Date: December 2, 2012

"For now, our ability to understand how all those parts [of the brain] relate is quite limited, sort of like trying to understand the political dynamics of Ohio from an airplane window above Cleveland."

— Marcus, Gary (b. 1970)

Date: March 19, 2012

"I mean seriously, HOLY FUCK. My mind exploded when I looked at this."

— Margary, Drew

Date: March 19, 2012

"Even when I got the question right, the mental strain it took to try and dig through the piles of shit-encrusted mildew in my brain to retrieve the information needed to solve any given equation was brutal."

— Margary, Drew

Date: February 16, 2012

"Kids who have ample mental horsepower, an incredible work ethic and no idea what to do next."

— Klein, Ezra (b. May 9, 1984)

Date: October 28, 2012

"Each grasped, in the unflinching gaze of the other, a silent acknowledgment of the nobility of man, especially as manifested in work, the work that purified the soul the way steel is purified in the smelter. That sort of thing."

— Saunders, George (b. 1958)

Date: September 27, 2012

"The conservative mind, a repository of fresh ideas just two decades ago, is now little more than a click-click slide projector holding a tray of apocalyptic images of modern life that keeps spinning around, raising the viewer’s fever with every rotation."

— Lilla, Mark (b. 1956)

Date: August 21, 2012

"Though her book is entitled 'In Praise of Messy Lives' (The Dial Press, 288 pp., $25), Ms. Roiphe’s mind is neat as a pin, untroubled by the unexpected inference, the awareness of mitigating factors in television or film or literature that might unmake her arguments."

— D'Addario, Daniel

Date: February 4, 2012

"That sounds like stop-and-go mindfulness--focusing on the lives of other creatures to dispel the usual mind theaters that plague us."

— Ackerman, Diane (b. 1948)

Date: July 23, 2012

"I'm O.K., you tell them, but with each passing week the depression deepens. You try to describe it. Like someone flew a plane into your soul. Like someone flew two planes into your soul."

— Díaz, Junot (b. 1968)

Date: 2012

"Once, borracho, at breakfast, / he said: The heart can only be broken / / once, like a window."

— Corral, Eduardo C.