Jonathan Leblang

“was a book by Arthur Raistrick called Quakers in Science and Industry and I glanced through it for a few minutes, then carried it to a nearby chair and sat reading for about half an hour, so unexpectedly absorbed did I become. I hadn’t realized it, but Quakers in the Darbys’ day were a bullied and downtrodden minority in Britain. Excluded from conventional pursuits like politics and academia, they became big in industry and commerce, particularly, for some reason, in banking and the manufacture of chocolate. The Barclays and Lloyds banking families and the Cadburys, Frys, and Rowntrees of chocolate renown were all Quakers. They and many others made Britain a more dynamic and wealthy place entirely as a consequence of being treated shabbily by it. It had never occurred to me to be unkind to a Quaker, but if that’s what it takes to get the country back on its feet again, I am prepared to consider it. —”
― Bill Bryson, The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island

“As with most of life's problems, this one can be solved by a box of pure radiation.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

“Why, there’s no country in the world that can get more hysterical—yes, or more obsequious!—than America. Look how Huey Long became absolute monarch”
― Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here

“Also, I have duct tape. Ordinary duct tape, like you buy at a hardware store. Turns out even NASA can’t improve on duct tape.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian