Neil Shubin quotes

“Each galaxy, star, or person is the temporary owner of particles that have passed through the births and deaths of entities across vast reaches of time and space. The particles that make us have traveled billions of years across the universe; long after we and our planet are gone, they will be a part of other worlds.”
-- Neil Shubin

Source : Neil Shubin (2013). “The Universe Within: The Deep History of the Human Body”, p.33, Vintage

#Stars Quotes #Years Quotes #Other Worlds Quotes

“Take the entire 4.5-billion-year history of the earth and scale it down to a single year, with January 1 being the origin of the earth and midnight on December 31 being the present. Until June, the only organisms were single-celled microbes, such as algae, bacteria, and amoebae. The first animal with a head did not appear until October. The first human appears on December 31. We, like all the animals and plants that have ever lived, are recent crashers at the party of life on earth.”
-- Neil Shubin

#Party Quotes #Animal Quotes #Years Quotes

“We would never have scales, feathers, or breasts if we didn't have teeth in the first place.”
-- Neil Shubin

Source : Neil Shubin (2008). “Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body”, p.79, Vintage

#Firsts Quotes #Teeth Quotes #Scales Quotes

“We were not designed rationally, but are products of a convoluted history.”
-- Neil Shubin

Source : Neil Shubin (2008). “Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body”, p.186, Vintage

#Convoluted Quotes

“When the finely tuned balance among the different parts of bodies breaks down, the individual creature can die. A cancerous tumor, for example, is born when one batch of cells no longer cooperates with others. By dividing endlessly, or by failing to die properly, these cells can destroy the necessary balance that makes a living individual person. Cancers break the rules that allow cells to cooperate with one another. Like bullies who break cooperative societies, cancers behave in their own best interest until they kill their larger community, the human body.”
-- Neil Shubin

#Cancer Quotes #Cells Quotes #Community Quotes

“With respect to the ZPA, what kind of digit develops depends on how close the digit is to the source of Sonic hedgehog.”
-- Neil Shubin

Source : Neil Shubin (2008). “Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body”, p.57, Vintage

#Hedgehogs Quotes #Kind Quotes #Source Quotes

“We were staring at the origin of a piece of our own bodies inside this 375-million-year-old fish. We had a fish with a wrist.”
-- Neil Shubin

Source : Neil Shubin (2008). “Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body”, p.38, Vintage

#Years Quotes #Pieces Quotes #Body Quotes

“A GOOD old-fashioned sex tape pretty much guarantees you a star on Hollywood Boulevard.”

“Stars ink your fingers with a lexicon of flame blazing rare knowledge.”

Source : Aberjhani (2010). “The River of Winged Dreams”, p.67, Lulu.com

“Words are freeborn, and not the vassals of the gruff tyrants of prose to do their bidding only. They have the same right to dance and sing as the dewdrops have to sparkle and the stars to shine.”

Source : Abraham Coles (1885). “The Life and Teachings of Our Lord in Verse: Being a Complete Harmonized Exposition of the Four Gospels, with Original Notes Textual Index, Etc. Two Volumes in One, Vol. 1 -- The Evangel (second Edition), Vol. 2 -- The Light of the World”

“We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.”

“It came about as follows: over the years when I was involved in dianetics, I wrote the beginnings of many stories. I would get an idea, and then write the beginning, and then never touch it again.”

“One of the penalties of being president of the United States is that you must subsist for four years without drinking anything except Californian wine.”

Source : Christopher Morley (1920). “Hide and Seek”

“I read because I have to. It drives everything else from my mind. It lets me escape to find other world.”

Source : Adeline Yen Mah (2009). “Chinese Cinderella”, p.140, Penguin UK

“Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.”

Source : Alan Bennett (2008). “The Uncommon Reader”, p.13, Faber & Faber

“In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to, and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself.”

“This very night I am going to leave off tobacco! Surely there must be some other world in which this unconquerable purpose shall be realised.”