I don’t know what it says about me, that I really get what Kaufman says in this book and I probably shouldn’t get it before I’m at least 40.
But I do, I get it. And I’m so glad it contains what the book jacket claims: “a big dose of tenderness for the frailties of the heart.”
It is perhaps why words were invented: to give us the power to use facts in the service of our own perspective, then to try to convince someone else— a justice, a reader, a lover— to share that point of view. To see it the way we want them to. The vast majority of a human life is spent trying to construct a convincing story. And while it can be argued that this, on occasion, involves telling the truth, it’s certainly different from giving the whole story.