Finkel Quotes & Sayings

One's desire to be alone, biologists have found, is partially genetic and to some degree measurable. If you have low levels of the pituitary peptide oxytocin--sometimes called the master chemical of sociability-- and high quantities of the hormone vasopressin, which may suppress your need for affection, you tend to require fewer interpersonal relationships. — Michael Finkel

His facial hair served not just as a calendar but also as a mask, absorbing the stares of others while allowing him a little privacy in plain sight. "I can hide behind it, I can play to stereotypes and assumptions. One of the benefits of being labeled a hermit is that it permits me strange behavior. — Michael Finkel

Studying the world's oldest writing for the first time compels you to wonder about what writing is and how it came about more than five thousand years ago and what the world might have looked like without it.

Writing as I would define it serves to record language by means of an agreed set of symbols that enable a message to be played back like a wax cylinder recording.

The reader's eye runs over the signs and tells the brain how each is pronounced and the inner message springs into life. — Irving Finkel

The life inside a book always felt welcoming to Knight. It pressed no demands on him, while the world of human interactions was so complex. — Michael Finkel

Still, the ten days were enough for me to see, as if peering over the edge of a well, that silence could be mystical, and that if you dared, diving fully into your inner depths might be both profound and disturbing. — Michael Finkel

He knew America, and even though he hadn't been there in fifteen years, he knew what its soldiers liked because of what one of them had written on the door of a metal locker that was in the room he'd been given to live in. "Sex, potato soup, and Johnny Cash," it said. — David Finkel

The more you realize, the more you realize there is nothing to realize," she said. "The idea that there's somewhere we have got to get to, and something we have to attain, is our basic delusion. — Michael Finkel

Conversations between people can move like tennis games, swift and unpredictable. There are constant subtle visual and verbal cues, there's innuendo, sarcasm, body language, tone. Everyone occasionally fumbles an encounter, a victim of social clumsiness. It's part of being human. — Michael Finkel

To hear them laugh was to hear that everything was all right, but to see them laugh was to see otherwise — David Finkel

And what about a text message? Isn't that just using a telephone as a telegraph? — Michael Finkel

NiOptics also was an example of something Doriot had tried to teach me back at Harvard, and it is a lesson I have learned more than once. In venture capital investing, Doriot said, it is important to understand who will buy the technology you're trying to sell. It is easy to fall in love with technology and lose sight of the fact that someone at some point will have to pay for it. An investor can lose a lot of money that way, and we have not been immune to such temptations. — Robert Finkel

Congratulations for conquering PTSD. And now you're fucked. — David Finkel

I start thinking about what happened and then I start thinking about why I'm still here. It's pointless. They say on TV that the soldiers want to be there? I can't speak for every soldier, but I think if people went around and made a list of names of who fucking thinks we should actually be here and who wants to be here, ain't nobody that wants to be here, because there's no point. What are we getting out of fucking being here? Nothing. — David Finkel

I have only in my life carried to an extreme what you have not dared to carry halfway, and what's more, you have taken your cowardice for good sense, and have found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. — Michael Finkel

Solitude increased my perception. But here's the tricky thing: when I applied my increased perception to myself, I lost my identity. There was no audience, no one to perform for. There was no need to define myself. I became irrelevant. (I)solation felt more like communion...To put it romantically, I was completely free. — Michael Finkel

Everywhere on this day, the after-war continues, as eternally as war itself, — David Finkel

Tao Te Ching says that it is only through retreat rather than pursuit, through inaction rather than action, that we acquire wisdom. "Those with less become content," says the Tao, "those with more become confused." The poems, still widely read, have been hailed as a hermit manifesto for more than two thousand years. — Michael Finkel

This field of activity generated a vast literature of carefully assembled one-line omens on this pattern: If A happened, B will happen. Here the sought-for outcome B, known as the apodosis, is deemed to be the consequence of an observed phenomenon, the protasis A. One — Irving Finkel

Knight seemed to weigh the precision of every word he used, careful as a poet. Even his handwritten letters had gone through at least one draft, he said, mostly to remove unnecessary insults. Only necessary ones remained. — Michael Finkel

