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Don’t Lose Your Enthusiasm
The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.
― Aldous Huxley
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Most men sang or whistled while digging and plucking. In those days singing outdoors was frequent. Workers sang during their toil; they sang along the roads with the sole company of their horses; the baker, miller and the walking fisherman sang as they delivered their goods door to door; even the doctor and the priest hummed… during their rounds of visits. People were poorer then and lacked the comforts, pleasures and knowledge we have today; and despite it all, they were happier. Which seems to suggest that happiness depends more on the state of mind — and perhaps on the body — than on the circumstances and events around us.
— Flora Thompson
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William Hurt on “Altered States” (1980): “I was jumping out of my skin because Paddy Chayefsky was articulating ideas that were so far ahead of their time. Molecular biology and quantum physics, the sources of altruism, the notion of love over truth. I had been thinking about the beginnings of our current situation, intellectual property in bio-engineering, I had been thinking about computers and all that. And then I read this script and I was in a Cuban coffee shop up on 78th and Amsterdam and I…
