What sustains us in any competition are the moments of interiority when the competition vanishes; what sustains us in any struggle are the moments wh… - Adam Gopnik

The same parents can raise a dreamy, reflective girl and a driven, competitive one—the job is not to nurse her nature but to help elicit the essential opposite: to help the dreamy one to be a little more driven, the competitive one to be a little more reflective. The one artisanal, teachable thing is outer conduct.

[M]ath prodigies are set somewhat apart from the more general-capacity prodigies, being seemingly possessed of a weird bit of wiring more than an over-all enhanced capacity for learning to do things.

In any case, the idea that somehow liberals are responsible for bringing on right-wing authoritarianism is of a piece with the domestic abuser's refrain "Look what you made me do." Or, for that matter, with the idea that antisemitism would not exist if Jews did not provoke their own persecution.