Ryan

“Fiona had never learned her mother's language and she had never shown much respect for the stories that it preserved-the stories that Grant had taught and written about, and still did write about, in his working life. She referred to their heroes as "old Njal" or "old Snorri." But in the last few years she had developed an interest in the country itself and looked at travel guides. She read about William Morris's trip, and Auden's. She didn't really plan to travel there. She said the weather was too dreadful. Also-she said-there ought to be one place you thought about and knew about and maybe longed for-but never did get to see.”
― Alice Munro, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories

“It was all part of a way of doing things in the United States that, as I would gradually realize, forced you to be constantly on guard, constantly worried that whatever amount of money you had or earned would never be enough, and constantly anxious about navigating the complex and mysterious fine print thrown at you from every direction by corporations that had somehow managed to evade even the bare minimum of sensible protections for consumers.”
― Anu Partanen, The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life

“Authoritarianism arrives not because people say that they want it, but because they lose the ability to distinguish between facts and desires.”
― Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

“If you can see the ocean, the ocean can see you.”
― Orrin Pilkey