Peter Swanson

“Something always turned up. That was Tom's philosophy.”
― Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley

“There have been, of course, many other insatiable polymaths, and even the Renaissance produced other Renaissance Men. But none painted the Mona Lisa, much less did so at the same time as producing unsurpassed anatomy drawings based on multiple dissections, coming up with schemes to divert rivers, explaining the reflection of light from the earth to the moon, opening the still-beating heart of a butchered pig to show how ventricles work, designing musical instruments, choreographing pageants, using fossils to dispute the biblical account of the deluge, and then drawing the deluge. Leonardo was a genius, but more: he was the epitome of the universal mind, one who sought to understand all of creation, including how we fit into it.”
― Walter Isaacson, Leonardo Da Vinci

“Influenza delle stelle—the influence of the stars.”
― Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars

“There are some swims you do regret, Eleanor. The problem is, you never know until you take them.”
― Miranda Cowley Heller, The Paper Palace