Steve Walker

“The universe is indifferent to our fates. This was the crushing burden that the character took with him as he struggled through the surf toward survival or extinction. The universe just does not give a shit.”
― Dan Simmons, Endymion

“If dark energy is a cosmological constant, the equation of state parameter w equals -1 exactly, and we get a Heat Death. If w is at all lower than -1, even one part in a billion billions, dark energy is phantom dark energy, capable of tearing the universe apart. Because it’s impossible to ever measure anything with complete, uncertainty-free precision, the best we may ever be able to do is say that if the Big Rip does occur, it will be so far in the future that all structure in the cosmos will have decayed already by the time it happens.”
― Katie Mack, The End of Everything [Astrophysically Speaking]

“In merchandising, the development of franchising (McDonald’s, Holiday Inns) has made it possible to go from coast to coast having identical experiences eating and sleeping. You can go all the way on the interstate highway system and never really see the particularities of a town. A sport like baseball, although a small universe of rule-regulated behavior, is actually a refreshing realm of diversity. The games are like snowflakes. They are perishable and no one is exactly like any other. But to see the diversities of snowflakes you must look closely and carefully. Baseball, more than any other sport, is enjoyed by the knowledgeable. The pleasures it gives to fans are proportional to the fans’ sense of history. Its beauties are visible to the trained eye, which is the result of a long apprenticeship in appreciation.”
― George F. Will, Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball

“Relief pitchers have only recently begun receiving proper recognition. When Whitey Ford rose at the New York Baseball Writers banquet to receive the Cy Young Award for the 1961 season, he said he had a nine-minute speech but would deliver only seven minutes of it. He would let Luis Arroyo, who had saved so many of Ford’s wins, do the final two minutes.”
― George F. Will, Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball