Pghbekka

“We are a couple of messy bisexuals.” “Speak for yourself. I didn’t cheat on anyone. You’re a messy bisexual. I’m an untidy queer.” “I’m sorry that you’re stuck here in my attic with my bullshit.” “Your attic is fine. Your bullshit is fine. But you know, Lee, what you did to Vincent… it’s everything people say is shitty about us. That we can’t make up our minds. That we can’t be with one person. That we cheat.” “That’s not fair,” I say. I’m not trying to defend what I’ve done, but I also don’t think I should be expected to model ideal bisexual behavior—whatever that is—at all times. When straight people cheat, they aren’t failing the whole straight population. They are just failing one person.”
― Mary McCoy, Indestructible Object

“Science is not a matter of belief. Science does not care whether you believe in it or not. Science will continue to do what science will do, free from morality, free from ethical concerns, and most of all, free from the petty worry that it will not be believed. Belief has shaped the history of human accomplishment—we believe we can, and so we do—but belief has never changed the natural world. The mountain does not vanish because we believe it should. The unicorn does not appear because we believe it will.”
― Mira Grant, Into the Drowning Deep

“When a lexicographer says “unless…” in the middle of defining, you should turn out the lights and go home, first making sure you’ve left them a supply of water and enough nonperishable food to last several days. “Unless…” almost always marks the beginning of a wild lexical goose chase.”
― Kory Stamper, Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries

“We think of English as a fortress to be defended, but a better analogy is to think of English as a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don't want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned electrical sockets. We dress it in fancy clothes and tell it to behave, and it comes home with its underwear on its head and wearing someone else's socks. As English grows, it lives its own life, and this is right and healthy. Sometimes English does exactly what we think it should; sometimes it goes places we don't like and thrives there in spite of all our worrying. We can tell it to clean itself up and act more like Latin; we can throw tantrums and start learning French instead. But we will never really be the boss of it. And that's why it flourishes.”
― Kory Stamper, Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries