Mark Robison

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Book cover for Autumn (Seasonal, #1)
I’m tired of the news. I’m tired of the way it makes things spectacular that aren’t, and deals so simplistically with what’s truly appalling.
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“For each visual input, it takes a tiny but perceptible amount of time—about two hundred milliseconds, one-fifth of a second—for the information to travel along the optic nerves and into the brain to be processed and interpreted. One-fifth of a second is not a trivial span of time when a rapid response is required—to step back from an oncoming car, say, or to avoid a blow to the head. To help us deal better with this fractional lag, the brain does a truly extraordinary thing: it continuously forecasts what the world will be like a fifth of a second from now, and that is what it gives us as the present. That means that we never see the world as it is at this very instant, but rather as it will be a fraction of a moment in the future. We spend our whole lives, in other words, living in a world that doesn’t quite exist yet.”
Bill Bryson, The Body: A Guide for Occupants

“You’ll find that people often use the excuse “it was the norm” when discussing racism, homophobia, and anything else in our history they are trying to absolve themselves of. Saying that something was “a norm” of the past is a way not to have to deal with its ripple effects in the present. It removes the fact that hate doesn’t just stop because a law or the time changed. Folks use this excuse because they are often unwilling to accept how full of phobias and -isms they are themselves—or at least how they benefit from social structures that privilege them.”
George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

Jane Casey
“The commissioner has requested permission to use water cannon against the civilian population for the first time in British history—” “Although it has been used in Northern Ireland,” the interviewer chipped in. “Yes, in very specific circumstances.” And who cares about the Paddies anyway? I filled in silently. As usual, what was perfectly acceptable in Belfast or Derry would be an outrage in Southwark.”
Jane Casey, The Kill

“Unkindness is a serial killer.
Death in the flesh sometimes seems like a less excruciating way to succumb than the slow and steady venom unleashed by mean-spirited, cruel words and actions that poison you over time. I guess that’s why I can’t stand the old children’s rhyme: sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Every time I hear it, I think to myself: that’s a lie. You can dodge a rock, but you can’t unhear a word. You can’t undo the intentional damage that some words have on your mind, body, and spirit.
Especially a word like ugly.”
Tarana Burke, Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement

Madeleine K. Albright
“Though I had never written a memoir, I was confident that given enough time, I could do a serviceable job. Not elegant, but blunt, informative and funnier than most readers would expect.”
Madeleine K. Albright, Hell and Other Destinations: A 21st-Century Memoir

146728 Reading Peace — 1470 members — last activity Aug 15, 2023 08:57AM
Reading Peace is a book club exploring topics in mindfulness and Buddhism in daily life in a way that is accessible and relevant to today. We meet o ...more
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