The Quiet Ink gives you the words. Each journal holds thirty-two passages from the world's quietest thinkers, East and West, with space opposite each one to copy it out by hand. You bring ten minutes and a pen.

Copying a sentence slows you to the pace of the person who wrote it: you notice every comma. These journals bring the habit into English.

Every passage was checked word for word against its original source before printing, a task that took half year. Where a passage is rendered fresh from Latin, Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Danish or Spanish, the original is printed in the sources so the rendering can be checked. The books are selected, edited and designed in New Zealand and printed on 120 gsm cream paper in Korea.

They can be wrapped in Korean cloth, because a gift wrapped in cloth is a gift that keeps going.

The book carries a hanji belly band and a cedar-scented label, so the gift is felt before a word is read.