The issue here is not class envy but class entrenchment. The fact that they were born rich is irrelevant. They had no choice in the matter. But the fact that they appear to want to give even more to those who already have a great deal while denying much to those who have little is unforgiveable.

Gary Younge, the Guardian, 6 May 2012

• Better cross functional coordination and more effective lateral processes
• Performed with minimal disruption

The telephone and visitors are the work destroyers.

E. Hemingway, as told to G. Plimpton, Spring 1958, the Paris Review

Let’s put the lie to rest, stop demanding that cops keep breaking the law again by filing false documents at the behest of the administration, and put up a big sign at the midtown tunnel: All persons subject to search.

The choice has been made and the Constitution lost. At least show New Yorkers the courtesy of being honest about it.

For those of you who don’t remember, this is what it used to say:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I still believe, though, that it is very bad for a writer to talk about how he writes. He writes to be read by the eye and no explanations or dissertations should be necessary. You can be sure that there is much more there than will be read at any first reading and having made this it is not the writer’s province to explain it or to run guided tours through the more difficult country of his work.

–E. Hemingway, as told to George Plimpton, Spring 1958, the Paris Review

It is hard enough to write books and stories without being asked to explain them as well. Also it deprives the explainers of work. If five or six or more good explainers can keep going why should I interfere with them? Read anything I write for the pleasure of reading it. Whatever else you find will be the measure of what you brought to the reading.

–E. Hemingway, as told to George Plimpton, Spring 1958, the Paris Review

Trying to write something of permanent value is a full-time job even though only a few hours a day are spent on the actual writing. A writer can be compared to a well. There are as many kinds of wells as there are writers. The important thing is to have good water in the well, and it is better to take a regular amount out than to pump the well dry and wait for it to refill.

–E. Hemingway, as told to George Plimpton, Spring 1958, the Paris Review

I guess I am learning–once again–that executing a dynamic hedging strategy requires that the market be efficient at all times you need to trade except the moment you initially put on the position…

You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or rather you can if you will be ruthless enough about it.

–E. Hemingway, as told to George Plimpton, Spring 1958, the Paris Review

The fun of talk is to explore, but much of it and all that is irresponsible should not be written. Once written you have to stand by it. You may have said it to see whether you believed it or not.

–E. Hemingway, as told to George Plimpton, Spring 1958, the Paris Review

[...T]hese tokens have their value, just as three buffalo horns Hemingway keeps in his bedroom have a value dependent not on size but because during the acquiring of them things went badly in the bush, yet ultimately turned out well. “It cheers me up to look at them,” he says.

Hemingway may admit superstitions of this sort, but he prefers not to talk about them, feeling that whatever value they may have can be talked away. He has much the same attitude about writing. Many times during the making of this interview he stressed that the craft of writing should not be tampered with by an excess of scrutiny—“that though there is one part of writing that is solid and you do it no harm by talking about it, the other is fragile, and if you talk about it, the structure cracks and you have nothing.”

–E. Hemingway, as told to George Plimpton, 1958, the Paris Review

I don’t want to hear about your paleo diet and how we should return to living in harmony with nature like our ancestors did. We killed off our competitors just as soon as we could.

And then it’s welcome to the secondary pat down line…

    KAREN
This is your game. I’ve never played before.

    FOLEY
It’s not a game. It’s not something you play.

    KAREN
Well, does this make any sense to you?

    FOLEY
It doesn’t have to, it’s something that happens.

It’s like seeing someone for the first time,
like you could be passing on the street,
and you look at each other for a few seconds.
There’s this kind of recognition,
like you both know something.
The next moment the person’s gone,
and it’s too late to do anything about it.

And you always remember it,
because it was there and you let it go,
and you think to yourself,
“What if I had stopped?
What if I had said something?
What if?
What if?”

It may happen only a few times in your life.

    KAREN
Or once.

    FOLEY
Or once.

Out Of Sight (1998) movie script
by Scott Frank, production draft.
From the novel by Elmore Leonard.

It was an honor to take QFT from him, and an even bigger one to watch him in seminars.

Another Milo doppelganger in Germany.