An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (The Carls, #1)

by Hank Green

Manhattan is less legit than it once was, for sure, but this is still the city that never sleeps. It is also the city of “Behold the field in which I grow my fucks. Lay thine eyes upon it and see that it is barren.”

them. The power that each of us has over complete strangers to make them feel terrible and frightened and weak is amazing.

Much of the best art is about balancing between reflecting culture while simultaneously being removed from it and commenting on it.

“When you’re faced with something you don’t understand, I think the most natural thing but also the least interesting thing you can be is afraid,”

It’s easy to forget how much time goes into things like designing giant fighting robots for movies. It feels cookie-cutter, but thousands of person-hours go into their creation. We love them because they’re beautiful, and they’re beautiful because of hard work.”

Most power just looks like an easier-than-average life. It’s so built-in that people mostly don’t realize how powerful they are. Like, the average middle-class person in the US is one of the 3 percent richest people in the world. Thus, they’re probably one of the most powerful people in the world. But, to them, they feel completely average.

Power only does all its business of empowering when it’s perceived as a difference between the power of those nearby and, even more important, the power one previously had.

They tell you that power corrupts . . . They never tell you how quickly!

You can only do so much pretending before you become the thing you’re pretending to be.

Knowing something is a bad idea does not always decrease the odds that you will do it.

“Just because you can’t imagine something doesn’t mean you can’t do it,”

What is reality except for the things that people universally experience the same way?

We are irrational beings, easy to manipulate if you’re willing to do whatever it takes. That’s exactly how terrorists convince themselves that murder is worthwhile. And the wound it left, it was larger than those lives lost; it was a wound we would all have to live with forever.