June

“Faces are constantly moving, and your brain relies on many different factors at once—body posture, voice, the overall situation, your lifetime of experience—to figure out which movements are meaningful and what they mean.”
― Lisa Feldman Barrett, How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain

“When we face our limits, when we push ourselves beyond our comfort zone and to the edge of what it is we can handle, we become more connected to the moment. These challenges focus our minds, sharpen our awareness, and heighten our senses, ensuring that our minds are not preoccupied with unnecessary worries and concerns. It is in these moments that we transcend ourselves, finding a sense of clarity rarely experienced outside intense meditation.”
― Brock Bastian, The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living

“protection is not guaranteed because some insects (known as parasitoids) specialise in developing in, or on, the body of the gall-inducing insect while it is in the gall. Other insects (inquilines) invade the gall chamber and force the gall-inducing insect to share its home with these intruders. There are also thieving insects (kleptoparasites) that take over the gall and displace the original gall-inducing insect.”
― Rosalind Blanche, Life in a Gall: The Biology and Ecology of Insects that Live in Plant Galls

“Even when we have an inkling that we are speaking in a specialized lingo, we may be reluctant to slip back into plain speech. It could betray to our peers the awful truth that we are still greenhorns, tenderfoots, newbies. And if our readers do know the lingo, we might be insulting their intelligence by spelling it out. We would rather run the risk of confusing them while at least appearing to be sophisticated than take a chance at belaboring the obvious while striking them as naïve or condescending.”
― Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century