Julia

“The inhabitants are all Idolaters. And I may as well remind you again [implied sigh?] that all the people of Cathay are Idolaters.”
― Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo: The Venetian

“Here is a preserve of holothurian that a Malay would declare to be unmatched anywhere in the world; there is a cream supplied by the udders of cetaceans, and sugar by the great fucus plants that grow in the North Sea; finally, let me offer you some anemone jam, which is as good as that made from the most tasty fruits.”
― Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

“A study commissioned by the NFL Players Association determined that recently retired pros (ages thirty to forty-nine) are nineteen times more likely to suffer from brain-trauma-related illness than—what's the right word here?—noncombatants.”
― Steve Almond, Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto

“If it be questioned how the population of the country can supply sufficient numbers of these duties, and by what means they can be supported, we may answer, that all the idolaters, and likewise the Saracens, keep six, eight, or ten women, according to their circumstances, by whom they have a prodigious number of children. Some of them have as many as thirty sons capable of following their fathers in arms; whereas with us a man has only one wife, and even although she should prove barren, he is obliged to pass his life with her, and is by that means deprived of the chance of raising a family. Hence it is that our population is so much inferior to theirs.”
― Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo: The Venetian