Rating: 4 out of 5

As you’d probably expect with a collection of 50 stories there are some that strike a nerve and left me reeling. And there are others that I couldn’t and didn’t connect to. But they’re all well crafted. And all are worth reading. It’s not always obvious which will inspire, which will make me cry, which will make me laugh, and which will do all of them.

Bought after seeing it mentioned in the brilliant Brain Pickings newsletter

Highlighted passages:

Honesty matters. Vulnerability matters. Being open about who you were at a moment in time when you were in a difficult or an impossible place matters more than anything. Having a place the story starts and a place it’s going: that’s important. Telling your story, as honestly as you can, and leaving out the things you don’t need, that’s vital. The Moth connects us, as humans. Because we all have stories. Or perhaps, because we are, as humans, already an assemblage of stories. And the gulf that exists between us as people is that when we look at each other we might see faces, skin colour, gender, race, or attitudes, but we don’t see, we can’t see, the stories. And once we hear each other’s stories we realise that the things we see as dividing us are, all too often, illusions, falsehoods: that the walls between us are in truth no thicker than scenery. The Moth teaches us not to judge by appearances. It teaches us to listen. It reminds us to empathise.

our family of friends.

I’ll decide what is a weakness and what is a strength.

when we can celebrate and truly own what it is that makes us different, we’re able to find the source of our greatest creative power.

There are these moments of beauty, like moons and oceans, and then there are moments of horror. And then it’s good again. And then it’s horrible and kicks you in the face. And then it’s good again. And then it’s horrible and a pigsty, because that’s what life is. But then for a moment it’s good. And for me that was enough.

believe that a really good performer takes a group of individuals and, through a shared emotional experience, turns it into a collective.

Originally posted to my Goodreads account