You Have To Be A Bit Of A Liar To Tell A Story The Right Way. Too Much Truth Confuses The Facts. Too

You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.

-Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

Questioner: What are we going to do when you retire?

Brandon Sanderson: Retire? RETIRE?! I would NEVER! 

Brandon Sanderson: I will stop writing when they find me dead in my office and my face is on the keyboard and I type the word “k” seven thousand times.

(source)

Being humble, here, means being aware of how difficult your instincts can make it to get the facts right. It means being realistic about the extent of your knowledge. It means being happy to say ‘I don’t know.’ It also means, when you do have an opinion, being prepared to change it when you discover new facts. It’s quite relaxing being humble, because it means you can stop feeling pressured to have a view about everything, and stop feeling you must be ready to defend your views all the time.

Hans Rosling’s Factfulness

The Night is Old. The Night is Always Old.

Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather

“Deal with me in weakness. Or one day you’ll have to bargain with someone in a position of strength. The world changes.”

-Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods

my favorite calvin and hobbes comic is the one where his dad just rolls up and casually destroys his entire night by pointing out some neat trivia about record players