barnabas_truman

“As for Charlotte herself, I had never paid much attention to spiders until a few years ago. Once you begin watching spiders, you haven’t time for much else—-the world is really loaded with them. I do not find them repulsive or revolting, any more than I find anything in nature repulsive or revolting, and I think it is too bad that children are often corrupted by their elders in this hate campaign. Spiders are skillful, amusing and useful, and only in rare instances has anybody ever come to grief because of a spider.”
--E.B. White

A conversation between a paleontologist and a police special agent:

"Bureaucrats! They might have known this [social unrest] would happen, if they'd properly studied Catastrophist theory. It is a concatenation of synergistic interactions; the whole system is on the period-doubling route to Chaos!"

"What does that mean, pray?"

"Essentially, in layman's terms, it means that everything gets twice as bad, twice as fast, until everything falls completely apart!"

(from The Difference Engine by Gibson & Sterling, pp 210-211)

This is one of my favorite parts of Grapes of Wrath, and I keep wanting to quote it and then having trouble finding it, so I'm putting it here for future reference.

"Fella named Hines-got 'bout thirty thousan' acres, peaches and grapes-got a cannery an' a winery. Well, he's all a time talkin' about 'them goddamn reds.' 'Goddamn reds is drivin' the country to ruin,' he says, an" 'We got to drive these here red bastards out.' Well, they were a young fella jus' come out west here, an' he's listenin' one day. He kinda scratched his head an' he says, 'Mr. Hines, I ain't been here long. What is these goddamn reds?' Well, sir, Hines says, 'A red is any son-of-a-bitch that wants thirty cents an hour when we're payin' twenty-five!' Well, this young fella he thinks about her, an' he scratches his head, an' he says, 'Well, Jesus, Mr. Hines. I ain't a son-of-a-bitch, but if that's what a red is-why, I want thirty cents an hour. Ever'body does. Hell, Mr. Hines, we're all reds.'"

J.R.R. Tolkien, in a 1945 letter to his son about the bombing of Germany by Allied forces, wrote:


We were supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted. The destruction of Germany, be it 100 times merited, is one of the most appalling world-catastrophes. Well, well, — you and I can do nothing about it. And that should be a measure of the amount of guilt that can justly be assumed to attach to any member of a country who is not a member of its actual Government. Well the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter—leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines.

This is quite possibly the most inspiring video ever. Thank you, Carl Sagan, wherever you are.

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers and sisters,
To make music in the heart.

--Howard Thurman

I was just listening to "Keep on the Sunny Side of Life" and it reminded me of my favorite quote from a Magic: the Gathering card, which I shall now share with you.

The willow knows what the storm does not: that the power to endure harm outlives the power to inflict it.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives."

"If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies you will not find another."

"The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars."

"How lucky we are to live in this time: the first moment in human history when we are, in fact, visiting other worlds."

"The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. Recently we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting."




What an amazing human. He was like the Mr. Rogers of science.

"There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936. Pretty awesome quote for any point in history, though. I'm guessing he was referring to another great quote from Luke 12:48, "From him to whom much has been given, much will be expected."

Yev: This place is creeping me out.
Me: Eh, don't worry about it.
Yev: You don't understand! I'm Jewish; our powers are weakened here!


Hazel: These smaller panels must be for cremation ashes.
Me: No, midgets.


Yev: This would be a dangerous place to get buried alive. How would you dig your way out?
Me: Well, you could ask to be buried with a hammer.


Me: I think we're going in circles.
Yev: The walls are shifting to confuse us! Let's split up so we can find the monster easier!


Hazel: Look, they have a number you can call if you want to be buried here.
Me: I'd better write it down so I can call them when I'm ready to be buried.


Hazel: That's a pretty morbid thing to say.
Me: And what better place for it?