Andy

“even been suggested that the eventual domestication of cereals in this area could have grown from a culture which invested heavily, not in bread-making, but in beer-brewing – and that alcohol could have flowed freely, greasing the wheels of social intercourse, at these ancient feasts.”
― Alice Roberts, Tamed: Ten Species That Changed Our World

“The totality of human endeavour is nothing when set against the stars.”
― Tom Sweterlitsch, The Gone World

“We should keep at it. Swearing is a powerful instrument, socially and emotionally. If women and men want to communicate as equals, we need to be equals in the ways in which we are allowed to express ourselves. Sod social censure. Let us allow men to cry and women to swear: we need both means of expression.”
― Emma Byrne, Swearing Is Good For You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language

“We think of English as a fortress to be defended, but a better analogy is to think of English as a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don't want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned electrical sockets. We dress it in fancy clothes and tell it to behave, and it comes home with its underwear on its head and wearing someone else's socks. As English grows, it lives its own life, and this is right and healthy. Sometimes English does exactly what we think it should; sometimes it goes places we don't like and thrives there in spite of all our worrying. We can tell it to clean itself up and act more like Latin; we can throw tantrums and start learning French instead. But we will never really be the boss of it. And that's why it flourishes.”
― Kory Stamper, Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries