The world is nothing but babble; and I hardly ever yet saw that man who did not rather prate too much, than speak too little.

Michel de Montaigne

A man may say too much even upon the best subjects.

Michel de Montaigne

You should only pick your own nose.


Heard from a nice lady in Iowa.

The longer I live the more convinced I am that one of the greatest honors we can confer on other people is to see them as they are, to recognize not only that they exist, but that they exist in specific ways and have specific realities.

Shiva Naipaul, quoted by Geoffrey Wheatcroft in the Feb 2002 Atlantic magazine.

Most people in the world don't really use their brains to think. And people who don't think are the ones who don't listen to others.

Haruki Murakami, 1Q84