Quotes from a Diary: 2012-2013
Written in pen, remembered in digital
“He wrapped himself in quotations — as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.”
― Rudyard Kipling
Quotes are cheesy, but I’ve loved them since I can remember. Definitely since I had my first AOL profile. I’ve also kept a journal since I can remember. My first one had an actual little lock and key.
As 2013 drew to an end, so too did my purple journal, filled with journeys, both inward and abroad, and scratchings from interviews, meetings and to-do lists. The transition to a New Year means a new journal, so before I lay the old one to rest, I took a long look back through the past two years.
While there are hundreds of entries, some incredibly personal and others boringly professional (successfully open a UK bank account is still on the list), I decided to pull a few of my favorite quotes from those years. They are as follows in chronological order.
“New York recreates itself every fifteen years or so, when a new fiscal or social crisis announces itself as this generation’s point of no return, and yet another tide of immigrants, hopeful and hungry, arrives to take the place of the departed fed-up.”
-Jim Dwyer, Columnist with The New York Times
This quote may have been told to me first in 2009 as many left New York in the wake of the financial crisis. But I found it again in 2012, as the New York City technology boom marked a year of new beginnings and hope for so many of us, hungry for success.
“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion.”
-Abraham Lincoln, December 1st, 1862
I first came upon this quote in Sir Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk on The Learning Revolution. He was talking about the necessary actions we must take as a generation — to rise to the current problems we are having with modern day education. While Lincoln was referencing slavery, by comparing the two, Sir Robinson makes a strong point that the two crises are near equal threats to our human race.
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly… who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…”
-Teddy Roosevelt
This is a quote I often thought of while I was meeting and writing about tech entrepreneurs. For the ones I respected most, the ones I looked up to and was in awe of, that’s how I saw them — as superhuman gladiators.
“The chimpanzee resolves sexual issues with power; the bonobo resolves power issues with sex.”
-Christopher Ryan in “Sex at Dawn”
In January 2012, I read Sex at Dawn — a book I didn’t want to read originally, a book I dismissed as something silly my wild girlfriends were reading. But then I read it. Never has a book had such a (negative?) impact on me. I suddenly felt like I wasn’t meant to be in a relationship — none of us were! How could we be monogamous, it was against our nature?! We’re meant to fuck freely and have hippie love! And while the book has lost the hold it once had on me, the thoughts still flow to the front of my mind whenever conversation allows it to.
“Every market is a global market now.”
-Geoff Watts, Founder of EDITD
When I first moved to London in the spring of 2012, I was fortunate to have a short meeting with Geoff Watts, the founder of EDITD, a platform for big data and fashion. As I squawked on about the differences between New York and London, San Francisco and the world, Watts looked at me inspiringly and reminded me that the world is global, baby.
“The World is Global, Baby.”
-Kane Sarhan
It was a gorgeous, sunny day in May 2012 when I invited 150 of my closest friends to a goodbye party on our rooftop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I was excited. But I was so nervous too. Kane Sarhan, a fellow Sandboxer, entrepreneur and dear friend could see it in my eyes. I’ll never, ever forget how he held my shoulders, looked right at me and shook me saying, “The word is global, baby. New York will be here when you get back.” I even adopted it as our company tagline. ☺
“Kale! That’s what we feed the pigs. You lot might think it’s all trendy but I tell ya, it’s no better for you than the other green stuff, like spinach.”
-Lady at the Chapel Market, Angel, London
It was sunny in London but autumn had arrived early in late 2012. One morning, I asked a woman at the market why no one in London ever sells kale. “Is it out of season? Do you not grow it here? What’s going on?” She shrieked between her blackened teeth and scowled at me.
“Taxis are my wings. I cannot wait for anything.”
The Diary of Anais Nin Volume 1 1931 — 1934
While it’s not as financially feasible to pop around in black cabs as it is in yellow taxis, something about Hailo makes it feel OK.
“I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.”
-Hebert Bayard Swope
In the summer of 2013, I finally got around to reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris. It was the same summer I started a company that had me working about 16 times that amount per week. Of course, I was reading the book from a beach in Croatia, so I can’t complain too much about life.
