Zayden Blaze

“A “scuttlebutt” was a water cask around which the seamen gossiped while waiting for their rations. A ship was “three sheets to the wind” when the lines to the sails broke and the vessel pitched drunkenly out of control. To “turn a blind eye” became a popular expression after Vice-Admiral Nelson deliberately placed his telescope against his blind eye to ignore his superior’s signal flag to retreat.”
― David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

“Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea,” one sailor recalled. “The man is near you—at your side—you hear his voice, and in an instant he is gone, and nothing but a vacancy shows his loss….There is always an empty berth in the forecastle, and one man wanting when the small night watch is mustered. There is one less to take the wheel, and one less to lay out with you upon the yard. You miss his form, and the sound of his voice, for habit had made them almost necessary to you, and each of your senses feels the loss.”
― David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

“Mathematicians can be persnickety about logical niceties. We're the kind of people who think it's funny, when asked, "Do you want soup or salad with that?" to reply, "Yes.”
― Jordan Ellenberg, How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking

“You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one.”
― Mikhail Tal