How To Know a Person

I absolutely loved this book, and I captured dozens of quotes.

If it hadn’t felt slightly dragged out towards the end (a few superfluous chapters), this would have been five stars. Even so, I’d still recommend it wholeheartedly to almost anyone. It’s one of those rare books where you find yourself thinking, ‘I wish everyone could read this’.

I learnt so much about how to better relate to the people around me. Most of all, I came away determined to become more of what David Brooks refers to as an ‘illuminator’:

Illuminators… have a persistent curiosity about other people. They have been trained or have trained themselves in the craft of understanding others. They know what to look for and how to ask the right questions at the right time. They shine the brightness of their care on people and make them feel bigger, deeper, respected, lit up. I’m sure you’ve experienced a version of this: You meet somebody who seems wholly interested in you, who gets you, who helps you name and see things in yourself that maybe you hadn’t even yet put into words, and you become a better version of yourself. A biographer of the novelist E. M. Forster wrote, “To speak to him was to be seduced by an inverse charisma, a sense of being listened to with such intensity that you had to be your most honest, sharpest, and best self.” Imagine how good it would be to be that guy.