Quotations Weblog

I’ve just finished reading Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It has left me actively recognizing flow in every activity that I enjoy. I’m surprised at how often I find myself in flow doing every day things like cleaning the house, crocheting, reading or writing entries.

For flow to occur, the following things need to happen:

• We are working on tasks that we have a chance of completing.
• We are able to concentrate on what we are doing.
• The task has clear goals.
• The task provides immediate feedback.
• It is deeply and effortlessly involving. It removes us from worries and frustrations of everyday life.
• It allows us to exercise a sense of control over our actions.
• Concern for the self disappears, yet the sense of self emerges stronger after the experience.
• The sense of time is altered.

I have found myself experiencing flow while exercising, playing video games and while listening to good music. It is such and enjoyeable experience that it has been thought to be the key to happiness.

Here are my favorite quotations from this book:

For all the quotations from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:

• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes – The Quotations Page

I saw the book on my bookshelf. We had bought it when it came out. I loved reading Clifford Stoll’s nonfiction book, Cuckoo’s Egg, about how he had helped the NSA catch an international spy who had been hacking into his computers at the astrophysics lab. I really thought he had a lot to say about the computer industry.

For some reason, I had never read the book.

So, over ten years since its release, I picked up Silicon Snake Oil. My Post-Bubble eyes thought that maybe Clifford had predicted the Dot-Bomb. These are the quotes I found:

Tell that to all the artists who use Photoshop as their only medium now.

Tell that to people who make more money selling products on World of Warcraft or Second Life than they do in “real” life.

Tell that to the creators of Google.

Tell that to Ebay.

Okay, Cliff, you’re a troglodyte.

While Clifford Stoll sat complaining about the Internet and how it’s not as good as “real” life, people have been ignoring him and making it better and better. Instead of sitting and grousing about why something isn’t good enough, get out there and make it better.

For all of Clifford Stoll’s Quotes:

• Clifford Stoll Quotes – The Quotations Page

For more information on Clifford Stoll:

• Clifford Stoll – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This movie is a strange reading of a portion of a poem by Lewis Carroll. It is almost three minutes long. For those of us who find Carroll’s work disturbing, this should come as no surprise.

The director, Nick Fox-Gieg, describes his work as such:

Have you ever looked at a sentence until it gradually stopped making sense? For this short, I took a bit from a little-known Lewis Carroll poem, and repeated it until it lost any kind of meaning.

The portion of the poem from The Mad Gardener’s Song is as follows:

He thought he saw a Argument
That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
‘A fact so dread,’ he faintly said,
‘Extinguishes all hope!’

For the complete poem by Lewis Carroll, see the Poetry Archives:

• Poetry X » Poetry Archives » Lewis Carroll » “The Mad Gardener’s Song”

There has been a lot of talk about Jim Frey’s book, “A Million Little Pieces”. After presenting the book as nonfiction and being received with great accolades, everyone has been shocked to learn that it has been greatly embellished.

This isn’t the first time this has happened, as noted by Tom Bissell in his 2004 lecture, “Truth in Oxiana”.

• World Hum | Truth in Oxiana

There are two sides to the issue and people are talking about truth like it’s a concrete item instead of a concept. I don’t know if a writer CAN write the whole truth about anything because our perception of the world will always be tainted by our view of it. My stories about my grandma would be completely different than my sister’s stories about her and even more different than our father’s. Bissell seems to believe the same.

Anna Quindlen has a new book out called Loud and Clear. It’s a collection of columns that she has written for Newsweek. Anna Quindlen is a Pulitzer Prize winning writer. She has penned many books, two of which have been made into movies. Here are some of my favorite quotations gathered from her writings:

For all of Anna’s quotations, click here:

Anna Quindlen Quotes – The Quotations Page

See Anna’s website here:

• Anna Quindlen | Home