that has dollops and doinks of mountains all over it.” – pg. 29

“Without a person to love, I am too full of what must be let out.” – pg. 37

“I have always known that I would die for love. I think I am dying while or because of waiting for it.” – pg. 39

“To have to kill even one of my hearts to match up with you is simply not worth it to me.” – pg. 54

“As the image of myself becomes sharper in my brain and more precious, I feel less afraid that someone else will erase me by denying me love.” – pg. 85

“You could argue that the bottom of the pit is where you plant the start of the thing that is made to travel to the light.” – pg. 106

“Hello, I live in a constant state of growth and regeneration without being obsessed with the threat of decay.” – pg. 190

“I died but it was so small compared to how I had lived so much and for so long with you, alive. One death was so small compared to all the things that we did in our life, things that we did all the way through, right to our ends.” – pg. 194

“I died after I lived my life with you, because that was the story. […] It is what I knew when I died.” – pg. 205

“My ex-husband says to me on the phone, after I tell him that I am lonely and I think I am weird around men, that I am not weird but that I am trying to force an intimacy that needs time to grow.” – pg. 212

“I’m tired of looking for a place in another.” – pg. 213

“You protect yourself and all the little weirds that make up who you are.” – pg. 216

“I am that mysterious stranger that I hoped to meet.” – pg. 220

“Thank you to the people who encouraged me, assisted me, bolstered me, listened to me even though that must have been very irritating at times, loved me, hired me, fired me, took me in, and let me go.” – pg. 223

“Positively occupying one’s time is also a matter of health, both physical and mental.” – pg. 34

“If things are relatively calm, we the people will come up with any old bullshit to squabble about, because it’s in our nature.” – pg. 45

“Follow-through is what produces the backspin on a basketball shot, that stabilizing centrifugal force that allows a greater level of consistency to be realized in one’s shooting percentage. The same technique can be applied to any task one undertakes in life.” – pg. 48

“If you don’t like the rules as they apply to your art, then break the rules.” – pg. 111

“The evils of society are pervasive enough to drive a person to fight, even though he knows he shouldn’t.” – pg. 143

“We humans are complicated and messy animals in many ways.” – pg. 191

“The people who inspire me never seem to be looking to maximize profits.” – pg. 241

“I think that part of what defines gumption involves a willingness, even a hunger, for one’s mettle to be challenged. […] People with gumption will brittle when less is required of them.” – pg. 246

“If you don’t love your work enough to have a good time doing it, then maybe you’re showing up at the wrong job.” – pg. 247

“Like it or not, if you end a war by being the biggest asshole (by far), you are not really a victor. You’re the biggest asshole who had the last word.” – pg. 251

“A lot of my life is being administrated by ladies! – I don’t think about feminism, or even that they’re women. In all these contexts, they are just people. People who are good at their jobs, doing good work.” – pg. 272

“Find out what makes you kinder, what opens you up and brings out the most loving, generous, and unafraid version of you – and go after those things as if nothing else matters. Because, actually, nothing else does.” – George Saunders, pg. 314

“Words, though, much like a devastating virus, can be so powerful in the way they afflict a population.” – pg. 326

“Humanity scientifically craves perfection, but the natural world of course is imperfect; it is not symmetrical.” – pg. 334

“Being alone is rarely any good, which is why we look for work to do that can be best achieved by many hands.” – pg. 363

“I have always felt that life is a solitary journey, that we are each on a train, riding through our hours, our days, our years. […] Our time riding together is fleeting, but it’s everything – because the time together is what brings us love, joy, and connection.” – pg. xi

“[My parents] taught me that it was fine to have large goals and to work hard to achieve them, and that marriage or even parenthood doesn’t mean you have to stop dreaming big for yourself.” – pg. 13

“Confidence is not a permanent state of being. […] It’s something you can work to develop and something you have to work to maintain.” – pg. 57

“I felt like I was being treated as more important than I actually was and it was a strange new feeling.” – pg. 70

“Twenty years later, I can look back and say to my younger self: ‘You did it. With a couple of decades of constant perseverance, you made your dreams come true.'” – pg. 103

“I’m just like everyone else: I look myself in the mirror and think maybe I can lose a little weight; I think maybe I can work out a little more. But I’m also content. This is my face. This is my body.I might be flawed, but I am me.” – pg. 107

