Ideas worth spreading

1,952,718 views | Joshua Prager • TEDActive 2015

Wisdom from great writers on every year of life

As different as we humans are from one another, we all age along the same great sequence, and the shared patterns of our lives pass into the pages of the books we love. In this moving talk, journalist Joshua Prager explores the stages of life through quotations from Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, William Trevor and other great writers, set to visualizations by graphic designer Milton Glaser. "Books tell us who we've been, who we are, who we will be, too," Prager says.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

As different as we humans are from one another, we all age along the same great sequence, and the shared patterns of our lives pass into the pages of the books we love. In this moving talk, journalist Joshua Prager explores the stages of life through quotations from Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, William Trevor and other great writers, set to visualizations by graphic designer Milton Glaser. "Books tell us who we've been, who we are, who we will be, too," Prager says.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

About the speaker

See speaker profile

Joshua Prager’s journalism unravels historical secrets -- and his own.

Joshua Prager | W. W. Norton & Company, 2016 | Book

100 Years

Here is the book that gave birth to this TED talk. Designed by Milton Glaser, the legendary graphic designer who created the I ♥ NY logo, the book moves year by year through the words of our most beloved authors, revealing the great sequence of life.

Thomas Mann | Everyman's Library, 2005 | Book

Joseph and His Brothers

My talk shares the message at the heart of this beautiful book, namely that there are patterns to life that are common to all of us. As Mann wrote: 'It will happen to me as to them.'

Marilynn Robinson | Book

Gilead

In compiling 100 Years, I came to view its annual observations about life as a bequeathal to my infant daughter. No book I have ever read so beautifully renders the handing down of lessons as Gilead.

Joshua Prager | Book

Half-Life

It was an unremitting awareness of mortality that prompted me to compile 100 Years. (The opening quote: 'Birth was the death of him.') I lay bare in Half-Life the seeds of that awareness.

TED | Watch

Joshua Prager: In search of the man who broke my neck

Here is a TED talk I gave that grew out of Half-Life.

Christian Marclay | Watch

The Clock

This remarkable film splices together snippets of previous films showing clocks and watches so that every minute of the day ticks by. The film is magical and propulsive and speaks of time. My hope is that 100 Years does, too.

Learn more