quotes by John McPhee

"If you free yourself from the conventional reaction to a quantity like a million years, you free yourself a bit from the boundaries of human time. And then in a way you do not live at all, but in another way you live forever."
— John McPhee (Basin and Range)

"If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.
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— John McPhee

"Now, at Suiattle Pass, Brower was still talking about butterflies. He said he had raised them from time to time and had often watched them emerge from the chrysalis--first a crack in the case, then a feeler, and in an hour a butterfly. He said he had felt that he wanted to help, to speed them through the long and awkward procedure; and he had once tried. The butterflies came out with extended abdomens, and their wings were balled together like miniature clenched fists. Nothing happened. They sat there until they died. 'I have never gotten over that,' he said. 'That kind of information is all over in the country, but it's not in town.'"
— John McPhee

"I used to sit in class and listen to the terms come floating down the room like paper airplanes."
— John McPhee (Basin and Range)

"The doctor listens in with a stethoscope and hears sounds of a warpath Indian drum. "
— John McPhee