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There was a sound of something spreading as an area of seven flagstones became hidden from view beneath a catalyptic mass of wine-drenched blubber.
This is the phrase that really sticks in my head from tge bbc radio adaptation of Gormenghast in the early 80s, with Sting as Steerpike, that made me realise the descriptive power of language .
“I have no problem with god - it's his fan club that scares me.”
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“it was widely known that the gene-carrying chromosomes within cells contained DNA, but most biologists thought that DNA was too simple and boring a molecule to be responsible for such a complex phenomenon as heredity.”
― What is Life?: Understand Biology In Five Steps
― What is Life?: Understand Biology In Five Steps
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
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“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognizes infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it. It is not selfish to think for oneself. A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one's neighbor that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him. A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.”
― The Soul of Man & Prison Writings
― The Soul of Man & Prison Writings
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?”
― Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder
― Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder
Andrew’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Andrew’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
145 books
|
120 friends
17 books
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318 friends
55 books
|
79 friends
48 books
|
7 friends
3 books
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45 friends
1 book
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3 friends
0 books
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1 friend
39 books
|
29 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Art, Classics, Cookbooks, Fiction, Graphic novels, Music, Non-fiction, Science, Science fiction, and Humanism
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