“The Oxfordian thing, the anti-Stratfordian thing… what pisses people off about Shakespeare?… What lies behind every controversy about Shakespeare… is rage. Rage over the nature, and unequal distribution, of talent. Rage that genius appears, where it appears, for no material reason at all.”
“Desiring a thing, cannot make you have it.”
“Now the trouble with writing… if I may bring it up here in the English department… is we all do a little of it from time to time… writing… and some of us start to think — delusionally… maybe with a little time, a little peace, a little money in the bank and you get that room to your own and you think “We’ll shit!, I might be a writer too!”…
“I mean, we accept genius in sports as something we cannot do… but it’s no more likely that you could be a writer that you could be… what? an Olympic pole vaulter?… Because what you have to be, before you try to be a pole vaulter… Hello!?… is a pole vaulter!… no!?… yeah!”
“If you take away nothing else from my class… from this experience… let it be this: If you’re not a genius, don’t bother. The world needs plenty of electricians and a lot of them are happy.”
–Jim (Mark Wahlberg, “The Gambler”)
We strive for meaning, more than happiness…