Sources for THE INSPIRATIONAL ATHEIST: Wise Words on the Wonder and Meaning of Life by Buzzy Jackson Note: Every attempt was made by the author to find a primary source for each quotation. If you have suggestions or corrections for any of the quotations, please email them to AskBuzzy AT gmail DOT com. Thank you! (Quotations are identified by page number) Introduction xii You know who you are: “ ‘Nones’ on the Rise,” Pew Research Religion & Public Life Project, October 9, 2012, http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/. xii “The earliest doubt”: Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), xxi. xii “Things are the way they are in our universe”: Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010), 368. xiv “To see the earth as it truly is”: Archibald MacLeish, “Riders on Earth together, Brothers in Eternal Cold,” The New York Times, December 25, 1968, 1. xiv “Mortal men subsist by change”: Titus Lucretius Carus, in On the Nature of Things, trans. Rev. John Selby Watson, book II, line 75 (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1851), 57. xv “if I have seen further”: Isaac Newton, letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675, Simon Gratz Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, http://digitallibrary.hsp.org/index.php/Detail/Object/Show/object_id/9565. xvi “People from a planet without flowers”: Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat (New York: Penguin, 2001), 170. Advice 1 You are what you settle for: Janis Joplin, interviewed by Howard Smith, The Village Voice, September 30, 1970, http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2013/09/janis_joplin_last_interview_ever.php. 1 This is what you shall do: Walt Whitman, Preface, Leaves of Grass (1855), 3. 1 Do not destroy: Leó Szilárd (1898–1964), Hungarian-American physicist and inventor, #4 of Szilard’s “Ten Commandments,” in Robert J. Levine, Ethics and Regulation of Clinical Research (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 431. 1 Facing it: Joseph Conrad, Typhoon (New York: Doubleday, 1902), 178. 2 Humility is the mother of giants: G. K. Chesterton, “The Innocence of Father Brown,” in The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton: Father Brown Stories, Part I: The Innocence of Father Brown; The Wisdom of Father Brown; The Donnington Affair (San Francisco: Ignatius Press: 2005), 186. 2 Stay sane: Galileo Galilei, letter to Fr. Vincenzo Renieri, ca. 1633, http://www.columbia.edu/cu/tat/core/galileo.htm. 2 Be fully awake: LeRoy Pollock, letter to his son Jackson Pollock, 1928, in “Why Not Be Jubilant?,” Lapham’s Quarterly, http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/voices-in-time/why-not-be-jubilant.php. 2 Fast, Cheap, and Good: Tom Waits, Robin Hilton, “Tom Waits Interviews Tom Waits,” All Songs Considered, NPR, May 20, 2008. 2 Listen to no one’s advice: Claude Debussy, quoted in H. Charles Romesburg, The Life of the Creative Spirit (Bloomington: Xlibris: 2001), 239–240. 3 We are what we repeatedly do: Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World’s Greatest Philosophers (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1926; 2012), 61. 3 Beware the barrenness: Larry Chang, Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (Washington, DC: Gnosophia Publishers: 2006), 391. 3 Don’t EVER EVER: Emma Thompson, letter to “Dear Em (16),” Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen- Year-Old Self (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009), quoted in Letters of Note, http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/05/dear-sixteen-year-old-me.html. 3 You practice: Philip Glass, “What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, January 9, 2009, http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/philip-glass-quotes-0109. 3 Think like a man of action: Speech at the Descartes Conference in Paris, 1937. Quoted in The Forbes Scrapbook of Thoughts on the Business of Life (1950), 442, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Bergson. 3 The only teacher: John Jeremiah Sullivan, American author, The Notre Dame–St. Mary’s College Observer, January 22, 2014, http://ndsmcobserver.com/2014/01/interview-john-jeremiah-sullivan/. 3 The best time to plant a tree: Anonymous Chinese proverb, “Inspiring Chinese Proverb: The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is now.” MindFuelDaily.com, http://www.mindfueldaily.com/livewell/inspiring-chinese-proverb. 4 Don’t just be yourself: Joss Whedon, American film and television writer and director, Wesleyan University Commencement Address (2013), http://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2013/05/26/whedoncommencement/. 4 Leap and the net will appear: Anonymous; attributed variously to John Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, Zen proverb, and Julia Cameron. 4 Don’t undertake a project: Edwin Land, in “The Vindication of Edwin Land” Forbes, vol. 139, May 4, 1987, 83. 4 Write them: Marlene Dietrich, Marlene Dietrich’s ABC (New York: Open Road Media: 1962; 2012), 62. 4 There is no mistake: William Blake, attributed. 