Penelope

“Among the relics of the Anthropocene, therefore, will be the fallout of our atomic age, the crushed foundations of our cities, the spines of millions of intensively farmed ungulates, and the faint outlines of some of the billions of plastic bottles we produce each year – the strata that contain them precisely dateable with reference to the product-design archives of multinationals. Philip Larkin famously proposed that what will survive of us is love. Wrong. What will survive of us is plastic, swine bones and lead-207, the stable isotope at the end of the uranium-235 decay chain.”
― Robert Macfarlane, Underland: A Deep Time Journey

“The more that is taken away, the more clearly will thou see what is left behind. It is true of Magnus sleeping there in his disguise of fiery fur, and it is true of worldly possessions, and it is true of the human heart.”
― Sara Donati, Lake in the Clouds

“From afar, Flynn had developed a certain affinity with the Lion and the Unicorn. He was, he felt, himself a figure of straw, insubstantial and unenduring.”
― Kate Atkinson, Our Noble Selves

“When you stopped to think about it, he reflected, there weren't many things in life one truly needed. To want too much was worse than greed: it was stupidity - a waste of precious time and effort.”
― Tad Williams, The Dragonbone Chair