“The moon had broken up into seven large pieces, which inevitably became known as the Seven Sisters, and an uncountable number of smaller ones. Gradually the big ones acquired names. Doc Dubois was responsible for many of these. He gave them descriptive names that wouldn’t scare people. It wouldn’t do to call them Nemesis or Thor or Grond. So instead it was Potatohead, Mr. Spinny, Acorn, Peach Pit, Scoop, Big Boy, and Kidney Bean.”

—  Neal Stephenson , book Seveneves

"The Seven Sisters"; Book reviewers commonly compared the character DuBois Jerome Xavier Harris, Ph.D. (aka Doc Dubois or Doob) to Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Seveneves (2015), Part One

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The moon had broken up into seven large pieces, which inevitably became known as the Seven Sisters, and an uncountable …" by Neal Stephenson?
Neal Stephenson photo
Neal Stephenson 167
American science fiction writer 1959

Related quotes

Terry Pratchett photo
Brian Andreas photo

“When I first discovered the moon, he said, I gave it a different name. But everyone kept calling it the moon. The real name never caught on.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas

Anastas Mikoyan photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: "The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair." In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1930s, Education and the Social Order (1932), p. 31

Nigella Lawson photo

“It’s true that I wouldn’t have written the first book had my sister and mother been alive. It was my way of continuing our conversation. It’s also this Jewish thing of naming and remembering people, and I think there is a sense of keeping that side of life going.”

Nigella Lawson (1960) British food writer, journalist and broadcaster

As quoted in "England's It Girl" by Joe Dolce in Gourmet http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2001/04/englandsitgirl (April 2001)

Roger Ebert photo
Lucy Larcom photo

“I call them by familiar names,
As one by one draws nigh.”

Lucy Larcom (1824–1893) American teacher, poet, author

Poems (1869), A Strip of Blue (1870)
Context: Sometimes they seem like living shapes, —
The people of the sky, —
Guests in white raiment coming down
From heaven, which is close by;
I call them by familiar names,
As one by one draws nigh.

Kent Hovind photo

Related topics