Date: 2009, trans. 2012

"As all the thoughts and images of consciousness began to move in directions over which I had no control, and I seemed to be lying there watching them, like a kind of lazy sheepdog of the mind, I knew sleep was around the corner."

— Knausgaard, Karl Ove (b. 1968)

Date: 2009, trans. 2012

"But I didn't want to linger, nor could I perhaps, for the sensation lasted only a few moments, then my brain sank its claws into it and I went back to the kitchen where everything was as I had left it, except for the color of the drinks, which were shiny and full of small, grayish bubbles now."

— Knausgaard, Karl Ove (b. 1968)

Date: June 1, 2010

"Books live in the mind like honey inside a beehive.

— McGrath, Campbell (b. 1962)

Date: June 7, 2010

"They have yearnings and fears that reside in an inner beast you could call The Big Shaggy."

— Brooks, David (b. 1961)

Date: December 13, 2010

"Like butterflies with frayed wings, thoughts fly at me in random and rapid succession."

— Oates, Joyce Carol (b. 1938)

Date: May 21, 2011

"My thoughts turn into the cowbirds wandering among the horses’ hooves."

— Klinkenbourg, Verlyn (b. 1952)

Date: September 2, 2011

"We speak of exerting will power, of forcing ourselves to go to work, of restraining ourselves and of controlling our temper, as if it were an unruly dog."

— Pinker, Steven (b. 1954)

Date: December 11, 2011

"The idea that down in our foundations there lie grubby creatures like desires, or passions, or needs, or culture, is like some nightmarish madwoman in the attic, and induces the same kind of reaction that met Darwin when he too drew attention to our proximity to animals rather than to angels."

— Blackburn, Simon (b. 1944)

Date: February 3, 2012

"Confronted by a vertiginous cascade of allusions, each one pointing to yet another unknown, retreating to the snail shell of the mind seems a whole lot more attractive: a poem responds to you, you don't respond to it."

— Samet, Elizabeth D.

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