Andrea Hiott's "Thinking Small"

A friend suggested that I read this book.  It was a gift.  As was the compliment that accompanied the suggestion.

"She's this philosophy major who moved to Germany to study Neuroscience.  And then she became a journalist.  And then she wrote this book.  And she's just incredibly intelligent.  Like you.  She's like you."

My eyes well up with tears when I reach for a sentence or two that will express what those three words meant to me.  "She's like you."

And the compliment has become more dear to me with every line on every page.  The book, as really great books often do, left me anxious that I'll never-ever find a really great book again.

So here's a little something to whet your whistle:

To Andrea.

"As the American John Keats wrote in The Insolent Chariots, “The Automobile changed our dress, manners, social customs, vacation habits, the shape of our cities, consumer purchasing patterns, common tastes, and positions in intercourse.”

"But if Jewish people knew how other Jews were being treated, how could they bear to stay? To ask that question in hindsight is to have no right to ask it at all. Home is a word so close to the heart that it can transcend reason. Sometimes propelling yourself into a frightening and foreign landscape - especially when there is no clear place to go - and leaving all you’ve ever known, looks worse than suffering the possibilities of what might come by staying."

“After such destruction and noise, the silence was almost impossible to endure.”

“After such darkness, when the light finally does begin to trickle back in, one sees paths that had not even seemed possible before.”

“Because there was little material for clothes, the girls wore red skirts that had been made from old Nazi flags.”

“Rules are what the artist breaks,” Bernbach said. “The memorable never emerged from a formula.”

“Logic & overanalysis can immobilize and sterilize an idea,” Bill said. “It’s like love - the more you analyze it, the faster it disappears.”

“There was another powerful presence slinking in and out of the DDB offices around dusk at this time. Julian Koenig was tall, witty, and charming . . . He was articulate, mischievous, but with a deliquescent voice.”

“Psychologist and philosopher William James once wrote that true genius is the ability to see things in an unhabitual way. It’s the greatest gift a human being can give another - the very essence of freedom - because in seeing things differently and sharing that new view, one opens up more space for communion, for confidence, and for love.”

“In the same way that a musical note on key is obvious to the ear, so too is a warm expression of the truth: Such things can mysteriously open our hearts.”

And the passage that describes a true Confederate: 

“In 1978, for instance, nearly eighteen years after George and Julian left DDB, tragedy struck George’s family: He lost one of his beloved sons. That very next morning, Bill was waiting downstairs in the lobby of George’s building, just standing there quietly, so that when George came down he could give him a hug”