Miss West is never idle. Below, in the big after-room, she does her own laundering. Nor will she let the steward touch her father's fine linen. In the main cabin she has installed a sewing-machine. All hand-stitching, and embroidering, and fancy work...
The first thing I encountered on entering the museum was the earliest steam engine built in England. As I walked on, marveling at each successive mechanical wonder, I realized that I was witnessing the history of machinery, as if on parade, from its ...
The imaginary child implied by the toys on exhibit in Hong Kong was impossible to reconcile with my actual child. I didn't think I'd like to meet the imaginary child they implied. That child was mad with contradictions. He was a machine-gun-toting, C...
What makes the prospect of death distinctive in the modern age is the background of permanent technological and sociological revolution against which it is set, and which serves to strip us of any possible faith in the permanence of our labours. Our ...
Our society has long treated men as machines, as bodies expendable in the name of progress or profit. Men have overruled their pain and soul's delight, taught to think of themselves as "mechanisms". Such an estrangement wounds very deeply; it has gon...
The plane had lost power in all three engines, dropped from thirty-four thousand feet to twelve thousand feet. Something like four miles. When the steep glide began, people rose, fell, collided, swam in their seats. Then the serious screaming and moa...
Aw, come on, admit it—you feel like Cinderella, don’t you?” “No, Darren, I don’t. And do you know why?” “No, sugar, you tell me why.” “Because I’m a man. I’ve got a big fat one and I like to fuck other guys.” Darren was laughi...
As we watch, in fascination, the arresting replicas of reality on our television screen, there may sit, in the same room, a telephone and a phonograph. On our bedside table stands a radio; another accompanies us in our car. These strange machines nev...
The media are desperately afraid of being accused of bias. And that's partly because there's a whole machine out there, an organized attempt to accuse them of bias whenever they say anything that the Right doesn't like. So rather than really try to r...
English has so many words that do not exist in Sharchhop, but they are mostly nouns, mostly things: machine, airplane, wristwatch. Sharchhop, on the other hand, reveals a culture of material economy but abundant, intricate familial ties and social re...
For nearly thirty years the powerful propaganda machines of Stalinism worked furiously to expunge Trotsky's name from the annals of the revolution, or to leave it there only as the synonym for arch-traitor. To the present Soviet generation, and not o...
Annoying Man at Phone Booth: Excuse me... Hey, EXCUSE ME. I don't know if you have noticed it or not, but there are other people waiting to use the phone here. Bill Foster: There are? Annoying Man at Phone Booth: Yeah. Bill Foster: There's other peop...
Alan Turing: [Explaining the Turing Test] "The Imitation Game." Detective Robert Nock: Right, that's... that's what it's about? Alan Turing: Would you like to play? Detective Robert Nock: Play? Alan Turing: It's a game. A test of sorts. For determini...
Nemo Nobody adult: [to/about Elise] I often have this dream. In prehistoric times, I can hear you screaming. I chase the bear and you're not afraid anymore, but when I wake up, there's no bear... but you're still afraid. And I'm not a bear hunter. I'...
Nikola Tesla: Mr. Angier, have you considered the cost of such a machine? Robert Angier: Price is not an object. Nikola Tesla: Perhaps not, but have you considered the *cost*? Robert Angier: I'm not sure I follow. Nikola Tesla: Go home. Forget this t...
Walt Disney: You know, you've never been to Disneyland, that's the happiest place on earth. P.L. Travers: I cannot tell you how uninterested - no, positively sickened I am at the thought of going to see your dollar-printing machine. Walt Disney: Well...
Dr. Lappe: We have people to service these machines. Joe Turner: These things are really pretty simple - they just look complicated. Dr. Lappe: Mr. Turner, I wonder if you're entirely happy here. Joe Turner: Within obvious limits, yes sir. Dr. Lappe:...
[to Senator Kelly] Magneto: Are you a God-fearing man, Senator? That is such a strange phrase. I've always thought of God as a teacher; a bringer of light, wisdom, and understanding. You see, I think what you really fear is me. Me and my kind. The Br...
Dr. Emmett Brown: [Doc Brown is trying to read Marty's mind with a geodesic helmet and a suction cup] Erm, you want me to make a donation to the Coastguard Youth Auxilliary? Marty McFly: Doc, [pulls off suction cup] Marty McFly: I'm from the future. ...
The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn't have to be plug...
A man is lying under machine-gun fire on a street in an embattled city. He looks at the pavement and sees a very amusing sight: the cobblestones are standing upright like the quills of a porcupine. The bullets hitting against their edges displace and...
