Mary Alex Pooler

“I’ve always said there are no mysteries, only things we don’t yet know; but lately I’ve thought not even knowledge takes all strangeness from the world.”
― Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent

“What are Christians?” “The people in the churches.” “Yes, I know. But why do Christians give money to strangers?” He was getting a little peeved. “It’s just what Christians do. They give things away. They’re not like normal people.” I sighed. “That makes no sense.” The ex-convict tried to explain, but I could see even he didn’t understand what he was saying. In North Korea, there was no concept of doing things for other people out of kindness. Unconditional love was not something I was familiar with. You did things because of family obligation, or because of hunger or greed, or because there was no other choice. But what he was describing—people freely giving their hard-earned cash to complete strangers—was plain crazy. We changed the subject. But the ex-convict’s stories stayed in my mind. I thought of Christians as bizarre people, almost another species. I wanted to meet them, touch them, to confirm that such creatures existed.”
― Joseph Kim, Under the Same Sky: A Memoir of Survival, Hope, and Faith

“But is your faith not all strangeness and mystery—all blood, and brimstone—all seeing nothing in the dark, stumbling, making out dim shapes with your hands?” “You speak as if we were in the Dark Ages still, as if Essex still burned its witches! No—ours is a faith of enlightenment and clarity: I am not stumbling—I am running with patience the race that is set before me—there is a lamp on my path!”
― Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent

“No one would choose this sort of painful adolescence, but the fact is that the solitude of Woz’s teens, and the single-minded focus on what would turn out to be a lifelong passion, is typical for highly creative people.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking