Blake Ellis

“it seems to him that what they call civilization is, in truth, a storm in waiting. Powerful, protean and perfectly destructive, sooner or later it will burst free of its barriers and engulf everything in its insatiable path.”
― Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

“Hatred is a poison served in three cups. The first is when people despise those they desire—because they want to have them in their possession. It’s all out of hubris! The second is when people loathe those they do not understand. It’s all out of fear! Then there is the third kind—when people hate those they have hurt.” “But why?” “Because the tree remembers what the axe forgets.” “What does that mean?” “It means it’s not the harmer who bears the scars, but the one who has been harmed.”
― Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

“Dr. Sylvia Earle, especially as recounted in Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans. Helen Czerski’s The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Works got me thinking larger. And the symphonic cuttlefish comes from Peter Godfrey-Smith’s extraordinary Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness.”
― Richard Powers, Playground

“Play was evolution’s way of building brains, and any creature with a brain as developed as a giant oceanic manta sure used it. If you want to make something smarter, teach it to play.”
― Richard Powers, Playground