“That, as far as she could tell, was the purpose of the religion she had been brought up in: It made people feel better when really horrible things happened, and it offered a repertoire of ceremonies that were used to add a touch of class to such goings-on as shacking up with someone and throwing dirt on a corpse.”

— Neal Stephenson , book Reamde

Day 4
Reamde (2011), Part I: Nine Dragons

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Neal Stephenson 167

American science fiction writer 1959

Tom Holt book Who's Afraid of Beowulf?

Who's Afraid of Beowulf? (1988)

“This gets better, it really does. The odd thing is, I actually think you might be telling the truth. If you were going to lie, you’d at least come up with something that made sense.”

Alastair Reynolds book Redemption Ark

Source: Redemption Ark (2002), Chapter 21 (p. 367)

“So that's my home town, and I come from a perfectly ordinary working-class family; and in fact, I didn't really meet middle-class people until I went to university. It was quite a shock, really. People were saying things like 'Well, I was always going to end up doing English, because I was brought up surrounded by books - brought up in a house full of books'; and I'd think 'Yes, so was I; but they were full of Green Shield stamps.”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

I suppose we could have swapped them for books, but we had our eye on a twin-tub.
Stand-up

“I think she must have been very strictly brought up, she's so desperately anxious to do the wrong thing correctly.”

Saki (1870–1916) British writer

"Reginald on Worries"
Reginald (1904)

“Well she grew up hard, and she grew up fast
In the age of television.
And she made a vow to have it all;
It became her new religion.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

All the Wrong Reasons, written with Jeff Lynne
Lyrics, Into The Great Wide Open (1991)

“Whoa. Fangs. She had fangs.

She leaned in, prodded them a little. Eating with those puppies was going to take some getting used to, she thought.

On impulse, she brought up her hands, turned her fingers into claws. Hissed.

Cool.”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

“Finally I just had to get out. Because when that fantasy seeps into the reality, she just becomes an incredibly ugly person. She feels she can distort anything that occurs for whatever purpose she wants. Whatever she feels, that’s what is, as far as she’s concerned.”

Samuel R. Delany book Triton

Source: Triton (1976), Chapter 7 “Tiresias Descending, or Trouble on Triton” (p. 322)

“Well, what if I'm wrong, I mean — anybody could be wrong. We could all be wrong about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the pink unicorn and the flying teapot. You happen to have been brought up, I would presume, in a Christian faith. You know what it's like to not believe in a particular faith because you're not a Muslim. You're not a Hindu. Why aren't you a Hindu? Because you happen to have been brought up in America, not in India. If you had been brought up in India, you'd be a Hindu. If you had been brought up in Denmark in the time of the Vikings, you'd be believing in Wotan and Thor. If you were brought up in classical Greece, you'd be believing in Zeus. If you were brought up in central Africa, you'd be believing in the great Juju up the mountain. There's no particular reason to pick on the Judeo-Christian god, in which by the sheerest accident you happen to have been brought up and ask me the question, "What if I'm wrong?"”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

What if you're wrong about the great Juju at the bottom of the sea?
Answering audience questions after a reading of The God Delusion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg, Randolph-Macon Woman's College,
Posed question: "This is probably going to be the most simplest one for you to answer, but: What if you're wrong?"

“She always had been in touch with something outside of human ken. She had something in her no other human had. You sensed it, but you could not name it, for there was no name for this thing she had. And she had fumbled with it, trying to use it, not knowing how to use it, charming off the warts and healing poor hurt butterflies and only God knew what other acts that she performed unseen.”

Clifford D. Simak book Way Station

Source: Way Station (1963), Ch. 34

“When I went to college, I went to study Veterinary Medicine, which I still study. But I had to take classes with the Animal Science people in the college of Agriculture. … One class I had to take they made the students from part of the class go into a chicken coop and pick out a live chicken and slaughter it themselves. Then we were supposed to take it home and eat it. And I refused to do it. So I ended up getting a C at the class, even though I had As in everything else. … I also had to take a class where I would take care of animals, pigs and cows, and I got to know them. I actually had a cow that I took care of, raised from when she was a baby and I had her till she was about 800 pounds. She would run up to me, she knew me well, just like a dog. She was exactly like a dog. It was sort of the same with the pigs, the babies knew me. And after I had to go in and see what happened to them, it totally broke my heart and it made me sick to my stomach. … There's no way, you know, if you're human and you have a normal brain and mind and feelings, that you can see what I saw and still eat them and allow them to be slaughtered and be ok with it.”

Lauren Anderson (model) (1980) American model

"Playmate Declares War", video interview with PETA (24 August 2007) https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2tstr.

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