Good Sentences

I never thought I would find beautiful, good sentences in a business book such as Measure What Matters by John Doerr (read excerpt here) but found them I did. 

I read this book about two years ago when I was based in Google because OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are a big thing there.

But, getting back to good sentences, Measure What Matters has—surprisingly—many such sentences. I hadn’t realized this two years ago, but now during a re-read, I have taken notice. For example,

“He was a blue-sky thinker with his feet on the ground.” 

Doerr was talking about Larry Page, painting the picture that Page is an ambitious guy—a rebel with a 10x cause—yet sensible and practical. This triggers in me a positive “me too!” response. I think it’s an imaginative sentence for a serious topic.

I'm an inveterate techie who worships at the altar of innovation.

This time, in the above sentence, Doerr was talking about himself. This made me think of him as a person with breadth and depth. Breadth because he is an engineer and an acclaimed venture capitalist, which demonstrated he has range. Depth because he’s been doing this for more than three decades. “Inveterate” suggests a hardcore, fixed, confirmed habit, and “innovation” means change. What a character!

Note-to-self: Slow down when I read and pick my favorite sentences from whatever I decided to read (or re-read).