Silence, it appears, is not the opposite of sound. It is another world altogether, literally offering a deeper level of thought, a journey to the bedrock of the self. — Michael Finkel

Much of online dating, Finkel and company argued, is based on the faulty notion that the kind of information we can see in a profile is actually useful in determining whether that person would make a good partner. — Aziz Ansari

impotency; many developed — David Finkel

A standard sitcom ... is a very standard idea, like these people falling in love and living with each other, and all these people living with each other. It's like, okay, we hooked them up in episode 15, how do we bust that, how do we find a new kernel in it? — Dave Finkel

There was no one to complain to in the woods, so I did not complain,' Knight said. — Michael Finkel

I liked Norman Lear's ideology that you could trust an audience to stay with you. — Dave Finkel

Knight's disdain for Thoreau was bottomless - 'he had no deep insight into nature'... — Michael Finkel

I read. That's my form of travel. — Michael Finkel

the true solitary does not seek himself, but loses himself. — Michael Finkel

Middle-aged women are likewise no strangers to the lead pack in ultramarathons. Pam Reed was forty-one when she outran all the men to win the 135-mile Badwater ultra across Death Valley in 2002; the following year, she returned and did it again. Diana Finkel was just shy of forty when she led for the first ninety miles of the brutally hard Hardrock 100, finishing second overall. — Christopher McDougall

He mentioned that he didn't like Jack Kerouac either, but this wasn't quite true. "I don't like people who like Jack Kerouac," he clarified. — Michael Finkel

Passion must be subject to reason; emotions lead one astray. "There was no one to complain to in the woods, so I did not complain. — Michael Finkel

The word "noise" is derived from the Latin word nausea. — Michael Finkel

The greatest regret of my military career was as Commanding General of the 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq in 2004-2005, he later wrote of the decision he made. I lost 169 soldiers during that year-long deployment. However, the monument we erected at Fort Hood, Texas, in memoriam lists 168 names. I approved the request of others not to include the name of the one soldier who committed suicide. I deeply regret my decision. — David Finkel

The lessons learned, then, in Robinson's case: "Additional training is required to inform soldiers of the dangers of self-medicating along with the associated risk of overdosing" is the first. "Encourage the use of a battle buddy among warriors" is the second. "Increase suicide prevention classes" is the third. "Increase communication to twice a day with high-risk soldiers" is the fourth. "Continue improvements in leader communication" is the fifth. And that's that. Eight months. Five minutes. The army moves on to the next suicide. Case forever closed. — David Finkel

Modern life seems set up so that we can avoid loneliness at all costs, but maybe it's worthwhile to face it occasionally. The further we push aloneness away, the less are we able to cope with it, and the more terrifying it gets. — Michael Finkel

The only book Knight didn't steal was the one he most often saw. 'I had no need for a Bible,' he said. — Michael Finkel

I'm not used to seeing people's faces. There's too much information there. Aren't you aware of it? Too much, too fast. — Michael Finkel

Carl Jung said that only an introvert could see "the unfathomable stupidity of man — Michael Finkel

I think that most of us feel like something is missing from our lives. And I wondered then if Knight's journey was to seek it. But life isn't about searching endlessly to find what's missing. It's about learning to live with the missing parts. — Michael Finkel

He'd drop his clothes and slip into the water. The lake's top few inches, after cooking all day in the sun, would be nearly bath warm. "I'd stretch out in the water, " he said, "and lie flat on my back, and look at the stars. — Michael Finkel

And a hero isn't someone who doesn't feel fear, they're someone who in spite of their fear does the right thing and really risks their own safety, — David Finkel

I mean this sincerely ... and I don't know why, but there was a period of time that for some reason, whenever 'Charles in Charge' was on, I couldn't not watch it. I didn't like it and I didn't hate it. I just couldn't not watch. — Dave Finkel

The American essayist William Deresiewicz wrote that "no real excellence, personal or social, artistic, philosophical, scientific, or moral, can arise without solitude. — Michael Finkel

