PRAISE FOR PREVIOUS BOOKS "Lababidi moves from the aphoristic and the epigrammatic to the suggestive, the lightly hinted, the nuanced, with impressive ease. This is a rare gift, more associated with European writers than with American. This striation of tone, of register, of mood, gives a sense of surprise to his sentences; they spring back to the touch. Sometimes they even seem surprised at themselves. The book becomes an exploration on which the reader embarks. This is one of the elements in collections . I most appreciate--this secret invitation au voyage that the author holds out--and Lababidi does this extremely well, with courtesy as well as cunning." --Eric Ormsby, poet, scholar, and author of Ghazali: The Revival of Islam "I find myself pausing everywhere among these wisdoms, wondering why the world stumbles and staggers through such a dark and greedy time when there are people alive with such keen, caring insight.

If Yahia Samir Lababidi were in charge of a country, I would want to live there." --Naomi Shihab Nye, poet, anthologist, and author of There is No Long Distance Now "Wisdom for Lababidi is on the move, a matter of suppleness rather than rigor, of insights and angles rather than rules. As intense as his conversation with himself is, it is also kind, tolerant of his own limits and of ours. I give you that expert self-listener, that excellent writer, Yahia Lababidi." --James Richardson, poet, aphorist, and author of By the Numbers "Lababidi knows that fables and metaphors overcome resistance more readily than facts and position papers. His half-smile becomes our own, changing our self-estimate, and then--who knows?--the choices we make as well." --Alfred Corn, poet, essayist, and author of Tables "Brilliant. think of the wild mind of Blake and the calmly collected Wallace Stevens, with a touch of Franz Kafka's hammer inside a velvet glove.

" --Duff Brenna, novelist, author of Murdering the Mom: A Memoir "Yahia Lababidi's aphorisms are elegant, thoughtful, and wise, written proof that the art of the aphorism is still very much alive." --James Geary, author of I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor.