Galapagos Quotes

“Like so many other pathological personalities in positions of power a million years ago, he might do almost anything on impulse, feeling nothing much. The logical explanations for his actions, invented at leisure, always came afterwards”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Galápagos

“The happiest life consists of ignorance,
Before you learn how to grieve or rejoice."
--SOPHOCLES (496-406 B.C.)”
― Sophocles

“This episode made me sorry to be alive, made me envy stones. I would rather have been a stone at the service of the Natural Order.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Galápagos

“Natural science in England, as Darwin already knew to his cost, was still the purview of Christian scholars. But here was a question that Darwin found compelling: if God had created all the creatures of the world, what possible reason could there be for the variations found in the Galápagos?”
― Jonathan Clements, Darwin's Notebook: The Life, Times, and Discoveries of Charles Robert Darwin

“Eloy Alfaro... el que intentó varias veces vender el Archipiélago de Galápagos ya a Norte América, ya al Japón y al fin a Alemania en tres mil millones de marcos y que no lo vendió porque Inglaterra puso el veto a la venta alegando ser Inglaterra dueña del Archipiélago y el Ecuador un 'benévolo administrador'.”
― Francisco Núñez del Arco, Quito fue España

“They needed lots of peace and quiet," said Roy, "and so do I, and so do you, I guess, and I'm sorry if I disturbed you. I wasn't doing anything a bird wouldn't do."
Some automatic device clicked in her big brain, and her knees felt weak, and there was a chilly feeling in her stomach. She was in love with this man.
They don't make memories like that anymore.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Galápagos

“She had replied, "You're a survivor, too, Willard."
"Well," he had said, " I used to think I was one, Mrs. Kaplan. Now I'm not so sure. I guess everybody who isn't dead yet is a survivor."
"Now, now," she had said, "let's talk about something pleasant. Let's talk about Baltra."
But the blood supply to his brain must have been momentarily dependable then, because *Wait had continued to follow this line of reasoning. He'd even given a dry little laugh. He'd said, "There are all these people bragging about how they're survivors, as though that's something very special. But the only kind of person who can't say that is a corpse."
"There, there," she'd said.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“We both took a deep breath, facing each other in the moonlight, the whites of his eyes flashing and his dark irises the same colour as the sky. Touch seemed like something I had never experienced before. All my senses were heightened by the thrill of my environment: the night sky, the light air, the sound of the water lapping on the hull of the water taxi and the distant murmur of water on the rocks.”
― Emili Lemon