Brian Switek · 320 pages
Rating: (575 votes)
“This area produces a protein given the whimsical name Sonic Hedgehog,”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
“If an organised body is not in the situation and circumstances best adapted to its sustenance and propagation, then, in conceiving an indefinite variety among the individuals of that species, we must be assured, that, on the one hand, those which depart most from the best adapted constitution, will be most liable to perish, while, on the other hand, those organised bodies, which most approach to the best constitution for the present circumstances, will be best adapted to continue, in preserving themselves and multiplying the individuals of their race.”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
“In order to approximate dinosaurian physiology, the trio of scientists carried out the unenviable task of sticking thermometers in the cloacae of American alligators.”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
“the difficulties of making temperature experiments [on fully grown alligators] would be great and can be best left to the imagination.”)”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
“Distinguishing the first true birds from their feathered dinosaur relations has become increasingly difficult. If we define birds as warm-blooded, feathered, bipedal animals that lay eggs, then many coelurosaurs are birds, so we have to take another approach.”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
“As new discoveries continued to accumulate it became apparent that almost every group of coelurosaurs had feathered representatives, from the weird secondarily herbivorous forms such as Beipiaosaurus to Dilong, an early relative of Tyrannosaurus. It is even possible that, during its early life, the most famous of the flesh-tearing dinosaurs may have been covered in a coat of dino-fuzz.”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
“The places paleontologists looked for fossils and how those fossils have been interpreted have been influenced by politics and culture, reminding us that while there is a reality that science allows us to approach the process of science is a human endeavor.”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
Brian Switek
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“By such mutual refrainings – I assume they are mutual since there must be things I do that she doesn’t like – we manage to preserve a reasonably frictionless equilibrium.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from The Edible Woman
“This way," she said, veering toward the roof's edge. "Can you jump?"
"Oh, I can jump!"
"Then jump!”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Skybreaker
“Listen carefully. Listen and you'll hear everything you need to know.
a nightmare is a different case entirely, it's a box of black shadows and vicious red stars, something to keep carefully closed, lest the ground below be broken in two
now it's a time like any other, long minutes, tedious seconds, nothing more than flat time moving forward, like it or not
it is impossible to stop some things, rainfall, for instance, and love at first sight, and the slow and steady path of sorrow
the cruel and desperate variety that always accompanies yearning for someone you're bound to lose
when you lose somebody you think you've lost the whole world as well, but that's not the way things turn out in the end. eventually, you pick yourself up and look out the window, and once you do you see everything that was there before the world ended is out there still. there are the same apple trees and the same songbirds, and over our heads, the very same sky that shine like heaven, so far above us qw can never hope to reach such heights
sometimes those who love you best are the ones who leave you behind
hearts were made for being broken. there's really no way around it if you want to be a human being.
...consider what people are capable of going through in this world and how much courage it's possible to have
when someone kisses you with everything they feel, you don't stop thinking about it for a very long time.
you didn't think you were going to get married and live happily ever after did you? you're not that stupid...
a book of hope that has never been finished, a list of dreams left undone.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary
“Your strengths are your weaknesses.
The more you try to protect something, the more vulnerable you make it.”
― Don Winslow, quote from Savages
“Kaylee do you know why you are here?"
"Yeah. Because the doors are locked.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from My Soul to Lose
Alpha
The Hour of the Star
Devoured
Nothing Left to Lose
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