146 books
—
612 voters
“Thermodynamic miracles... events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing.
And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter... Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold... that is the crowning unlikelihood. The thermodynamic miracle.
But...if me, my birth, if that's a thermodynamic miracle... I mean, you could say that about anybody in the world!.
Yes. Anybody in the world. ..But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget... I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from the another's vantage point. As if new, it may still take our breath away. Come...dry your eyes. For you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. Dry your eyes... and let's go home.”
― Watchmen
And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter... Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold... that is the crowning unlikelihood. The thermodynamic miracle.
But...if me, my birth, if that's a thermodynamic miracle... I mean, you could say that about anybody in the world!.
Yes. Anybody in the world. ..But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget... I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from the another's vantage point. As if new, it may still take our breath away. Come...dry your eyes. For you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. Dry your eyes... and let's go home.”
― Watchmen
The Sundered Book Club
— 161 members
— last activity Mar 21, 2024 08:53AM
A band of dislocated adventurers who are starting over in a new land. Formerly known as the WOTC novels book club, The Sundering has stolen our home, ...more
The Faithful and the Fallen
— 737 members
— last activity Dec 05, 2023 05:54AM
This is a group for discussing The Faithful and the Fallen series by John Gwynne. We will also be taking part in read alongs at various times in the y ...more
The Banished Lands and The Bloodsworn
— 1425 members
— last activity Jun 04, 2025 04:19PM
A group to discuss all books written within The Faithful and the Fallen and Of Blood and Bone, as well as The Bloodsworn, by John Gwynne. We will disc ...more
The Malazan Fallen
— 1604 members
— last activity Dec 01, 2024 05:29PM
For those of us who have fallen for the Malazan series and need a place to read or re-read, discuss and dream. We did a massive reading of the Book o ...more
Rob’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Rob’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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