Life work Book

This book about work can be summed up in this quote from the sculptor Henry Moore: "The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day of your whole life. And the most important thing is--it must be something you cannot possibly do!"

And this quote about Moore from Hall: "Form-perception filled the constant breathing moments of his dedicated life."

Then there is this story from Hall about a Japanese man who typed two sentences in English and asked Hall to look it over for him. Here is Hall on the experience of rewriting those two sentences: "Sure enough he had omitted an article expected in English; I supplied it, with a caret. Then I saw that the second of his two short sentences would sound better turned around, with the verb at the end; then I saw that I could combine the two sentences into one complex sentence, saying a third of the words and making the style more condensed and elegant . . . I was in heaven! On a plastic tabletop in Sapporo I moved language to and fro, playing with words, changing their order or position and altering nuances of vocabulary, syntax, rhythm, . . . for what purpose? Oh, to make it better--though I would be hard put to explain or prove my comparative."

I also loved that Hall used one of my favorite sports phrases: "false hustle." This means when athletes show off hustling when it means absolutely nothing. The opposite would be the great runner Jim Brown who always got off the ground after being tackled like it was his last day on earth. He knew there was no point in hurrying at that point, the run was over. Now was the time to save energy until his next run.