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"Alright, already this audiobook sounds like the Narrator from Hitchhiker‘s which I think is a symbiosis of the writing and the voice actor so I‘m in" — 13 hours, 51 min ago
"Alright, already this audiobook sounds like the Narrator from Hitchhiker‘s which I think is a symbiosis of the writing and the voice actor so I‘m in" — 13 hours, 51 min ago
“Sometimes, focusing on survival is necessary. Sometimes, it is just an excuse for selfishness.”
― The Space Between Worlds
― The Space Between Worlds
“No matter what the universe has in store, it cannot take away from the fact that you were born. You’ll have some joy and some pain, and all the other experiences that make up what it’s like to be a tiny part of a grand cosmos. No matter what happens next, you were here. And even when any record of our individual lives is lost to the ages, that won’t detract from the fact that we were. We lived. We were part of the enormity. All the great and terrible parts of being alive, the shocking sublime beauty and heartbreak, the monotony, the interior thoughts, the shared pain and pleasure. It really happened. All of it. On this little world that orbits a yellow star out in the great vastness. And that alone is cause for celebration.”
― For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World
― For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World
“But why should we have to be useful and for what reason? Who divided the world into useless and useful, and by what right? Does a thistle have no right to life, or a Mouse that eats the grain in a warehouse? What about Bees and Drones, weeds and roses? Whose intellect can have had the audacity to judge who is better, and who worse? A large tree, crooked and full of holes, survives for centuries without being cut down, because nothing could possibly be made out of it. This example should raise the spirits of people like us. Everyone knows the profit to be reaped from the useful, but nobody knows the benefit to be gained from the useless.”
― Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
― Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
“I would never accept a world where Hank might be told: “I’m sorry, but while your cancer has a 92% cure rate when treated properly, there just aren’t adequate resources in the world to make that treatment available to you.” That world would be so obviously and unacceptably unjust. So how can I live in a world where Henry and his family are told that? How can I accept a world where over a million people will die this year for want of a cure that has existed for nearly a century?”
―
―
“Now, the only song a woman knows is the song she learns at birth,
a sorrowin’ song, with the words all wrong, in the many tongues of Earth.
The things a woman wants to say, the tales she longs to tell . . .
they take all day in the tongues of Earth, and half of the night as well.
So nobody listens to what a woman says, except the men of power
who sit and listen right willingly, at a hundred dollars an hour . . .
sayin’ “Who on Earth would want to talk about such foolish things?”
Oh, the tongues of Earth don’t lend themselves to the songs a woman sings!
There’s a whole lot more to a womansong, a whole lot more to learn;
but the words aren’t there in the tongues of Earth, and there’s noplace else to turn. . . .
So the woman they talk, and the men they laugh, and there’s little a woman can say,
but a sorrowin’ song with the words all wrong, and a hurt that won’t go away.
The women go workin’ the manly tongues, in the craft of makin’ do, but the women that stammer, they’re everywhere, and the wellspoken ones are few. . . .
’Cause the only song a woman knows is the song she learns at birth;
a sorrowin’ song with the words all wrong, in the manly tongues of Earth.
(a 20th century ballad, set to an even older tune called “House of the Rising Sun”; this later form was known simply as “Sorrowin’ Song, With the Words All Wrong”)”
― Native Tongue
a sorrowin’ song, with the words all wrong, in the many tongues of Earth.
The things a woman wants to say, the tales she longs to tell . . .
they take all day in the tongues of Earth, and half of the night as well.
So nobody listens to what a woman says, except the men of power
who sit and listen right willingly, at a hundred dollars an hour . . .
sayin’ “Who on Earth would want to talk about such foolish things?”
Oh, the tongues of Earth don’t lend themselves to the songs a woman sings!
There’s a whole lot more to a womansong, a whole lot more to learn;
but the words aren’t there in the tongues of Earth, and there’s noplace else to turn. . . .
So the woman they talk, and the men they laugh, and there’s little a woman can say,
but a sorrowin’ song with the words all wrong, and a hurt that won’t go away.
The women go workin’ the manly tongues, in the craft of makin’ do, but the women that stammer, they’re everywhere, and the wellspoken ones are few. . . .
’Cause the only song a woman knows is the song she learns at birth;
a sorrowin’ song with the words all wrong, in the manly tongues of Earth.
(a 20th century ballad, set to an even older tune called “House of the Rising Sun”; this later form was known simply as “Sorrowin’ Song, With the Words All Wrong”)”
― Native Tongue
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