Samuel

“His name was Anderson and he had little gift for communication. Like most technicians, he had a
terror and a contempt for speculation. The inductive leap was not for him. He dug a step and pulled himself up one single step, the way a man climbs the last shoulder of a mountain. He had great contempt, born of fear, for the Hamiltons, for they all half believed they had wings—and they got some bad falls that way.
Anderson never fell, never slipped back, never flew. His steps moved slowly, slowly upward, and in the end, it is said, he found what he wanted—color film. He married Una, perhaps, because she had little humor, and this reassured him. Una wrote bleak letters without joy but also without self-pity. She was well and she hoped her family was well.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time...give it, give it all, give it now.”
― Annie Dillard

“I have been feeling very clearheaded lately and what I want to write about today is the sea. It contains so many colors. Silver at dawn, green at noon, dark blue in the evening. Sometimes it looks almost red. Or it will turn the color of old coins. Right now the shadows of clouds are dragging across it, and patches of sunlight are touching down everywhere. White strings of gulls drag over it like beads.

It is my favorite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel.”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See