Farfoff

“In the nineteenth century, cholera struck the most modern, prosperous cities in the world, killing rich and poor alike, from Paris and London to New York City and New Orleans. In 1836, it felled King Charles X in Italy; in 1849, President James Polk in New Orleans; in 1893, the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in St. Petersburg.”
― Sonia Shah, Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Coronaviruses and Beyond

“It is not now raining.” Inspired by his extreme verbal parsimony, his fellow students at St. John’s invented a unit of measurement for the number of words that a person might utter in conversation, christening the minimum rate one “Dirac”—one word per hour.”
― Steve Silberman, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

“Relatively few people in town were paying close attention to the issue; a much bigger controversy in the local papers during that long, hot summer was whether flying the United Nations flag at town hall was a gesture of international cooperation or “evidence of communist conspiracy,” as one newspaper article put it.16”
― Dan Fagin, Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation

“Still writing tales?” he said. I told him yes and he nodded once, returning his attention to the snake. Very few of the boys I grew up with had finished high school, but they accepted that I was a writer. I was merely doing what other men did—following in my father’s footsteps. Sonny was a plumber. The son of a local drunk was the town drunk in two towns. Sons of soldiers joined the army. That I had become a writer was perfectly normal.”
― Chris Offutt, My Father, the Pornographer: A Memoir