Sami and I had exactly one day together in the old world. On Tuesday the jihadists came to our front door and knocked down our buildings. Our new world was hijacked planes, anthrax, and Afghanistan. Then we had snipers inside the Beltway. Then came I...
Our visual field, the entire view of what we can see when we look out into the world, is divided into billions of tiny spots or pixels. Each pixel is filled with atoms and molecules that are in vibration. The retinal cells in the back of our eyes det...
Listen to me you piece of shit, if you ever give the press information about me, my parents or even breathe a word about me to anyone ever again, I swear to god I will make it my mission to make your life a living hell. And, believe me I’ll do it w...
Within a couple of weeks of starting the Ph.D. program, though, she discovered that she'd booked passage on a sinking ship. There aren't any jobs, the other students informed her; the profession's glutted with tenured old men who won't step aside for...
Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist’s business is lying. The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you wh...
But nothing will help quite so much as just keeping quiet, talking with other people as little as possible, with yourself as much as possible. For conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insinuating and insidious something that elicits secrets ...
Much of our food system depends on our not knowing much about it, beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner; cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing. And it's a short way from not knowing who's at the other end of your food chain to...
The Mommy Mystique tells us that we are the luckiest women in the world -- the freest, with the most choices, the broadest horizons, the best luck, and the most wealth. It says we have the knowledge and know-how to make "informed decisions" that will...
Whether you realize it or not, you are a theologian. You come to a book like this with a working theology, an existing understanding of God. Whether you are an agnostic or a fundamentalist — or something in between — you have a working theology t...
Marx wrote about finance and industry all his life but he only knew two people connected with financial and industrial processes. One was his uncle in Holland, Lion Philips, a successful businessman who created what eventually became the vast Philips...
Slowly, but steadily, my feelings did start to change- feelings about myself as a woman and feelings about what sexuality really is and what it really isn't. I -like most everyone who identified as gay or lesbian -felt very comfortable, very at home ...
One of the most curious aspects of human psychology is an omnipresent and persistent habit to seek information from the worst possible sources. When seeking relationship advice, humans speak to their single friends instead of happy couples who have b...
For this reason the gentleman will employ a man on a distant mission and observe his degree of loyalty, will employ him close at hand and observe his degree of respect. He will hand him troublesome affairs and observe how well he manages them, will s...
Puppet Master: I refer to myself as an intelligent life form because I am sentient and I am able to recognize my own existence, but in my present state I am still incomplete. I lack the most basic processes inherent in all living organisms: reproduci...
John Cairncross: What's wrong? Alan Turing: What if... what if I don't fancy being with Joan in that way? John Cairncross: Because you're a homosexual? I suspected. Alan Turing: Sh- should I tell her that I've had affairs with men? John Cairncross: Y...
Tobacco Lawyer: Dr. Wigand, I am instructing you not to answer that question in accordance to the terms of the contractual obligations undertaken by you not to disclose any information about your work at the Brown and Williamson tobacco company, and ...
Lt. Gen. George Miller: 12:30. Bob Adriano: Hold on. General? Yeah... Secretary Linton Barwick asked me to let you know that his last meeting looks like it's overrunning, he sends his apologies. Lt. Gen. George Miller: When will he be here? Bob Adria...
Vinny Gambini: Sheriff Farley, uh... what'd you find out? Sheriff Dean Farley: On a hunch, I took it upon myself to check out if there was any information on a '63 Pontiac Tempest stolen or abandoned recently. This computer readout confirms that two ...
William 'Bill' Pogue, CAPCOM: Aquarius, watch that middle gimbal. We don't want you tumbling off into space. Jim Lovell: Freddo, inform Houston I'm well aware of the God-damned gimbals! Fred Haise, Sr.: [calmly] Roger that, Houston. Jim Lovell: I don...
It is an old and wise caution, that when our neighbor's house is on fire, we ought to take care of our own. For tho', blessed be God, I live in a government where liberty is well understood, and freely enjoy'd; yet experience has shown us all that ba...
{ } Despite their opposing religious views, the old revivalist on his deathbed asked to read to him from the black book clutched to his chest. relented, took the book, and was surprised to discover that it wasn't the Bible. It was describing the nobl...
