I asked, What is morning? and you said, When everyone who fucked with me is dead.
“As had happened with Julius Caesar, it turned out that the people of Rome were actually quite keen on Gaius and were not fans of presumptuous senators and magistrates making unilateral decisions about the nature of Roman government with swords. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, they believed, not from some farcical bloody murder. Strange men in corridors distributing stab wounds was no basis for a system of government.”
― A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome
― A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome
“not one girl I think
who looks on the light of the sun
will ever
have wisdom
like this”
― If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
who looks on the light of the sun
will ever
have wisdom
like this”
― If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
“We think of all those we have loved and still love, and it is the eternalness of that love that brings them to this place at this time. Our remembrances do not detract from our joy but reinforce it.”
― Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships
― Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships
“As the excellent Gretchen Weiners once said, ‘Brutus is just as cute as Caesar, right? Brutus is just as smart as Caesar, people totally like Brutus just as much as they like Caesar, and when did it become OK for one person to be the boss of everybody because that’s not what Rome is about!”
― A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome
― A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome
“Many of the institutions of modern society, after all, are designed to enhance our natural capacities for cooperation, by punishing non-cooperators and encouraging the rest of us to pursue even relatively mundane collective actions, like paying taxes and getting flu shots. And so, when pandemics unfold, it's not just because peculiarly aggressive pathogens have exploited passively oblivious victims or because we've inadvertently provided them with ample transmission opportunities. It's also because our deeply rooted, highly nuanced capacity for cooperative action failed.”
― Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond
― Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond
Justine’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Justine’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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