Robert Breen 📚

Will by Will Smith

February 18, 2022 / ★★★★★, Memoir, Reading

Fascinating memoir. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Will Smith himself, which was a performance in itself. Some very good life lessons about pushing through adversity to achieve big goals. Some very funny parts, and some sad ones too. I loved it.

Favorite Quotes

“Stop thinking about the damn wall!” he said. “There is no wall. There are only bricks. Your job is to lay this brick perfectly. Then move on to the next brick. Then lay that brick perfectly. Then the next one. Don’t be worrying about no wall. Your only concern is one brick.”

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The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

February 11, 2022 / ★★★★★, Literature, Reading

At least my fourth reading of this Hemingway classic. My comfort read, maybe my favorite book. I had to buy a new edition because I wore my last copy to tatters.

Highlights

As he had been thinking for months about leaving his wife and had not done it because it would be too cruel to deprive her of himself, her departure was a very healthful shock.

Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy’s. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey.

You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that.

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Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

February 10, 2022 / ★★★★★, Philosophy, Reading

Nine Things to Remember When Offended:

You are a part of mankind, not a thing apart. You were born to lead.
Put yourself in the minds of those who offend you.
If what annoys you is done in the right, you should not be perturbed. If it’s wrong, know that it done unintentionally or in ignorance. They know not what they do.
Remember that you offend others in ways you don’t know.
You can’t know the hidden intentions of others. They may be acting on a perfectly sensible way.
Remember that mortal life is fleeting. No one will care about this in 100 years.
It is not the act itself that annoys us, but the color we ascribe to it.
The act of becoming angry hurts us more than the act itself.
Kindness in the moment of another’s rudeness is irresistible. Be kind.

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So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell

February 10, 2022 / Literary Fiction, Reading

Highlights

Where a hardier boy would have run away from home or got in trouble with the police, I sat with my nose in a book so I wouldn’t have to think about things I didn’t like and couldn’t prevent happening.

What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory—meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion—is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.

Dry by Augusten Burroughs

February 2, 2022 / Health & Well-being, Reading

I listened to the audiobook of this one, which was read by the author himself. I read it for the personal reflections on alcoholism and sobriety, the processes of rehab and AA, and to get another take on life as a recovering alcoholic. He goes through a whole cycle of drinking—sobriety—relapse—sobriety in the book. I was very worried for him before he relapsed, which seemed inevitable, and that worry carried over to myself. Am I heading for relapse as well? Is it truly inevitable?

Burroughs drank to hide some very painful memories and to block out the loss of a dear friend. He didn’t drink for the taste. That’s the lesson here. Look for the underlying pain and address that. Don’t cover it up with booze.

Sober. So that’s what I’m here to become. And suddenly, this word fills me with a brand of sadness I haven’t felt since childhood. The kind of sadness you feel at the end of summer. When the fireflies are gone, the ponds have dried up and the plants are wilted, weary from being so green. It’s no longer really summer but the air is still too warm and heavy to be fall. It’s the season between the seasons. It’s the feeling of something dying. Sobriety

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

January 31, 2022 / ★★★★★, Literature, Reading

Key Themes

Corruption in the British court system.
Miseries of children — orphans, child labor, mistreatment.
The mystery of Lady Dedlock.

Highlights

It is the long vacation in the regions of Chancery Lane. The good ships Law and Equity, those teak-built, copper-bottomed, iron- fastened, brazen-faced, and not by any means fast-sailing clippers are laid up in ordinary. The Flying Dutchman, with a crew of ghostly clients imploring all whom they may encounter to peruse their papers, has drifted, for the time being, heaven knows where.

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To Show and to Tell by Phillip Lopate

January 24, 2022 / Reading, Writing Guides

Advice on Essay Endings:

Repeat a phrase or idea that was introduced earlier, like the return of a musical refrain; Often the initial setup or opening sentence will forecast the ending.
Tweak or transform an earlier mentioned idea into something new, perhaps with a different spin.
Introduce a new insight helped in reserve just for the occasion of the ending.
“Readers should be left with some things to work out on their own.”

“Creative nonfiction allows the nonfiction writer to use literary techniques usually used only by fiction writers, such as scene-setting, description, dialogue, action, suspense, plot. All those things that make terrific short stories and novels allow the nonfiction writer to tell true stories in the most cinematic and dramatic way possible. That’s creative nonfiction.” — Lee Gutkind

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