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.

Date: 2012

"Been trying hard not to get into trouble, but I -- / I've got a war in my mind"

— Lana Del Rey [Elizabeth Woolridge Grant] (b. June 21, 1985)

Date: July 10, 2012

"What do you think my brain is made for / Is it just a container for the mind? This great grey matter."

— Frank Ocean [Christopher Edwin Breaux] (b. October 28, 1987)

Date: 2012

"Serpents in my mind / Looking for your crimes."

— Sharon Van Etten (b. February 26, 1981)

Date: December 3, 2013

"But mostly she set her intention and made a solemn promise to herself that, if she felt the surge of negative energy crawling up her body like a thousand ants, she would hold her tongue. At times it felt like a Herculean effort, as if her body was going to volcanically explode unless she allowed...

— Paul, Sheryl