Oct 23, 2026 · 33 min · 13 segments
Does “seize the day” really mean what we think it does? And was Robert Frost’s “road less traveled” actually less traveled at all? Eli Burnstein joins Sam Hankin on The Avid Reader to discuss Phrased…
Sam HankinHostYou can see the ancient Roman kind of plucking much more gently than seizing in the kind of heroic sense that we mostly are familiar with.
In fact, I worked with her on my first book as well, Dictionary of Fine Distinctions.
She illustrates a lot for the her imagination, what I might call her conceptual imagination.
There's often a kind of philosophical depth to her illustrations that at the same time somehow managed to remain light and playful and imaginative.
And as I say in my introduction, she somehow manages to deepen the text and lighten it all at once, because I think that she kind of evokes a series of connotations that surround the meanings of these lines, but also adds a touch of whimsy and play and lightness that I think makes what can seem like scary reading much more accessible because sometimes people see philosophy and they go, okay, I don't know if I'm ready to read about Descartes, but by keeping the entries brief and by complementing them with these fun illustrations, I hope to make it a little more accessible to people.
Yeah, I always think, and I tell a lot of authors this, if you're writing a book that's serious, but there's an element of humor in it, which there is both in the copy and the illustrations, it makes you want to turn the page.
But as long as there's a laugh or a smile on each page, I find that people, including me, like to turn the page.
And I think my goal was to make these quotes or make the meanings of these quotes as accessible as possible without simplifying them, without diluting them.
Obviously a difficult needle to thread, but to try and preserve as much of what makes these lines rich and deep, because sometimes you'll read a work of pop philosophy and what they gain in accessibility, they might lose in a bit of depth.
You can see the ancient Roman kind of plucking much more gently than seizing in the kind of heroic sense that we mostly are familiar with.
In fact, I worked with her on my first book as well, Dictionary of Fine Distinctions.
She illustrates a lot for the her imagination, what I might call her conceptual imagination.
There's often a kind of philosophical depth to her illustrations that at the same time somehow managed to remain light and playful and imaginative.
And as I say in my introduction, she somehow manages to deepen the text and lighten it all at once, because I think that she kind of evokes a series of connotations that surround the meanings of these lines, but also adds a touch of whimsy and play and lightness that I think makes what can seem like scary reading much more accessible because sometimes people see philosophy and they go, okay, I don't know if I'm ready to read about Descartes, but by keeping the entries brief and by complementing them with these fun illustrations, I hope to make it a little more accessible to people.
Yeah, I always think, and I tell a lot of authors this, if you're writing a book that's serious, but there's an element of humor in it, which there is both in the copy and the illustrations, it makes you want to turn the page.
But as long as there's a laugh or a smile on each page, I find that people, including me, like to turn the page.
And I think my goal was to make these quotes or make the meanings of these quotes as accessible as possible without simplifying them, without diluting them.
Obviously a difficult needle to thread, but to try and preserve as much of what makes these lines rich and deep, because sometimes you'll read a work of pop philosophy and what they gain in accessibility, they might lose in a bit of depth.
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