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5 min readThe Marcus Aurelius Quote Tom Junod Can’t Forget
Tom Junod—the writer behind the unforgettable Esquire piece on Mr. Rogers and the haunting essay "The Fallen Man" about the unidentified victim plunging from the World Trade Center—recently picked up Marcus Aurelius's Meditations for the first time. He was knocked out by it. Not because it felt like ancient philosophy, but because it felt like a person talking to him across two thousand years. "Oh my God, he's a dude," Junod said. That time-travel quality—the sense that Aurelius's concerns are not very different from our own—is what makes the book hit differently than the New Testament or Aristotle, where the figures feel like they're wearing togas on a stage. Aurelius, by contrast, feels like he's in the room.
The Sentence That Stood Out
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What you'll learn
- 1 The Marcus Aurelius Quote Tom Junod Can’t Forget
- 2 (00:00) **Introduction: A Writer's Writer on Meditations** - Ryan introduces Tom Junod as one of the great magazine writers of his generation, and frames the episode around learning from a master writer about what makes Marcus Aurelius's sentences endure.
- 3 (05:55) **Tom's First Reaction: "He's a Dude"** - Tom describes being knocked out by Meditations, especially by the shock of recognizing Marcus's humanity across two millennia.
- 4 (07:04) **The Central Contrast: Death as Natural vs. Death as Punishment** - Tom identifies the philosophical battle at the heart of Meditations: Marcus's acceptance of death as natural versus Christianity's framing of death as a consequence of sin.
- 5 (08:43) **The Sentence Tom Can't Forget** - Tom reveals the one line from Meditations that he circled three times, starred, and dog-eared — the quote that gave him hope.
- 6 (09:56) **Philosophy as Self-Talk, Not Performance** - Tom and Ryan discuss why Meditations works as philosophy precisely because it wasn't written for an audience.
- 7 (11:41) **Why Not Writing for an Audience Makes It Last** - Tom reflects on how the private, unperformed nature of Meditations gives it its enduring power and modern feel.
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Show Notes
One sentence from Marcus Aurelius made Tom Junod circle it three times, star it, and dog-ear the page. In this episode, Ryan talks with the acclaimed writer about reading Meditations for the first time, why Marcus still feels so modern, and the line he can’t stop thinking about.
Tom Junod is senior writer for ESPN, where his work has won an Emmy and the Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting. He is a two-time winner of the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, and a winner of the James Beard Award for essay writing. Previously he was a staff writer at GQ and Esquire. The film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was based on his article in Esquire.
Grab signed copies of In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man by Tom Junod at The Painted Porch | https://www.thepaintedporch.com/
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