I like to capture sentences like Nabokov used to capture butterflies. There is a special joy in capturing a sentence floating out loud in the air that has never been written. People say fascinating things all the time, and they go unrecorded and forgotten. Until someone writes them down, or is listening closely enough to […]

If this was an assignment: WRITE A LIST OF YOUR 20 FAVORITE TEACHERS THAT YOU HAVE NEVER PHYSICALLY MET

This would be my answer (today anyway):

Jesus Paul Leonardo da Vinci William Stafford E.B. White C.S. Lewis Benjamin Franklin Neil Gaiman Nicholas Kristof Ira Glass George Saunders Jon Stewart Stephen Colbert Malcolm Gladwell John Green […]

Many times, like Leonardo da Vinci, I write things like “describe the tongue of a woodpecker” into a notebook. This particular command, about finding out more about the tongue of a woodpecker, can be found in Leonardo’s notebooks. I found the following five sentences about Leonardo da Vinci comforting, encouraging, and inspiring. They are all […]