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Michael Finkel Quotes

Language and hearing are seated in the cerebral cortex, the folded gray matter that covers the first couple of millimeters of the outer brain like wrapping paper. When one experiences silence, absent...

Michael Finkel

Language and hearing are seated in the cerebral cortex, the folded gray matter that covers the first couple of millimeters of the outer brain like wrapping paper. When one experiences silence, absent...

Tags: activated, ancient, bedrock, brain, busy, cerebral cortex, deeper, experiences, gray matter, hearing

Carl Jung said that only an introvert could see the unfathomable stupidity of man

Michael Finkel

Carl Jung said that only an introvert could see the unfathomable stupidity of man

Tags: introverts, stupidity of man

About Author
Michael Finkel (born 1969) is a journalist and memoirist, who has written the books True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa (2005), The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit (2017), and The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession (2023).

I understand I've made an unusual lifestyle choice. But the label 'crazy' bothers me. Annoys me. Because it prevents response. When someone asks if you're crazy, Knight lamented, you can either say ye...

Michael Finkel

I understand I've made an unusual lifestyle choice. But the label 'crazy' bothers me. Annoys me. Because it prevents response. When someone asks if you're crazy, Knight lamented, you can either say ye...

Tags: hermit, isolation, solitude

Not for a moment did he consider keeping a journal. He would never allow anyone to read his private thoughts; therefore, he did not risk writing them down. I'd rather take it to my grave, he said. And...

Michael Finkel

Not for a moment did he consider keeping a journal. He would never allow anyone to read his private thoughts; therefore, he did not risk writing them down. I'd rather take it to my grave, he said. And...

Tags: lies, private thoughts, truth

For a while, every smart and shy eccentric from Bobby Fischer to Bill Gate was hastily fitted with this label, and many were more or less believably retrofitted, including Isaac Newton, Edgar Allen Pi...

Michael Finkel

For a while, every smart and shy eccentric from Bobby Fischer to Bill Gate was hastily fitted with this label, and many were more or less believably retrofitted, including Isaac Newton, Edgar Allen Pi...

He was confounded by the idea that passing the prime of your life in a cubicle, spending hours a day at a computer, in exchange for money, was considered acceptable, but relaxing in a tent in the wood...

Michael Finkel

He was confounded by the idea that passing the prime of your life in a cubicle, spending hours a day at a computer, in exchange for money, was considered acceptable, but relaxing in a tent in the wood...

I think that most of us feel like something is missing from our lives. And I wondered then if Knight's journey was to seek it. But life isn't about searching endlessly to find what's missing. It's abo...

Michael Finkel

I think that most of us feel like something is missing from our lives. And I wondered then if Knight's journey was to seek it. But life isn't about searching endlessly to find what's missing. It's abo...

One's desire to be alone, biologists have found, is partially genetic and to some degree measurable. If you have low levels of the pituitary peptide oxytocin--sometimes called the master chemical of s...

Michael Finkel

One's desire to be alone, biologists have found, is partially genetic and to some degree measurable. If you have low levels of the pituitary peptide oxytocin--sometimes called the master chemical of s...

I read. That's my form of travel.

Michael Finkel

I read. That's my form of travel.

Tags: travel

Modern life seems set up so that we can avoid loneliness at all costs, but maybe it’s worthwhile to face it occasionally. The further we push aloneness away, the less are we able to cope with it, and...

Michael Finkel

Modern life seems set up so that we can avoid loneliness at all costs, but maybe it’s worthwhile to face it occasionally. The further we push aloneness away, the less are we able to cope with it, and...

Perceptive and valuable personal explorations of time alone include A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland, Party of One by Anneli Rufus, Migrations to Solitude by Sue Halpern, Journal of a Solitude by Ma...

Michael Finkel

Perceptive and valuable personal explorations of time alone include A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland, Party of One by Anneli Rufus, Migrations to Solitude by Sue Halpern, Journal of a Solitude by Ma...

That silence intimidates puzzles me. Silence is to me normal, comfortable. Later he added, I will admit to feeling a little contempt for those who can't keep quiet.

Michael Finkel

That silence intimidates puzzles me. Silence is to me normal, comfortable. Later he added, I will admit to feeling a little contempt for those who can't keep quiet.