...and Delilah, too, may be Samson.

My wife said it beautifully one day, 'when you change limitations to opportunities, everything changes.' We are always told at 25 this has to happen, by 30 this has to happen, at 40 this will happen. It's a thing which is told to us constantly, whether it is sport or life, whether it is marriage, having kids, whatever it may be. But when you change that into opportunities, then the limitations go away.

To have the audacity to question somebody's self-identification and replace it with your own - that's ridiculous. You are not progressive.

[H]ow do you vaccinate yourself against failure? One way is to court it. Use irony. Try without really trying. I’m not the only one I know who grew up doing this. Dancing around awkwardness is something we do. We are vigorously, pain­fully, self-aware, princesses waiting to call out the pea under the mattress. Look at all those earnest people throughout history! Hip­pies, flappers, Napoleon! Look how idiotic they were! We would never look so stupid, unless it was on purpose. We call attention to awkwardness as soon as it flares up so we can’t be accused of being oblivious. We keep announcing to the world how little we’ve studied so we can’t be called dumb. We put ourselves down before others can get the chance. Whenever any­thing seems like it’s on the verge of becoming earnest, we come blasting out with snark. Don’t be too earnest. Don’t look like you care. Then you’re vul­nerable. Life is full of opportunities for rejection, and if you start really trying, you’re going to start really failing. Hard. And it’ll hurt. So we put on dopey glasses and grimace so no one can tell us we’re not pretty. We drink lousy beer so no one can accuse us of having bad taste. We look stupid on purpose out of fear of looking stupid by accident. We don’t even try to dance. Anything to post­pone the moment when we are actually going to have to stand up, put ourselves out there, and be told it’s not good enough. The result of all these carefully assembled layers of irony? We get to feel that, if we look like idiots, it’s because we meant to. That we never failed, because we never actually tried. They never saw the real us, lurking inside, the ones who could have done it, if they’d wanted to. But after a point that’s a pretty thin satisfaction. And the trade-off is brutal. You never get to know if you would have made it or not. Maybe you wouldn’t have looked stupid. Maybe you’d have been incredible.

Holding self-righteous political opinions, for which you've paid no personal cost, does not give you the moral high ground.

He found song where others find formula; he conveyed song where others play scales.

The essence of a bear is that a bear is gonna bear.

Tickling Like Cat Whiskers

The [Chinese Communist Party] knows it needs lawyers; it wants them for economic development.  But essentially, the party would like lawyers to behave like dentists, like technicians.  I admire dentists very much, but I don't expect them to annunciate the values of my society.

Life is capable of driving you out of your mind. The way it all comes down these days, it’s some kind of miracle if you’re not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. They are no longer whole. ... And they behave badly. Their egos run wild; they become motivated by that which will eventually give them a massive stroke.

I worked harder than anyone around me, and I worked alone a lot. I didn't care about accolades or people saying you're working really hard. I did it for myself.

There are wonderful large halls, but in general I think most music for solo piano is not meant for big halls.  It was meant to be played in a small hall, and sometimes in a very small space, indeed.  I have my own private theories that some music was not meant to be played for other people, even.  It was only meant for the player.  Bach’s solo cello pieces, for example, like the Bach fugues, are meant really to be played and to be experienced by being played and to be listened to, but not to be performed.  In some ways there’s a certain amount of music that lets us experience it if it’s at its best and can be captured; there’s almost no outward component of being presented at all, but you experience the music as you play it and people hear it, but it’s not a performance. ~~~ For me, piano playing rarely registers or radiates a joy of, “Isn’t it marvelous to be playing the instrument?”  It’s always more serious than that; there’s always something else involved, which maybe is as it should be….There’s a certain joy of doing it, and it even enters into the music itself.  But far too often one does also hear people who are carried away by their own fluency and, “Love me, love my sound.”  That is really more of a problem in music-making — people who are not attentive enough to music, and hear only themselves in the mirror of the instrument.  But the other thing is really important, too.

It is well established that evidence of purpose beyond the face of the challenged law may be considered in evaluating Establishment and Equal Protection Clause claims.