The Waste Books is NYRB's edition
of the one-liners of brilliant
18thC. aphorist Lichtenberg

"We may use Lichtenberg’s writings
as the most wonderful dowsing rod:
wherever he makes a joke,
there a problem lies hidden."
—Goethe

"Some people read because they are too lazy to think."

"Sometimes men come by the name of genius
in the same way that certain insects
come by the name of centipede--
not because they have a hundred feet,
but because most people can't count above fourteen."