Matt

“INTERVIEWER
Have you ever been envious of another writer?

WODEHOUSE
No, never. I’m really such a voracious reader that I’m only too grateful to get some stuff I can read.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

“Once, in the South Atlantic, I saw a whaler in the process of killing a female accompanied by one of her offspring. The harpooner, a red-bearded Irishman, kept putting harpoons into the whale. The intestines were hanging out of the mangled body of the huge animal, and nevertheless it continued to swim back and forth in the water made red by its blood, trying with its shattered body to shield the little whale. Since then, and the sight of that harpooner's freckled face as he laughed derisively, and of that poor creature, faithful to the end, I have believed in the existence of Satan as I believe in the existence of God.”
― Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, Diary of a Man in Despair

“On my way out of [Atlantic City] at quarter after seven in the morning, a young pump jockey at the gas station [...] mentioned that another man had lost $20,000 at Trop World a few hours earlier and had to be dragged out of the casino kicking and screaming. I asked if this happened a lot. "Man," he said, "there's a whole world of losers out there, and sooner or later they all end up here. Only they don't think they're losers. When they find out, it's like the surprise of their life.”
― James Howard Kunstler, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape

“The question of where Europe ends and Asia begins has troubled many people over the years, but here's a rule of thumb: if someone can pose as an expert on the country in question without knowledge of the relevant language, it's part of Asia.”
― B.R. Myers