It’s happened to me a few times that a book is otherwise fairly forgettable presents a fantastic insight, or crystallizes an idea I’d felt but never verbalized. It’s one the major reasons I rarely stop reading books, probably to my detriment. I’ll give my example, but I’m curious what other people have discovered in books they probably wouldn’t recommend.
In Richard Farr’s “The Fire Seekers,” an adventure story with a historical bent that focused on all the wrong things in my opinion, had this line that literally led me to have a better relationship with my father: “[my father] wants to feel close to me, wants to understand me, and wants the
easy road to that result, which is me being more like him than I am.”
What about you?
“In the end I wore my smartphone like a boredom prosthetic and used the internet as a stop-gap for thought. Digital Polyfilla in the spaces where ideas might have bloomed.”
Things I Learned from Falling - Claire Nelson
“We as a country ask the men and women in the armed forces to go overseas and fight on our behalf. While they are there, they see and experience the unthinkable, things so horrible they dare not speak of it. And then we expect these same men and women to come home after their tours of duty and just pick up where they left off. How is that supposed to happen? Like I said before, this isn’t something new that Iraq and Afghanistan vets now face. Every soldier throughout time has gone through it. We come home different. All of us who served in combat do. Over there we have to be on high alert at all times.”
One Step At A Time - Josh Bleill
“Me? I haven’t made all A’s in the art of livin, but I give a damn, and I’ll take an experienced C over an ignorant A any day.”
Greenlights - Matthew McConaughey