Hey Look, I Found Some More Words

When I'm reading a book and I come across something wonderful, I fold down the page. For this blog post, I pulled books off my shelf and chose five somethings that I wanted to share.

These are words which I have found remarkable enough or powerful enough or clever enough that they stand, in my opinion, as meaningful on their own. You might call these "quotes," but I wouldn't. As we are having this conversation in a blog, I thought we could all agree to be a bit more melodramatic about the whole affair.

Deal? Here we go.


"I believe in nature. Nature is my God. I don't believe in the hereafter. This world is where we get all our punishment."
- William F. C. Nindemann. Arctic explorer, Medal of Honor recipient, and all around badass. Excerpt is from the fascinating and heartbreaking book In The Kingdom of Ice

 "On one side of the river a tower of imperishable granite would be rising straight into the sunlight, while on the other side, mortal men would be descending beneath the tides and into the earth."
- David McCullough's narrative in his unexpectedly compelling book The Great Bridge, which details the massive and novel undertaking that was the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge at the end of the 19th century. 

"The noise of the impact, thundering round the planet at a thousand kilometres per hour, probably deafened every living creature not burned by the blast, suffocated by the wind-shock, or drowned by the 150-metro tsunami that raced around the literally boiling sea."
- The incomparable Richard Dawkins painting a picture of the event which likely killed the dinosaurs. From: The Ancestor's Tale, perhaps the most important nonfiction book you'll ever read. 

 "Simon Thibault would never die in a foolish gesture for Edith. On the contrary, he would take every cowardly recourse available to him to ensure that their lives were spent together."
- Ann Patchett's narration in the touching and inspired novel Bel Canto

"If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not."
- Francisco d'Anconia, a fictional protagonist from Atlas Shrugged. In this and The Fountainhead, author Ayn Rand creates characters endowed with the superpower of super integrity. 


Thank you for reading!

And I don't mean thank you for reading my blog post, I mean thank you for reading words. I hope you'll pick one of the books linked above and give them a shot. Or anything. Read anything; your brain will be better for it.