James Richardson Quotes

• Only half of writing is saying what you mean. The other half is preventing people from reading what they expected you to mean.

  James Richardson

  Reading, Writing, Mean

  "Vectors: Aphorisms & Ten-Second Essays". Book by James Richardson, 2001.

  46 Copy quote

• Nothing important comes with instructions.

  James Richardson

  Important, Instruction

  James Richardson (2010). “By the Numbers”, p.33, Copper Canyon Press

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• The best way to know your faults is to notice which ones you accuse others of.

  James Richardson

  Way, Faults, Best Way

  "Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays", No. 195, Book by James Richardson, 2001.

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• Bitterness is a greater failure than failure.

  James Richardson

  Bitterness, Greater

  "Vectors: Aphorisms & Ten-Second Essays". Book by James Richardson, 2001.

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• Say too soon what you think and you will say what everyone else thinks.

  James Richardson

  Thinking

  "Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays". Book by James Richardson, 2001.

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• What is more yours than what always holds you back?

  James Richardson

  James Richardson (2016). “By the Numbers”, p.64, Copper Canyon Press

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• When I am trying to write I turn on music so I can hear what is keeping me from hearing.

  James Richardson

  Writing, Trying, Hearing

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• Metaphor isn't just a fancy turn of speech. It shapes our thoughts and feelings, reaches out to grasp new experience, and even binds our five disparate senses. James Geary's fascinating and utterly readable I is an Other brings the news on metaphor from literature and economics, from neuroscience and politics, illuminating topics from consumer behavior to autism spectrum disorders to the evolution of language. As a writer, as a teacher, and as someone just plain fascinated by how our minds work, I've been waiting years for exactly this book.

  James Richardson

  Teacher, Book, New Experiences

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• All work is the avoidance of harder work.

  James Richardson

  Harder, Avoidance

  "2016 Poetry Month: An Interview With James Richardson". Interview with Jonathan Hobratsch, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 1, 2016.

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• If it can be used again, it is not wisdom but theory.

  James Richardson

  Used, Theory, Ifs

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• The happy and the suffering probably understand life equally well, but the sufferers may see a little more clearly how little it is that they understand.

  James Richardson

  Philosophical, Suffering, May

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• I'm a kid checking mail, a kid on his cell with his questions:
  are we in love, Life, are we exclusive, are we forever?

  James Richardson

  Love Life, Kids, Cells

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• Any virtue systematically applied becomes a vice. Morality is attention, not system.

  James Richardson

  Vices, Attention, Morality

  "Vectors: Aphorisms & Ten-Second Essays". Book by James Richardson, 2001.

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• Writing is like washing windows in the sun. With every attempt to perfect clarity, you make a new smear.

  James Richardson

  Writing, Perfect, Sun

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• Who breaks the thread, the one who pulls, the one who holds on?

  James Richardson

  Break, Thread

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• They say productivity is the key to confidence, and confidence ... to productivity. And they're happy walking back and forth between these two rooms, each the excuse for the other.

  James Richardson

  Keys, Two, Rooms

  "Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays". Book by James Richardson, 2001.

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• I don't know what's meant by Know thyself, which seems to ask a window to look at a window.

  James Richardson

  Looks, Window, Know Thyself

  "Vectors: Aphorisms & Ten-second Essays". Book by James Richardson, 2001.

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• Sophistication is upscale conformity.

  James Richardson

  Conformity, Sophistication

  James Richardson (2016). “By the Numbers”, p.45, Copper Canyon Press

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• How sure we are that everyone's watching. How sure we are that no one sees.

  James Richardson

  Perception

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• Tyranny and fantasy both like to write everyone else's lines.

  James Richardson

  Writing, Lines, Fantasy

  James Richardson (2010). “By the Numbers”, p.37, Copper Canyon Press

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• Too much apology doubles the offense.

  James Richardson

  Apology, Too Much, Offense

  James Richardson (2010). “By the Numbers”, p.38, Copper Canyon Press

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• You have two kinds of secrets. The ones only you know. The ones only you don't.

  James Richardson

  Two, Secret, Kind

  James Richardson (2010). “By the Numbers”, p.34, Copper Canyon Press

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• I would never accuse Willie Brown of slowing down, because he never does.

  James Richardson

  Doe, Slow Down, Brown

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• There are silences harder to take back than words.

  James Richardson

  Silence, Harder

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• It is by now proverbial that every proverb has its opposite. For every Time is money there is a Stop and smell the roses. When someone says You never stand in the same river twice someone else has already replied There is nothing new under the sun. In the mind's arithmetic, 1 plus -1 equals 2. Truths are not quantities but scripts: Become for a moment the mind in which this is true.

  James Richardson

  Opposites, Rivers, Smell

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