Josh Bazell > Quotes

“In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade—which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to ‘How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?’ is ‘Go fuck yourself,’ because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities.”
― Josh Bazell, Wild Thing

“Ah, youth. It's like heroin you've smoked instead of snorted. Gone so fast you can't believe you still have to pay for it.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“When God is truly angry, He will not send vengeful angels.

He will send Magdalena.

Then take her away.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“It's a weird curse, when you think about it. We're built for thought, and civilization, more than any other creature we've found. And all we really want to be is killers. ”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“Like most people raised on American movies, I have poor access to my emotions, but can banter like a motherfucker.”
― Josh Bazell, Wild Thing

“what a fascinating mix a hospital can be of people in a huge hurry and people too slow to get out of their way.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“The complete destruction of the human race is fairly amusing, obviously, particularly if it's going to happen through overpopulation and technology, the only two hobbies we've ever taken seriously.”
― Josh Bazell, Wild Thing

“Calling a tongue piecing 'cosmetic' is a bit of a stretch, since you don't get one because it makes you look better. You get one because you're so desperate for affection that you're willing to gruesomely harm yourself to advertise how well you suck dick.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“So I'm on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow, and some fuckhead tries to mug me!”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“If you're going to be soulless, you should at least consider outsourcing your conscience to someone else.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“The journey from shame to resentment is the shortest on there is.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“The fucking beef industry and the fucking HMO industry,' Friendly says. 'Al-Cowda and HMOsama.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“But rituals turn us all into fucking idiots. Like those birds that sleep with their heads facing backwards because their ancestors slept with their heads under their wings. Plutarch says carrying new wives across thresholds is stupid because we don't remember that it refers to the rape of the Sabine women - and that's fucking Plutarch, two thousand years ago. We still draw the Reaper with a scythe. We should draw him driving a John Deere for Archer Daniels Midland.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“that look you get after every bone in your face has been broken at least once and then allowed to set without medical attention”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“Deliverance' is The Godfather for crackers.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“Llamar "intervención estética" a un piercing en la lengua es un poco elástico, habida cuenta de que no se lo ha hecho para estar más guapa. Se lo ha hecho porque está tan falta de cariño que no duda en causarse un grave perjuicio a sí misma para anunciar lo bien que chupa la polla.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“It shows something, though: if you're going to be soulless, you should at least consider outsourcing your conscience to someone else.”
― Josh Bazell

“So I'm on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow, and some fuckhead tries to mug me! Naturally there's
a gun. He comes up behind me and sticks it into the base of my skull. It’s cold, and it actually feels sort of good, in an acupressure
kind of way. “Take it easy, Doc,” he says.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“You should never bother trying to remember where you put something. You should just imagine needing to put it somewhere now, then go to the place you pick. Because why would you pick a different location now than you did earlier? Your personality is more stable than that. It's not like we wake up each day as different people. It's just that we don't trust ourselves.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“My medical students. Two cups of human misery in short white coats. One is male and the other one female, and they both have names. That's all I can ever remember about them.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“Camino del parque me pregunta Mershawn cómo sabía que el tío tenía enfisema, y le enumero los síntomas visibles que mostraba. Luego le digo:
- Lección de hoy, Mershawn. ¿Quiénes silban?
- ¿Los gilipollas?
- Vale. ¿Quién más?
Mershawn reflexiona un instante.
- La genet que está pensando en algo y que, de manera subliminal, lo asocia a una canción. Como cuando examinas un nervio del undécimo par craneal y empiezas a silbar "Mantén la cabeza erguida".
- Bien - apruebo -. Pero mucha gente también silba porque subconscientemente intenta incrementar la presión de aire en los pulmones, para hacer que pase más oxígeno entre los tejidos.
- No joda.
- Sin joder. ¿Te acuerdas de los enanitos de Blancanieves, que trabajan en la mina?
- Sí, vale.
- Si tienes silicosis, también te dejas el culo silbando.
- La hostia.
- Eso.
Hasta llegar a la esquina me siento como el Profesor Marmoset.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“Sure enough, a woman five doors down is flat-out dead, with a look of screaming horror on her face and a vitals sheet that reads “Temp 98.6, Blood Pressure 120/80, Respiratory Rate 18, Pulse 60.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“I should say here that being chronically sleep-deprived is so demonstrably similar to being drunk that hospitals often feel like giant, ceaseless office Christmas parties. Except that at a Christmas party the schmuck standing next to you isn't about to fillet your pancreas with something called a “hot knife.”
― Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

“At least in the Gilded Age age they gilded shit.”
― Josh Bazell