Vigil Quotes

“But it was a constant battle, trying to suck all this specious junk out of their heads and replace it with the genuine beauties of real science and authentic discoveries. There was so much in the world that was true and amazing and almost unbelievable itself that Carter could never understand the fascination with the obviously spurious and unsubstantiated. In his own life he’d found the mysteries of biology and evolution, of the immensity of geologic time and the rise of humanity (did people comprehend just how easily things could have gone a different way altogether?) as satisfying to his sense of wonder, to the reach and power of his imagination, as anything the mystics and TV mediums, the astrologers and New Age prophets could cook up. And he really feared that unless this mindless flood was stopped somehow, its waters would wash over the real ground that scientific inquiry had labored to claim through centuries of exhaustive work and leave everything one vast, muddy, undifferentiated terrain.”
― Robert Masello, Vigil

“Even though Carter’s call wasn’t due for another hour, Giuseppe Russo wasn’t taking any chances; he was going to wait by the phone. Not that venturing outside right now would have been a very appealing prospect, anyway. It was dusk in Rome, and from the narrow windows of his office, on the top floor of the Hall of Biological Sciences, he could already see a huge bank of billowing clouds, dark and angry, buffeting the olive trees and sweeping over the ancient ruins on the Palatine Hill. The storm front had been blowing west from the Adriatic Sea for days, and now it appeared ready to unleash its fury.”
― Robert Masello, Vigil