He is a true casualty of battle. There's not a physical scar, but look at the man's heart, and his head, and there are scars galore. — David Finkel

He pilfered a copy of Ulysses, but it was possibly the one book he did not finish. 'What's the point of it? I suspect it was a bit of a joke by Joyce. He just kept his mouth shut as people read into it more then there was. Pseudo-intellectuals love to drop the name Ulysses as their favorite book. I refused to be intellectually bullied into finishing it. — Michael Finkel

I can see the little girl, the face of the little girl. And as much as people say that they don't care about these people and all that, I don't care about these people - but I do, at the same time, if that makes any sense. They don't want to help themselves, they're blowing us up, yeah, that hurts, but it also hurts to know that I've seen a girl that's as old as my little brother watch me shoot somebody in the head. And I don't care if she's Iraqi, Korean, African, white - she's still a little girl. And she watched me shoot somebody. — David Finkel

It wasn't as if they had a choice. They were soldiers whose choices had ended when they had signed contracts and taken their oaths. Whether they had joined for reasons of patriotism, of romantic notions, to escape a broken home of some sort, or out of economic need, their job now was to follow the orders of other soldiers who were following orders, too. Somewhere, far from Iraq, was where the orders began, but by the time they reached Rustamiyah, the only choice left for a solider was to choose which lucky charm to tuck behind his body armor, or which foot to line up in front of the other, as he went out to follow the order of the day. — David Finkel

I'm insanely proud of every single one of my credits until the people who created the shows are dead. — Dave Finkel

Not for a moment did he consider keeping a journal. He would never allow anyone to read his private thoughts; therefore, he did not risk writing them down. "I'd rather take it to my grave," he said. And anyway, when was a journal ever honest? "It either tells a lot of truths to cover a single lie, " he said, "or a lot of lies to cover a single truth. — Michael Finkel

It's a thin line between what we're calling acceptable and not acceptable. As a leader, you're supposed to know when not to cross it. But how do you know? Does the army teach us how to control our emotions? Does the army teach us how to deal with a friend bleeding out in front of you? No. — David Finkel

The thought that the bullet has already been fired at each of us and it is only a matter of time when it will hit, brings comfort to some and terror to others. — David Finkel

Could it have nothing to do with the soldier and everything to do with the type of war now being fought? — David Finkel

I understand I've made an unusual lifestyle choice. But the label 'crazy' bothers me. Annoys me. Because it prevents response. When someone asks if you're crazy, Knight lamented, you can either say yes, which makes you crazy, or you can say no, which makes you sound defensive, as if you fear that you really are crazy. There's no good answer. — Michael Finkel

Maybe, I thought, Knight would talk about the marrow.
He sat quietly, whether thinking or fuming or both, it was hard to tell. But he eventually arrived at a reply. It felt like some great mystic was about to revel the meaning of life.
"Get enough sleep," he said.
He set his jaw in a way that conveyed he wouldn't be saying any more. This was what he had learned. I accepted it as truth. — Michael Finkel

But you can gift wrap a piece of shit and it's still a piece of shit. — David Finkel

He never bothered listening to sports; the bored him, every one of them. — Michael Finkel

To be a soldier in combat was to fall in love constantly, — David Finkel

That silence intimidates puzzles me. Silence is to me normal, comfortable." Later he added, "I will admit to feeling a little contempt for those who can't keep quiet. — Michael Finkel

He left because the world is not made to accommodate people like him. — Michael Finkel

He was confounded by the idea that passing the prime of your life in a cubicle, spending hours a day at a computer, in exchange for money, was considered acceptable, but relaxing in a tent in the woods was disturbed. Observing the trees was indolent; cutting them down was enterprising. What did Knight do for a living? He lived for a living. Knight — Michael Finkel

Drew, a friend helping Loren in her research, "...This may be the most important class I've never paid for nor received credit hours for taking. Let's lift our glasses to Professor Finkel! — Kimberly Loving Ross

I have taken the liberty of quoting at length throughout from the gospels of the Emperor penguins. To them I owe a special debt of gratitude for their remarkable patience. — Donald Finkel