One of the things that’s most fun about doing book talks is hearing all the aphorisms people share with me before, during, and after the talks. After a recent talk, Vincent Straub, a university student, handed me an envelope that contained a selection of his aphorisms, which are sharp, funny, and...

This is the talk delivered by George Murray at the International Aphorism Conference in Wroclaw, Poland on October 25, 2025. George is a Canadian poet, teacher, and editor. I’ve blogged about his aphorisms here and here. —JG

My talk today is about how I see the poetic aphorism as differing from t...

On the Tube the other day, I spotted a billboard for Heinz with the tagline:

Beanz Meanz Heinz

I liked the wordplay and the fact that the tagline is aphorism-adjacent, if not an actual aphorism. It follows almost all of the five laws of the aphorism… it’s short, definitive, has an author (the Kra...

After graduating from college, I moved to San Francisco, where I acquired a taste for Chinese food. The food is good, the portions are large, and back then the prices were cheap — important considerations for an impoverished recent graduate — and at the end of every meal you get a fortune cookie....

Thanks to Callum and Maddie at the amazing Pints of Knowledge for hosting me and The World in A Phrase on January 28. And thanks to all the incredibly engaged folks who came out to Soho Comedy House to juggle words, ideas, and balls.

There was a blank sheet selected from the globe — once again, ...