Jackmccullough

“There was a man once, a railway engineer, whose brain was run clean through by a metal rod, but he lived for many more years with that wound; needless to say, this came in quite handy for neuropsychology, as it proclaimed to all and sundry that we exist primarily through our brains. He didn’t die, but he changed completely. He became a different person, as the expression goes. Since who we are is dependent on our brains, let us proceed directly to our left, down the hall of brains. Here they are! Cream-colored anemones in solution, large and small, some brilliant and others that couldn’t count to two.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Flights

“I’d strike the sun if it insulted me.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Flights

“When a crew member mused aloud that such an extraordinary land must be inhabited, the next day they saw smoke over the bush. When they began to fear obstacles in securing provisions on land and to imagine it peopled by valiant savages, that same morning those savages appeared on the land—scary and frightening. Those beings had tattooed faces; they stuck out their tongues and shook their spears. To definitively demonstrate their advantage and immediately establish a hierarchy, the newcomers shot several savages—that’s when the explorers were attacked.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Flights

“Clearly I did not inherit whatever gene it is that makes it so that when you linger in a place you start to put down roots. I’ve tried, a number of times, but my roots have always been shallow; the littlest breeze could always blow me right over. I don’t know how to germinate, I’m simply not in possession of that vegetable capacity. I can’t extract nutrition from the ground, I am the anti-Antaeus. My energy derives from movement—from the shuddering of buses, the rumble of planes, trains’ and ferries’ rocking. I”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Flights