41 Quotes by Jonathan Gottschall

Getting punched in the face with a padded glove doesn’t really hurt your face. It doesn’t hurt your skull. The only thing it hurts is your brain. You can feel the brain injury happening. It’s an instant headache.

I watch fights and I often feel morally compromised by it. I feel like I’m morally culpable for what’s occurring because I’m the spectator and ultimately footing the bill for the spectacle.

Don’t despair for story’s future or turn curmudgeonly over the rise of video games or reality TV. The way we experience story will evolve, but as storytelling animals, we will no more give it up than start walking on all fours.

When we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to leave us defenseless.

A boxing contest is a brain-damage contest. Who can give out more brain damage and who can absorb more of it?

When you spar in boxing, the only thing that gets hurt is your brain. Everything else feels pretty good.

I’m living in the heart of gun culture, but I’m not a gun guy. I didn’t grow up with them; I was never a hunter; my dad was never a hunter.

Studies show that when ordinary people do something wrong – break a promise, commit a murder – they usually fold it into a narrative that denies or at least diminishes their guilt.

Part of why I was attracted to the idea of owning a gun was self-defense, and part of it was that I’ve been fascinated by guns since I was a little kid, and I want to play with them. It seems like a lot of fun.