June 21 | I promise I will not let this blog devolve into an endless list of lists. But this one is pretty fascinating: a list of the “100 best reads” from the last quarter-century.

June 11 | Yesterday was my birthday: I celebrated by not writing anything. For a writer, spending time not writing is precious, in the same way that cleaning out your closets helps grow your wardrobe and having earthworms in your garden helps the soil bring forth plants. It’s the aeration that comes from introducing emptiness.

5-19-08 | I’ve never been a serious history buff. But as my home page points out, “I have a passion for great writing.” Lately I’ve been exploring historical writers, looking for tastes of “the exquisite beauty of a powerful idea expressed in expertly-chosen words.”

4-15-08 | I think words too often get a bum rap. People often say of some especially intense experience, “Words cannot describe how I felt.” Sure they can. It’s question of who’s using them.

3-22-08 | Last year, I posted a note, “Instructions in Unctuous Condescension,” about a hilarious memo written by my friend Scott Ohlgren, creator of the innovative beverage Brain Toniq. Scott recently penned an important memo to his team, which I felt impelled to share.

2-26-08 | The hypothalamus transforms emotions into physical responses, which are communicated throughout the body in the form of neuropeptides . . . Did you get all that? I have to admit, my eyes glazed over before I was halfway through the sentence. I’m doing some research for a book on “vision boards” for John Assaraf, and sometimes find myself wading into the deep end of the scientific swimming pool. I need my water wings.

2-22-08 | A reader asks: How did you get your start writing? I would love to do some of that, but have no confidence in my ability to express myself in print.

2-19-08 | Working on a second book for John Assaraf, I was doing a little research today on the word “intention,” and discovered a few fascinating points. The word intention literally means “to stretch in a certain direction.” It comes from the Latin tendere, meaning “to stretch,” and is related to the Sanskrit tantram, meaning “loom,” as well as the Persian tar and the Greek tono, which means “string” and therefore also “sound” or “musical note.”

2-18-08 | The other day I was set up to do an interview with Arjuna Ardagh, a most fascinating author and teacher. A few minutes before the time, he called: he had just returned from London, where he’d been to his father’s funeral, and wondered about the possibility of postponing our interview.

2-11-08 | The home page of my site says, “I have a passion for great writing,” and that passion compels me to share the following essay, which was possibly [see end note] written by a high school student as his college admissions essay for NYU.