#w

What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#literature #reading #words #writing #funny

We need to talk to you," said Carrot. "Do you want a lawyer?" "No, I ate already." "You *eat* lawyers?" said Carrot. "Brick gave him an empty stare until sufficient brain had been mustered. "What d'y'call dem fings, dey kinda crumble when you eat dem?" he ventured. Carrot looked at Detritus and Angua, to see if there was going to be any help there. "*Could* be lawyers," he conceded. "Dey go soggy if you dips 'em in somfing," said Brick, as if undertaking a forensic examination. "More likely to be biscuits, then?" Carrot suggested. "Could be. Inna packet wi' all paper on. Yeah, bisuits. ↗

— Terry Pratchett Thud

#humor #lawyers #science-fiction #humor

Today will still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from. Humanity's deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in. ↗

— Stephen Hawking

#physics #science #space #universe #science

There were mysterious questions, but a mysterious answer was a contradiction in terms. ↗

— Eliezer Yudkowsky

#mysterious #question #science #science

What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello? We spy on whales and on interstellar radio objects; we starve ourselves and pray till we're blue. ↗

— Annie Dillard

#science #space #whale #religion

But I should not have to explain to you how important it is for science and simplicity to coexist. One must not fear to be a little child again, when times of wonder are at hand. ↗

— Jody Lynn Nye

#simplicity #wonder #science

Many physicists these days sound like the Delphic oracle - with equations. ↗

— John Twelve Hawks

#oracles #physics #science #science

It never ceases to amaze me how prosaic, pedestrian, unimaginative people can persistently pontificate about classical grammatical structure as though it's fucking rocket science. These must be the same people who hate Picasso, because he couldn't keep the paint inside the lines and the colors never matched the numbers. ↗

— Abbe Diaz

#structure #writing #science

science devises ever bloodier means of war until humanity’s powers of destruction overcome our powers of creation and our civilisation drives itself to extinction. ↗

— David Mitchell

#science #war #science

In the new century science will defeat famine, boredom, and the plague, but . . . vital knowledge will become so elevated that nobody will know how anything works. . . . the good news is that everybody will be empowered; the bad news is nobody will understand why. ↗

— Mark Christensen

#science #science