“You can’t connect the dots looking forward – you can only connect them looking backwards … you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future – you have to trust in something … your gut, destiny, karma, whatever – because believing the dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the beaten path”

overhead: Stanford commencement speech

context: Steve Jobs’ words to the next generation of hopeful change makers

guy: “women are like facebook, they’re always changing the API and breaking my code”

girl: “fair enough, but if you’re such  a clever developer … you’ll fix the code”

overheard: London, UK

context: colleagues discussing the politics of life

“wait, but if you’re jewish you’re from islam right? aren’t people from israel called islam?”

overheard: Toronto, Canada

context: an eighteen year old girl in conversation with her cousin in regards to Jesus being Jewish

“isn’t he keeping you for the summer?”

overheard: Chartered Yacht, South of Spain

context: one hired escort to the other as she departed from the holiday

“no, because you haf to burn zee fat, ok? you have haf to burn zee fat first, then vee work on zee toning – first vee must get rid of all zee fat, ok?!”

overheard: Virgin Active Chelsea, London

context: a trainer to her rather plump client at a slightly mortifying volume

“don’t worry about process, let’s just focus on alcohol”

overheard: on the Fulham rd., London, UK

context: two 20 somethings on what i suspect to be a first and last date

father: “i don’t come here as an act of charity, i come here for food and drink”

daughter: “dad, you’re embarrassing me, don’t be rude to the server!”

father: “i’ll have you know i’m impeccably polite to service people, i just dislike incompetence”

overheard: Sliemma, Malta

context: father’s response to daughter after being reprimanded for shouting at the server

“oh i know, but anyways, it’s so middle class to have neighbors, I certainly don’t intend on having them forever”

overheard: Chelsea, London

context: a banker’s response to his friend’s story of being harassed by the man across the street

guy #1: “in the Britney/Christina whore-off, the Dirrty video was like Hiroshima”

guy#2: “so does that make Nagasaki the ‘Oooops i did it again’ of international conflict?”

overheard: Cambridge University, England

context: two gay guys walking through Newnham College (an all-girls college), wishing they lived there

“it’s because they don’t use cynicism as a tool for power – which is something the english do so well”

overheard: train from southampton to london

context: an english girl describing what she loves about Americans