Cloud Cuckoo Land

by Anthony Doerr

The roar: all his life it has rumbled in the distance. Now it rises. It obliterates the mountains, the lake, downtown Lakeport; it smashes across the school parking lot, tossing cars everywhere; it growls outside the portable and rattles the door. Black pinholes open in his vision. He clamps his hands over his ears but the roar eats the

Ὦ ξένε, ὅστις εἶ, ἄνοιξον, ἵνα μάθῃς ἃ θαυμάζεις

“You promise, Mom?” “I promise.”

“7,734,958 kilometers per

“That’s what the gods do,” he says, “they spin threads of ruin through the fabric of our lives, all to make a song for generations to come.”

For as long as we have been a species, Mrs. Flowers said, we humans have tried to defeat death. None of us ever has.

The Birds; Rex will be Peisetairos, which means Trustyfriend;

A hero fights for those who cannot fight for themselves.

They call us militants and terrorists. They argue that change takes time. But there is no time. We can no longer live in a world culture where the rich are allowed to believe that their way of life has no consequences, that they can

use whatever they want and throw away whatever they want, that they are immune to catastrophe. I know that it’s not easy to have your eyes opened. It’s not fun. We will all have to be strong. The coming events will test us in ways we cannot yet imagine.

“He that knows all that Learning ever writ, knows only this.”

‘He that knows all that Learning ever writ, knows only this—that he knows nothing yet.’ ”]·

Sometimes the things we think are lost are only hidden, waiting to be rediscovered.

realizes that the truth is infinitely more complicated, that we are all beautiful even as we are all part of the problem, and that to be a part of the problem is to be human.

“The world as it is is enough.”

Time: the most violent war engine of all.