Quotes About Relevance

In a world of infinite choice, context—not content—is king.

Our greatest fear should not be that we won't succeed, but rather that we will succeed at something that doesn't matter.

I want to be a journalist again. I want to make a difference in the world.

If I were you," Tom said, "I should stick to reading, writing and arithmetic." "But what good is it to teach a child to count, if you don't show him that he counts for something?" Tom held up his hands. "I'm sorry, you're losing me." Mary exhaled smoke. "Possibly I am.

That's what keeps me up at three in the morning: Who's looking at reviews of Cabin Boy right now?

What's the Connection?

There must be some correlation," he said. "There has to be!

you are only as interesting as you are useful to someone

That you are only as interesting as you are useful to someone.

Time constricts and flattens, you know. It's not evenly weighted. Certain moments linger in the mind and others disappear. The first twenty-three years of my life are the ones that shaped me, and the fact that I've lived almost seven decades since then is irrelevant. Those years have nothing to do with the questions you ask.

Over the years, certain stories in the history of a family take hold. They're passed from generation to generation, gaining substance and meaning along the way. You have to learn to sift through them, separating fact from conjecture, the likely from the implausible. Here is what I know: Sometimes the least believable stories are the true ones.

Acaso ignoras que lo que más se discute y debate es precisamente lo que más valor tiene?

Books should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf, don't you agree?

A twenty-minute eulogy, unless composed by a) William Shakespeare, b) Winston Churchill, or c) Mark Twain, is sixteen minutes too long. Technical note: It is better to tell a eulogist to speak for four minutes not five minutes. "Five minutes" to the modern ear sounds like "around five minutes," whereas "four minutes" means "four minutes.

calls "undue salience" to the sale, just because it's about to end.

Die Ermüdbarkeit des Menschen steht in umgekehrtem Verhältnis zu seinen wirklichen Interessen.

Age is not important unless you're a cheese.

Please don't ask me any questions about the politics of 30 years ago.

In the final analysis, it is not critics who create literary canons, it is other writers who create them .... A writer can have published thirty-seven volumes, but if that writer doesn't interest other writers, they will all molder in the library and nobody will ever want to read them again.

Useful professions are clearly meant for the public, but those whose utility is more dubious can only justify their existence by assuming that the public is meant for them.

[G]eometry is not true, it is advantageous.

In the conduct of life, habits count for more than maxims, because habit is a living maxim, becomes flesh and instinct. To reform one's maxims is nothing: it is but to change the title of the book. To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits.

No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.