“My difference is my strength.” – pg. 112

“We all want to take care of the people we are closest to, those sitting at our table. But is there a world in which those who are blessed with more might build a larger table rather than building a higher fence?” – pg. 125

“Actors who made the most lasting impressions were the ones who did two things. First, they truly listened in every one of their scenes rather than just waiting to say their lines. […] Second, they found ways to communicate multiple thoughts and feelings simultaneously.” – pg. 126

“There are no small parts, only small actors.” – pg. 134

“As they say, ‘You want to tell God a joke? Tell her your plan.'” – pg. 135

“Sometimes those pep talks we give ourselves actually do work.” – pg. 149

“I always knew that my career would never be just one thing – not just films, not just music, not just television – and that I would follow a multitude of paths to make sure that all of my creative interests and endeavors would be fed.” – pg. 156

“I knew [that grief] would always be there. It might change, evolve, become larger or smaller, but it would always be there. And this acceptance, it seems, helped me move forward.” – pg. 177

“This period of being alone showed me that I needed the space to do nothing, too, to just be.” – pg. 182

“For me, one of the hardest things to accept in life is that control is an illusion. I hate that I can’t control what happens in my life, but I can’t. Loss happens. Failure happens. Sorrow happens. I can’t always control where I’m headed, either. Sometimes sadness is the destination, whether or not it’s where I want to go. During my time there I had to learn to trust that I was visiting for a reason, but that it would not be my permanent place of residence, my forever state of being. That, like water, I would flow past it eventually and end up where I was meant to be.” – pg. 183

“Sometimes when you’re not looking for love, it appears right in front of you.” – pg. 189

“We as human beings have a tendency to look away from what’s uncomfortable or painful. It’s natural. But if we can turn our gaze to what is difficult, […] we have the chance to do something life-affirming.” – pg. 229

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, it’s that curiosity might kill cats, but it doesn’t kill people.” – pg. xi

“Being funny has been my bulletproof vest.” – pg. xv

“The best thing that ever happened to me was being brought up hard. It’s kept me hungry, even though now I’ve got more than I ever thought I’d see in this lifetime. It doesn’t matter how much I accumulate – I’ll be starving for the rest of my life.” – pg. xv

“There are two things that will get you through life, and those things are simple and human and anyone can have them. They’re laughter and learning.” – pg. xx

“What I’ve loved and what I’ve lost made me who I am.” – pg. 34

“If you take your anger and bend it to your will, it becomes determination.” – pg. 45

“They say it takes something local to make someone think global.” – pg. 60

“Being vulnerable is nothing but a sign of real strength.” – pg. 79

“Talent is something else; it comes from inside you. […] You have to work to perfect it.” – pg. 125

“It’s a big world, and if you go through it feeling like you know nothing, you’ll be ready to learn something each and every day you’re alive.” – pg. 126

“God is never there when we want Him to be, but He’s always right on time.” – pg. 127

“I see no point in doing a lot of different things because there’s no way you’ll be good at all of them. Do one thing and do it the best you can.” – pg. 133

“Once a woman is fed up, there’s nothing you can do to regain her love. If she hates you, that’s fine, you’ve still got a chance. […] But when she’s fed up, it’s over, because indifference is something else.” – pg. 142

“You want to know the hardest part about finding love? When you get it, you want it to last so bad that you try to hold on to it even when you both know it’s over.” – pg. 143

“I always walked into auditions like the part was already mine.” – pg. 152

“I tried not to worry too much about how and why I’d gotten lost; through my tears I told myself to concentrate only on how quickly I was going to be found.” – pg. 161

“I learned what everyone needs to know: Some solitude is good for you, no matter who you are.” – pg. 178

“I’ll never be satisfied. Because I’m an artist and artists are always thinking of what they’re going to do next and how to make that better than what they just did.” – pg. 192

“You play with the best, you’ll be the best.” – pg. 192

“Be true to yourself and try your best to do no wrong.” – pg. 194

“All the youth out there, don’t cheat yourself, treat yourself.” – pg. 196

“Even when it’s not pretty or perfect. Even when it’s more real than you want it to be. Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own.” – pg. xi

“Time, as far as my father was concerned, was a gift you gave to other people.” – pg. 34

“Failure is a feeling long before it is an actual result.” – pg. 43

“What I’ve learned is this: All of them have had doubters. Some continue to have roaring, stadium-sized collections of critics and naysayers who will shout I told you so at every little misstep or mistake. The noise doesn’t go away, but the most successful people I know have figured out how to live with it, to lean on the people who believe in them, and to push onward with their goals.” – pg. 67

