Quote of the Day (Lionel Shriver, on Precocity)

“Precocious was not the same as smart, much less the same as wise, and the perfect opposite of informed—since the more you prided yourself on knowing the less you listened and the less you learned. Worse, with application less glibly gifted peers often caught up with or overtook prodigies by early adulthood, and meanwhile the kid to whom everything came so effortlessly never mastered the grind of sheer hard work.”—American novelist-essayist Lionel Shriver, The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047 (2016)

(The image accompanying this post, of Lionel Shriver at Cannes for the screening of We Need to Talk About Kevin, was taken May 12, 2011, by Tony Sarowitz.)