Paul Ark

“Standing in the shadow of the most prodigious political and fund-raising apparatus the Democratic Party had ever seen, [Biden] felt like a stranger to it, as if he'd walked into an opulent wedding where he knew no one.”
― Mark Halperin, Double Down: Game Change 2012

“It was Bill Clinton who once pithily captured the contrast between the two parties when it came to selecting a presidential standard-bearer: "Democrats want to fall in love; Republicans just fall in line.”
― Mark Halperin, Double Down: Game Change 2012

“In a world of seven billion people, where every inch of land has been mapped, much of it developed, and too much of it destroyed, the sea remains the final unseen, untouched, and undiscovered wilderness, the planet’s last great frontier. There are no mobile phones down there, no e-mails, no tweeting, no twerking, no car keys to lose, no terrorist threats, no birthdays to forget, no penalties for late credit card payments, and no dog shit to step in before a job interview. All the stress, noise, and distractions of life are left at the surface. The ocean is the last truly quiet place on Earth.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“Statistically speaking, tracking tended to diminish learning and boost inequality wherever it was tried. In general, the younger tracking happened, the worse the entire country did on PISA. There seemed to be some kind of ghetto effect: once kids were labeled and segregated into the lower track, their learning slowed down.”
― Amanda Ripley, The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way