Tu Alavi

“The person at the other end is answering questions from a person she has never met and about whom she knows nothing. Good manners from you will certainly elicit a more complete response than a threatening or superior attitude.”
― Nancy O'Meara, The Cult around the Corner: A Handbook on Dealing with Other People's Religions

“For a similar example in humans, we have only to consider the surprising evolution of syphilis. Today, our two immediate associations to syphilis are genital sores and a very slowly developing disease, leading to the death of many untreated victims only after many years. However, when syphilis was first definitely recorded in Europe in 1495, its pustules often covered the body from the head to the knees, caused flesh to fall off people’s faces, and led to death within a few months. By 1546, syphilis had evolved into the disease with the symptoms so well known to us today. Apparently, just as with myxomatosis, those syphilis spirochetes that evolved so as to keep their victims alive for longer were thereby able to transmit their spirochete offspring into more victims.”
― Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

“Decidedly it will never have been given to me to finish anything, except perhaps breathing. One must not be greedy.”
― Samuel Beckett

“Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personae folded in her hand.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch