Adrian Tan

“You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.”

“You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself.”

“Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.”

“Be hated. One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself.”

“There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.”