Andrea

“He tells her things he’s never told anyone. About the man who broke his heart in such a long, drawn out process that he couldn’t discern hurt from love and how whenever he tries to sort out how it feels now, long after the end of it the feeling is just a void.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

“A world without caste would set everyone free.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

“In a world without caste, instead of a false swagger over our own tribe or family or ascribed community, we would look upon all of humanity with wonderment: the lithe beauty of an Ethiopian runner, the bravery of a Swedish girl determined to save the planet, the physics-defying aerobatics of an African-American Olympian, the brilliance of a composer of Puerto Rican descent who can rap the history of the founding of America at 144 words a minute—all of these feats should fill us with astonishment at what the species is capable of and gratitude to be alive for this.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

“Everything that we know of since the Big Bang is ruled by those four forces (gravity, electromagnetism, strong force and weak force). We are all connected by these four rules..I think the pursuit of finding one law to explain the universe if science but also the pursuit of God. The Jewish philosopher Spinoza said that God did not necessarily make the universe, but that God is the universe. The unfolding of the universe is God in action. Which would mean science and math are a part of God...We are the universe. I would go so far to say that human beings, we are less of a who and more of a when. We are a moment in time - when all of our cells have come together in this body. But our atoms were many things before and they will be many things after. The air I am breathing is the same air your ancestors breathed. Even what is in my body right now - the cells, the air, the bacteria - it's not only mine. It is a point of connection with every other living thing, made up of the same kinds of particles, ruled by the same physical laws. When you die, someone will bury you or turn your body into ashes. Eventually, you will return to the Earth. You already are a part of the Earth. What better reason do we have to take care of the Earth and everything on it than the knowledge that we are of one another? The trees need our breath, and our breath needs the trees. As scientists we call that symbiosis and that is the consequence of evolution. But the natural consequences of our connections to each other - that's God to me....Life is God and my life it tied to yours and everyone's on this planet. How does this not instantly make us more in debt to one another? And also offer us the comfort that we are not alone?”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Atmosphere