4 Do those things: George Saunders, “George Saunders’s Advice to Graduates,” The New York Times, July 31, 2013, http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/george-saunderss-advice-to- graduates/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0. 4 Never pass up: Gore Vidal, “Gore Vidal in quotes,” BBC News, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19075751. 4 Lots of people will tell you to follow your bliss: Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired magazine, “Unsolicited advice to a young person,” Facebook post, April 22, 2014, https://www.facebook.com/Kevin2Kelly. 5 Read everything: Penn Jillette, @pennjillette. My advice to a high school senior is read everything and be kind. #badpenn. Twitter 9:04 p.m.—October 16, 2013, https://twitter.com/pennjillette/status/390531251515719680. 5 Quit now: David Zucker, American film director, in John Lloyd and John Mitchinson, QI: Advanced Banter (London: Faber & Faber, 2008), 4. 5 Never take advice: Robert Altman, “What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, February 1, 2004, http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/ESQ0204-FEB_WIL. 5 Dare to: R. Buckminster Fuller, Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking (1975), 11, http://triviumeducation.net/texts/SYNERGETICS-BuckminsterFuller.pdf. 5 When you are in: Samuel Beckett, in John Harrington, The Irish Beckett (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991), 76. 5 What we bear: Stoic maxim, in Frederic May Holland, The Reign of the Stoics (New York: Charles P. Somerby: 1896), 84. 6 First answers: Stewart Brand, American creator of The Whole Earth Catalog and founder of the Long Now Foundation, “Two Questions,” Wired, February 1995, http://www.wired.com/wired/scenarios/2questions.html. 6 It is almost impossible: John Logue, American journalist and novelist, quoted in Alexander Green, An Embarrassment of Riches (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2013), 71. 6 Next time somebody: Richard Dawkins, The Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004), 248. 6 Artists work best alone: Steve Wozniak, cofounder with Steve Jobs of Apple Computer, iWoz (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), 125. 6 We cannot regard: James Lovelock, English scientist and environmentalist, “A Book For All Seasons,” Science 280, no. 5365 (May 8, 1998). 6 My advice is to do: Miranda July, American writer, film director and artist, “This Much I Know,” The Guardian (UK), http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/18/this-much-i-know-miranda-july. 7 Gentlemen, in the little moment: Paul Claudel (1868–1955), French poet and playwright, in Claud Cockburn, In Time of Trouble (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1956), 264. 7 Empty your mind: Bruce Lee, Longstreet (television show, 1971), episode 1: “The Way of the Intercepting Fist,” directed by Don McDougall, written by Stirling Silliphant and Baynard Kendrick, Edling Productions, ABC Television and Paramount Studios, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6sln__roCU. 7 We have to stop CONSUMING: Terence McKenna, American ethnobotanist and psychonaut, “Eros and the Eschaton” (lecture), Seattle 2004, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aySqymiraBA. 7 It is better: Oscar Wilde, The Model Millionaire (1891), 68, http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/oscar-wilde/lord-arthur-stories.pdf. 7 Seek not the paths: Matsuo Bashō, “Words by a Brushwood Gate” (also translated as “The Rustic Gate”) (Unknown translator), http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Matsuo_Bash%C5%8D. 7 Eat the present moment: in Stephen Fry, John Lloyd, and John Mitchinson, QI: Advanced Banter (London: Faber & Faber, 2008), 332. 7 Whatever you think: Thelonious Monk, “T. Monk’s Advice,” compiled by Steve Lacy, http://1heckofaguy.com/2009/01/03/thelonious-monks-advice-archived-by-steve-lacy/. 8 The best thing one can do: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Poet’s Tale; The Birds of Killingworth,” Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=2047. 8 Understand that being: Chris Ware, American comic book artist and cartoonist, Rookie (2012), http://rookiemag.com/2012/11/chris-ware-intervie/. 8 Be a philosopher: David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Selections from A Treatise of Human Nature: With Hume’s Autobiography and a Letter from Adam Smith (Google eBook), (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company, 1907), 5. 8 Only an amateur: John Waters, “My Type Doesn’t Know Who I Am: An Interview with John Waters,” by Davis Schneiderman, March 21, 2011, http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/dschneiderman/2011/03/john-waters/. 8 Many of life’s failures: Deborah Hedstrom, From Telegraph to Light Bulb with Thomas Edison (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2007), 22. 8 The secret of all victory: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (167 CE), http://www.egs.edu/library/marcus- aurelius/quotes/. 8 Do not fear mistakes: Miles Davis, attributed. 8 Try to be: Henry James, The Art of Fiction, published in Longman’s Magazine 4 (September 1884), and reprinted in Partial Portraits (New York: Macmillan, 1888), http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/artfiction.html.