"Such was the strange world which was now home to some thousands of human beings. For all its harshness, they loved it and would not return to Earth, where life was easy and therefore offered little scope for enterprise or initiative."
--Arthur C. Clarke, EarthlightLOL. I just read "And why should anything be going on in a slaughterhouse like it's ( Read more... )

"Scientific research was the lifeblood of civilization; it was the one investment that could be guaranteed to pay dividends for eternity..."
--Arthur C. Clarke, Earthlight

How is it already the final hour??

I won't be finishing Earthlight. This past hour has been slow going, thanks to the tiny, cramped type used in this book and frequent ( Read more... )

"...Sadler happened to know that the only cow on the Moon lived in luxury at the Hipparchus Zoo. This was the sort of useless information his diabolically retentive mind was always picking up and refusing to disgorge."
--Arthur C. Clarke, EarthlightSo close to the end now, and I'm fighting to stay awake. Just before grabbing my computer, in a ( Read more... )

"As we looked with dreamy eyes out over the starlit ocean, from within the cavern faint music came to us softly through the darkness. Prosaic people would have said it was the sound of water lapping on the grotto walls. But we know that was not true. We knew it was the sweet soft voices of Ulysses' Sirens--singing."
--Richard Halliburton, The ( Read more... )

"I felt that, after all, nobody loved me, and decided in this blue mood to go off to the National Museum and eat worms."
--Richard Halliburton, The Glorious AdventureI sit here still, chilly and battling heavy eyelids. But I'm almost done with my Halliburton book, and I'm doing so well with this read-a-thon that I refuse to let it vanquish me this ( Read more... )

"He was such a lonely boy--only his flocks for company--so hungry for human association--and here was some one who had just dropped with the rain from the clouds to talk to him and tell him stories about the very roof over his head. His eyes said eloquently, 'Go on!'"
--Richard Halliburton, The Glorious AdventureSleepiness is starting to descend-- ( Read more... )

"He once said that for him there were only three good things in the world: one was to read poetry, one was to write poetry, and one was to live poetry. Had he lived poetry it would have mattered very little what else he did."
--Richard Halliburton, The Glorious AdventureCan there really be only six hours left? Time is starting to feel fluid and ( Read more... )

"Entirely ignoring the fact that the herd of bearded animals had just been sylvan demi-dieties, and recalling on the Capricornian propensity for linen and leather, I put all modesty aside and dashed in among them with bloodcurdling shouts to the heroic rescue of our pants."
--Richard Halliburton, The Glorious AdventureAlready more than seventeen ( Read more... )

"A pair of jaybirds came up from nowhere, whirled up on the blast like gaudy scraps of cloth or paper and lodged in the mulberries, where they swung in racuous tilt and recover, screaming into the wind that ripped their harsh cries onward and away like scraps of paper or of cloth in turn."
--William Faulkner, The Sound and the FuryThe read-a-thon ( Read more... )

"She was looking at me. Then all of a sudden she quit looking at me without moving her eyes at all. I knew she was going to lie."
--William Faulkner, The Sound and the FuryPizza eaten. Still reading. Nathan is almost finished with his Alanna book, and I'm almost finished with Faulkner. The light outside has disappeared and the breeze coming through ( Read more... )