Roy Cohn loved to surround himself with attractive straight men.
~ Robert S. Cohen via The New Yorker
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Category Archives: 1947 – Quote, Unquote
Quote, Unquote
More than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness.
~ Walter J. Ong via The Atlantic
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Quote, Unquote
Before I publish this letter, I retype the whole thing from start to finish. It means I take the draft that lives in my Notes app on the left half of my screen while I retype the whole thing into the Google Docs on the right side of my screen. It’s a final check to catch infelicities. More importantly, by simulating the experience of a reader, it’s another way to see if the whole essay stands together.
~ Dan Wang via his 2025 letter
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Quote, Unquote
In trying to construct a society that maximized talent, James Conant and his peers were governed by the common assumptions of the era: Intelligence, that highest human trait, can be measured by standardized tests and the ability to do well in school from ages 15 to 18. Universities should serve as society’s primary sorting system, segregating the smart from the not smart. Intelligence is randomly distributed across the population, so sorting by intelligence will yield a broad-based leadership class.
~ David Brooks
via How the Ivy League Broke America
published by The Atlantic
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Quote, Unquote
The danger isn’t just that doomsday thinking will be vindicated, but that expectation and outcome aren’t as separate as they look. A country braced for a collapse has a way of producing one. If you truly believe the system is doomed, why invest in institutions, compromise, or long‑term projects? Why not max out the credit, literal and moral, and enjoy the ride down?
~ John Mac Ghlionn via The Hill
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Quote, Unquote
The universe is computing its own destiny.
~ James Gleick
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Quote, Unquote
Amanda Askell, who has a Ph.D. in philosophy, was the only person I met at Anthropic who dressed the part of a vintage cyberpunk, with cropped platinum hair and asymmetric black ensembles. She supervises what she describes as Claude’s “soul.”
~ Gideon Lewis-Kraus via The New Yorker
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Quote, Unquote
Robert Mapplethorpe, a student of photographic history, wasn’t conferring dignity on a taboo subculture; he was after great photographs, although he understood that one of the things that can make a photograph great is the charge of the forbidden. What unified his work, across subjects, was what the French call le glacis de la lumière — a polished, technically exacting finish.
~ Louis Menand via The New Yorker
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Quote, Unquote
Europeans are right to gloat they are not under the rule of Trump. But for all of Trump’s ills, I see him as a sign of the underlying dynamism of the US. Who else would have elected so whimsical a leader to this high office? Trump forces questions that Europeans have no appetite to confront, proud as they are in being superior to both Americans and Chinese.
~ Dan Wang via his 2025 letter
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Quote, Unquote
Longtime Intel CEO Andy Grove argued that strategic inflection points are identifiable not by the data available at the time but by a shift in the underlying forces that determine what is possible. The data, he observed, is always about the past. By the time it confirms the inflection, the window for acting on it has often already closed. Apple is at that point now.
~ Isaac Stone Fish via American Affairs
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