We all have our routines," he said softly."But they must have a purpose and provide an outcome that we can see and take some comfort from, or else they have no use at all. Without that, they are like the endless pacings of a caged animal. If they are not madness itself, then they are a prelude to it.
Interpretation
Routines are essential, but they must serve a purpose to be beneficial; otherwise, they lead to frustration.
John Connolly emphasizes the importance of having meaningful routines in our lives. He suggests that routines should not be mindless or aimless, as they can lead to a feeling of confinement similar to a caged animal. Instead, they should have a defined purpose that yields comfort and tangible outcomes, or they risk becoming a source of madness or despair.
In practice
During a motivational speech about the importance of having meaningful daily habits.
Without a human voice to read them aloud, or a pair of wide eyes following them by flashlight beneath a blanket, they had no real existence in our world. They were like seeds in the beak of a bird, waiting to fall to earth, or the notes of a song laid out on a sheet, yearning for an instrument to bring their music into being.
It was an overcast late November morning, the grass splintered by hoarfrost, and winter grinning through the gaps in the clouds like a bad clown peering through the curtains before the show begins.
For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be.
He would talk to them of stories and books, and explain to them how stories wanted to be told and books wanted to be read, and how everything that they ever needed to know about life and the land of which he wrote, or about any land or realm that they could imagine, was contained in books. And some of the children understood, and some did not.
If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances.
A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humors and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly and forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters.
The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.
We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they.
An ad hominem attack against an individual, not against an idea, is highly flattering. It indicates that the person does not have anything intelligent to say about your message.
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