John

“We were an irreligious crowd”
― Ian McEwan, What We Can Know

“Mentally”
― Ian McEwan, What We Can Know

“The angiosperms include the oaks and the ash, the Parrotia and the baobab, the eucalyptus and the laurels, the palm trees and the rhododendrons. The angio-, or container part of their name, denotes the fact that they have a carpel: a fleshy, adapted leaf that folds around the ovaries, meaning that pollen has to penetrate through some of the plant before it can produce seed. This was an extraordinarily powerful mechanism, because it gave the female plant—which here simply means the plant that will produce seeds and is therefore investing most nutrients in the potential offspring—the power of selection, a dogma-defying ability to determine its offspring’s DNA and therefore influence evolution.”
― Harriet Rix, The Genius of Trees: How They Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World

“What I’ve hoped for is the clarity Albert Camus proposed for troubled times.”
― Ian McEwan, What We Can Know