Pat Murphy

“People's capacity for turning dogmatic stupidity into political movements never ceased to amaze me. We've knocked off 99.9% of the human race and somehow the crazies still manage to survive. It just defies the odds.”
― Dennis E. Taylor, We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

“Perhaps the question isn’t ‘What use is art?’ ” Wit mused. “Perhaps even that simple question misses the point. It’s like asking the use of having hands, or walking upright, or growing hair. Art is part of us, Kaladin. That’s the use; that’s the reason. It exists because on some fundamental level we need it. Art exists to be made.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Wind and Truth

“At one time, we thought that the way life came together was almost completely random, only needing an energy gradient to get going. But as we’ve moved into the information age, we’ve come to realize that life is more about information than energy. Fire has most of the characteristics of life. It eats, it grows, it reproduces. But fire retains no information. It doesn’t learn; it doesn’t adapt. The five millionth fire started by lightning will behave just like the first. But the five hundredth bacterial division will not be like the first one, especially if there is environmental pressure. That’s DNA. And RNA. That’s life. …”
― Dennis E. Taylor, We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

“You think that kid who starved didn’t want to eat? You think her parents didn’t want to escape the ravages of war badly enough? You think if they’d had more Passion, the cosmere would have saved them? How convenient to believe that people are poor because they didn’t care enough about being rich. That they just didn’t pray hard enough. So convenient to make suffering their own fault, rather than life being unfair and birth mattering more than aptitude. Or storming Passion.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Wind and Truth