“This may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path – the my-isn’t-that-impressive path – and keep you there for a long time. Maybe it stops you from swerving, from ever even considering a swerve, because what you risk losing in terms of other people’s high regard can feel too costly.” – pg. 91

“I was twenty-seven years old now, and these were days when all I wanted was to feel complete. I wanted to grab every last thing I loved and stake it ruthlessly to the ground.” – pg. 141

“Inspiration on its own was shallow; you had to back it up with hard work.” – pg. 158

“Most of us lived in a state of constant calibration, tweaking one area of life in hopes of bringing more steadiness to another.” – pg. 201

“I’m not sure anyone around me would have said I wasn’t doing enough, but I was always aware of everything I would’ve followed through on and didn’t.” – pg. 210

“I’ve learned that it’s harder to hate up close.” – pg. 270

“As a kid, you learn to measure long before you understand the size or value of anything. Eventually, if you’re lucky, you learn that you’ve been measuring all wrong.” – pg. 313

“All we could do then was put our faith into the effort, trusting that with sun and rain and time, something half decent would push up through the dirt.” – pg. 322

“I felt sometimes like a swan on a lake, knowing that my job was in part to glide and appear serene, while underwater I never stopped pedaling my legs.” – pg. 329

“My friends made me whole, as they always have and always will. […] They helped me ride out the big, unsettling waves that sometimes hit without notice.” – pg. 362

“I’d been lucky to have parents, teachers, and mentors who’d fed me with a consistent, simple message: You matter.” – pg. 383

“You may live in the world as it is, but you can still work to create the world as it should be.” – pg. 395

“I had nothing or I had everything. It depends on which way you want to tell it.” – pg. 416

“Becoming is never giving up on the idea that there’s more growing to be done.” – pg. 419

“Then, if you are an only child […] there’s a lot of time alone with your own imaginings. There is always someone or something to dream about.” – pg. 17

“I suppose I just wasn’t very good at writing happy endings.” – pg. 67

“I wanted to know how it was possible to remain invisible enough to observe the very transactions between people that were the substance of so many of my songs.” – pg. 78

“I changed every ‘I’ to ‘we,’ so as to share the blame that was entirely my own, and then changed ‘I’ to ‘he’ to further cover my tracks. This was pop music, not confession.” – pg. 96

“I wondered what it really felt like to drink a case of someone.” – pg. 120

“People make a song and dance out of inspiration.” – pg. 159

“If there’s one thing that’s worse than being lost // It’s knowing you’re so close to being found.” – pg. 182

”I got the notion that someone should be writing these songs and that it was probably me.” – pg. 186

“It was a premonition, my fear that I would not be faithful or that my disbelief in happy endings would lead me to kill the love that I had longed for.” – pg. 187

“Songs can be many things: an education, a seduction, some solace in heartache, a valve for anger, a passport, your undoing, or even a lottery ticket.” – pg. 203

“Words had always been my friends. Now I had betrayed them.” – pg. 337

“We would either thrill or amaze or disappoint and disgrace and then get out of town.” – pg. 347

”Life takes much longer than the average pop song. […] It is much more painful and less easily forgiven.” – pg. 361

“Can a mere song change people’s minds? I doubt that it is so, but a song can infiltrate your heart and the heart may change your mind.” – pg. 393

“There is music that seems to belong to you the moment that you hear it, and music about which you must be patient, awaiting the hour when it may reveal itself to you.” – pg. 401

“The past is never that far away.” – pg. 415

”I’d only held it all together because I didn’t know how to let it fall apart.” – pg. 436

“Unhappy people are sometimes the last to see the trap that they have sprung.” – pg. 510

“People who are looking for profundity in every gesture often miss the sense of humor that keeps the working day alive.” – pg. 553

“It hadn’t been easy to find my way out the door, but when I was outside again I realized that everything had been in plain sight all along.” – pg. 581

“The danger of regarding any point in the past as the golden age is that you forget that there were […] just as many terrible records. We only recall the ones we love.” – pg. 647

“Dreaming provides a unique suite of benefits for all species fortunate enough to experience it.” – pg. 7

“The brain melds past and present knowledge, inspiring creativity.” – pg. 7

Sleep Pressure – When the chemical adenosine builds up in your brain. The longer you are awake, the more adenosine will accumulate. – pg. 26

“NREM sleep is one of the most epic displays of neural collaboration that we know of. Through an astonishing act of self-organization, many thousands of brain cells have all decided to unite and ‘sing,’ or fire, in time. Every time I watch this stunning act of neural synchrony occurring at night in my own research laboratory, I am humbled: sleep is truly an object of awe.” – pg. 49

REM sleep – Has also been called paradoxical sleep: a brain that appears awake, yet a body that is clearly asleep. It recalibrates and fine-tunes the emotional circuits of the human brain. It also fuels creativity: acting as an electrical fertilizer during critical phases of early life. REM sleep brainwaves are chaotic and desynchronized: showing a vivacious and healthy form of electrical activity. It is often impossible to distinguish REM sleep from wakefulness using just electrical brainwave activity. REM sleep is what stands between rationality and insanity. – pg. 51, 73-78, 82, 309

“Partially aquatic mammals, they split their time between land and sea. When on land, they have both NREM sleep and REM sleep […]. But when they enter the ocean, they stop having REM sleep almost entirely.” – pg. 60

Unihemispheric – The ability to sleep with half a brain at a time. Dolphins and whales exhibit this, as well as birds when alone. When in a flock, birds will line up in a row – and with the exception of the birds at each end of the line, the rest of the group will allow both halves of the brain to indulge in sleep. At some point, the two end-guards will stand up, rotate 180 degrees, and sit back down, allowing the other side of their respective brains to enter deep sleep. – pg. 63-64

“REM sleep is strangely immune to being split across sides of the brain.” – pg. 65

“In flight, migrating birds will grab remarkably brief periods of sleep lasting only seconds in duration.” – pg. 66

“Biologically, it is as if the day and night are far less light and dark, respectively, for autistic individuals.” – pg. 80

“Alcohol is one of the most powerful suppressors of REM sleep that we know of.” – pg. 81

“The proportion of REM sleep decreases in early childhood, while the proportion of NREW sleep actually increases.” – pg. 85

“Deep sleep may be a driving force of brain maturation, not the other way around.” – pg. 89

“Most of us do not have a good sense of our electrical sleep quality.” – pg. 95

Targeted Memory Reactivation – Selectively enhancing only the individual memories that you want to keep. Before going to bed, you review the learning experiences of the day, choosing only the memories from the menu list that you would like improved. – pg. 118

“Sleep [is] an active brain state, one in which we may review and even strengthen those things we have previously learned. […] In other words, your brain will continue to improve skill memories in the absence of any further practice.” – pg. 124-125

In one study, the accruing performance impairment (caused by only obtaining 4-6 hours of sleep) showed no signs of leveling out. Performance deterioration would continue to build up over weeks or months. – pg. 137

“The heady cocktail of sleep loss and alcohol was not additive [when it came to performance deterioration], but instead multiplicative.” – pg. 140

In another study, sleep-deprived participants showed a 60% amplification in emotional reactivity. This was seen when measuring activity of the Amygdala: the brain structure linked to fight-or-flight, also acting as a hot spot for triggering anger and rage. – pg. 146

“Lack of sleep is a causal trigger of a psychiatric episode of mania or depression.” – pg. 150

Decreased attractiveness due to being sleep-deprived is a physical expression of underlying biology that alters your chances of pair bonding and thus reproduction. – pg. 180

“Emotional regions of the brain are up to 30% more active in REM sleep compared to when we are awake.” – pg. 195

Latent Content – Repressed desires, or unconscious wishes that had not been fulfilled, according to Freud. – pg. 200

Manifest Content – Camouflaged wishes and desires that are unrecognizable to the dreamer. – pg. 200

“A meaningful, psychologically healthy life is an examined one.” – pg. 203

Dreams are not a wholesale replay of our waking lives. However, between 35-55% of emotional themes and concerns that study participants had while they were awake powerfully and unambiguously resurfaced in the dreams they had at night. – pg. 204

Maybe dreams, like heat from a lightbulb, serve no function. Maybe they are of no use: simply an unintended by-product of REM sleep. Walker says this is not true. REM sleep in necessary, but REM sleep alone is not sufficient. Dreams are NOT the heat of the lightbulb. – pg. 206-207

Dream Functionality – REM sleep dreaming dissolves emotion from experience. You have not forgotten the memory, but you have cast off the emotional charge. Stress-related brain chemistry drops during the dreaming state. In fact, dreaming of a very specific kind is required during REM: it has to be about the emotional themes and sentiments of waking trauma. Another distinct benefit? Intelligent information processing that inspires creativity and promotes problem solving. – pg. 209-211, 219

Only patients who were expressly dreaming about their painful experiences gained clinical resolution from their despair, while those who dreamt (but not about the painful experience) could not get past the event. – pg. 211

“As he slept, he dreamed, and his dreaming brain accomplished what his waking brain was incapable of.” – pg. 220

“Little wonder, then, that you have never been told to ‘stay awake on a problem.’ Instead, you are instructed to ‘sleep on it.’ Interestingly, this phrase, or something close to it, exists in most languages.” – pg. 229

NREM sleep solidifies memories, while REM sleep and dreaming takes that which we have learned in one experience setting and applies it to others stored in our memories. – pg. 231

Thomas Edison used to sleep in a chair holding ball bearings. The minute his muscles relaxed (as he slipped into REM sleep), he would drop the ball bearings onto a metal saucepan below which would wake him up. Edison would then write down all of the creative ideas that were flooding his dreaming mind. – pg. 232

“We must drop core body temperature (by 2-3 degrees Fahrenheit) to initiate and maintain sleep.” – pg. 245, 275

“I suspect that you cannot recall any truly significant action in your life that wasn’t governed by two very simple rules: staying away from something that would feel bad, or trying to accomplish something that would feel good.” – pg. 247

“Emotions in appropriate amounts make life worth living. They offer a healthy and vital existence, psychologically and biologically speaking. Take them away, and you face a sterile existence with no highs or lows to speak of. Emotionless, you will simply exist, rather than live.” – pg. 247

REM-Sleep Rebound – When the brain (of an addict) begins feasting on REM sleep, binging in a desperate effort to recover that which it has been long starved of. – pg. 272

“Sleep may have more of an influence on exercise than exercise has on sleep. […] Try not to exercise right before bed. Body temperature can remain high for an hour or two after physical exertion. Should this occur too close to bedtime, it can be difficult to drop your core temperature sufficiently to initiate sleep due to the exercise-driven increase in metabolic rate.” – pg. 294-295

Studies showed that naps as short as 26 minutes still offered a 34% improvement in task performance, and more than 50% increase in overall alertness. – pg. 305

“The return on sleep investment in terms of productivity, creativity, work enthusiasm, energy, efficiency – not to mention happiness, leading people to work at your institution, and stay – is undeniable.” – pg. 332

“We need better public campaigns educating the population about sleep.” – pg. 337

“I believe it is time for us to reclaim our right to a full night of sleep, without embarrassment or the damaging stigma of laziness. […] Then we may remember what it feels like to be truly awake during the day, infused with the very deepest plentitude of being.” – pg. 340

TIPS [that I found relevant]: (1) Don’t take naps after 3pm, and (2) A relaxing activity, such as reading or listening to music, should be a part of your bedtime ritual. – pg. 342

“I have difficulty taking what’s inside my head and saying it out loud.” – pg. xi

“It’s slow to change, but most of the people are fundamentally good people.” – pg. 16

“It would be like if you were the only person in your high school who owned a ferret. And then you got to college and found a whole group dedicated to owning ferrets. You’d think, Wow. I finally belong… on an FBI watch list.” – pg. 62

“It was the first time I was willing to put 100 percent of my effort into one single pursuit without fear of failing, because I loved doing it so much that I couldn’t focus on anything else.” – pg. 67

“No one in comedy (or any field, really) succeeds in a vacuum. And the faster you find friends who challenge you and sometimes make you jealous, the faster you’ll grow as a comedian (and regress as a human).” – pg. 69

“This has been a theme throughout my life: Pretend I belong somewhere until I eventually do.” – pg. 114

“You always want to challenge yourself and try to get to the level of the people you admire.” – pg. 118

“If you’re not nervous, it means you don’t care.” – pg. 156

“You don’t need to do anything in life – if it feels wrong or unnatural, it probably is.” – pg. 194

“Any promotion or opportunity you get in life comes with increased exposure and increased criticism.” – pg. 199

“I learned to do what I think is funny and either it works or it doesn’t.” – pg. 209

“I was worried that I would look back and regret losing something good in pursuit of something better.” – pg. 304