Andrew Wilson

“Taiwan complained that in late December 2019 it had given important clues about human-to-human transmission to the World Health Organization – but as late as mid-January, the WHO was reassuringly tweeting that China had found no evidence of human-to-human transmission. (Taiwan is not a member of the WHO, because China claims sovereignty over the territory and demands that it should not be treated as an independent state. It’s possible that this geopolitical obstacle led to the alleged delay.)8”
― Tim Harford, How to Make the World Add Up : Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers

“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.”
― Mervyn Peake, The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

“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.”
― Mark Twain

“Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic.”
― Daniel C. Dennett, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking