Mary Roach Quotes
I dont fear death so much as I fear its prologues: loneliness, decrepitude, pain, debilitation, depression, senility. After a few years of those, I imagine death presents like a holiday at the beach.
I began thinking about my skeleton, this solid, beautiful thing inside me that I would never see.
Instead, I quietly excused myself and went to the bar, to commune with spirits I know how to relate to.
The suffix 'naut' comes from the Greek and Latin words for ships and sailing. Astronaut suggests 'a sailor in space.' Chimponaut suggests 'a chimpanzee in sailor pants'.
All the clothes in my closet are Oakland, California, clothes. You can't wear those anywhere else. The barometric pressure drops and then where are you?
Bodily fluids and solids are universally the most disgusting things we as human beings can come upon, but as long as they are inside us, it's part of you.
Many people will find this book disrespectful. There is nothing amusing about being dead, they will say. Ah, but there is.
Every mode of travel has its signature mental aberration.
Gravity disappears again, and we rise up off the floor like spooks from a grave. It's like the Rapture in here every thirty seconds.
The simplest strategy for bouts of noxious flatus is to not care. Or perhaps to take advantage of a gastroenterologist I know: get a dog. (To blame.)
I don't write on topics that require a lot of urgency. But in 'Stiff,' I wanted to change people's hearts about organ donation. Whenever I get a chance, I try to talk about that.
Softball is the reason Washing Machines and Bleach are so popular. Don't think so? Just ask a softball Mom.
The broader the topic, the easier it is, not only to fill a book, but to set the bar pretty high for really great stuff.
In my whole life, I've never vomited from seeing something disgusting. Does it really even happen, outside of movies and TV? I believe it may be a myth.
You do not question an author who appears on the title page as "T.V.N. Persaud, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., F.R.C.Path. (Lond.), F.F.Path. (R.C.P.I.), F.A.C.O.G.
There are people who would love to spend their last ten years, or five years, or whatever it is, on the surface of Mars.
To me, NASA is kind of the magical kingdom. I was sort of a geek, and you go there, and there are just these wondrously strange things and people.
The writing is always the easy part, provided I can get the good material. It's the getting of the good material that's a challenge.
For the scientists, they're kind of puzzled and pleased that somebody finds their work interesting. It makes it fun for me. I feel like I've sort of turned over a stone that hasn't been turned over.
If you could really guarantee that the money would be spent on something more worthwhile, I'd say, absolutely, scrap the space program, but it never works that way.
In 'Packing for Mars,' I tried to convey the importance of getting young people interested in science.
It's this mood, these sentiments - the excitement of exploration and the surprises and delights of travel to foreign locales - that I hope to inspire with this book.
My books are not really books; theyre endless chains of distraction shoved inside a cover. Many of them begin at the search box of Pub Med, an Internet database of medical journal articles.
The human head is of the same approximate size and weight as a roaster chicken. I have never before had occasion to make the comparison, for never before today have I seen a head in a roasting pan.
We are biology. We are reminded of this at the beginning and the end, at birth and at death. In between we do what we can to forget.
Not that there's anything wrong with just lying around on your back. In it's way, rotting is interesting too, as we will see. It's just that there are other ways to spend your time as a cadaver.
There wasn't an anhydrous lacrimal gland in the room...
I challenge you to find a more innocuous sentence containing the words sperm, suction, swallow, and any homophone of seaman. And then call me up on the homophone and read it to me.
Heroism doesn’t always happen in a burst of glory. Sometimes small triumphs and large hearts change the course of history. Sometimes a chicken can save a man’s life.
The human digestive tract is like the Amtrak line from Seattle to Los Angeles: transit time is about thirty hours, and the scenery on the last leg is pretty monotonous.
Constipation ran Presley's life. Even his famous motto TCB— 'Taking Care of Business'— sounds like a reference to bathroom matters.
It's called the FATLOSE trail. FATLOSE stands for 'Fecal Administration To LOSE weight, ' an example of PLEASE— Pretty Lame Excuse for an Acronym, Scientists and Experimenters.
US government button specifications run to twenty-two pages. This fact on its own yields a sense of what it is like to design garments for the Army.
The human organism is built for tension and relaxation, work and sleep. The principle of life is rhythm.
Please beware, " came his reply, "There are a lot of people who believe that just because we don't have an explanation for something, it's quantum mechanics.
