Sabeen

“But still, it mattered, to talk about it, to think about it, to do the mental scrunching that allowed oneself to slowly let go of the idea of the stars as a celestial ceiling that rotated over one’s head each night. Because, as she said: “When you give up the stars you get a universe. So what happens when you give up the fish?”
― Lulu Miller, Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life

“This was what Darwin was trying so hard to get his readers to see: that there is never just one way of ranking nature’s organisms. To get stuck on a single hierarchy is to miss the bigger picture, the messy truth of nature, the “whole machinery of life.” The work of good science is to try to peer beyond the “convenient” lines we draw over nature.”
― Lulu Miller, Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life

“And speaking of cement barriers, there was once a man of some power in this country who wanted to build a “physically imposing” wall made of concrete or steel to protect against a force as inevitable, and enriching, as wind.”
― Lulu Miller, Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life

“I am not saying I’m always so good at looking at the world in this way. I cling to my certainty—teddy bear that it is—and my grudges stay intact; my fear stays charged, the earth flat. But then I read a news article about, say, a new organ discovered in the human body called the “interstitium.” There all along but somehow missed by millennia of humans. And the world cracks open a bit. I am reminded to do as Darwin did: to wonder about the reality waiting behind our assumptions.”
― Lulu Miller, Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life