Rob Port

“Men imagine that the choices before them are theirs to make. But we are free to act only upon what is given. Choice is lost in the maze of generations and each act in that maze is itself an enslavement for it voids every alternative and binds one ever more tightly into the constraints that make a life.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

“To “toe the line” derives from when boys on a ship were forced to stand still for inspection with their toes on a deck seam. To “pipe down” was the boatswain’s whistle for everyone to be quiet at night, and “piping hot” was his call for meals. 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

“do you know what a cliché is? It’s a story so fine and thrilling that it’s grown old in its hopeful retelling.”
― Patrick deWitt, French Exit

“So many of the bad things that happen in the world come from people pretending to be something they’re not.”
― Paul Murray, The Bee Sting