Elise Taylor

“Oxygen was – to quote Mikhail Elesco, the team’s top geologist – a needy bastard that couldn’t stand not to be in a relationship, no matter how toxic.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Memory

“In his opinion, faith was generally for people who were bad at math.”
― James S.A. Corey, Persepolis Rising

“A student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead, “What is the earliest sign of civilization?” The student expected her to say a clay pot, a grinding stone, or maybe a weapon.

Margaret Mead thought for a moment, then she said, “A healed femur.”

A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. A healed femur shows that someone cared for the injured person, did their hunting and gathering, stayed with them, and offered physical protection and human companionship until the injury could mend.

Mead explained that where the law of the jungle—the survival of the fittest—rules, no healed femurs are found. The first sign of civilization is compassion, seen in a healed femur.”
― Ira Byock

“I have built a you within me, or you have. I wonder what of me there is in you.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War