How I Won a Nobel Prize Quotes

“But also he was tall, with wide shoulders. The first time I’d seen him I’d thought of him not as a person I desired but as a wiry structure I wished to climb.”
― Julius Taranto, How I Won a Nobel Prize

“Later Hew remarked on how remarkably dangerous a person can be if he does not intend to get away with it, if he intends to be held accountable—or of course if he knows he won’t be. There is not much, outside ourselves, to prevent any of us from doing our worst.”
― Julius Taranto, How I Won a Nobel Prize

“What do we mean when we say we are a free country? I think it means that if you go through life moderately independent, not unusually strong, capable enough, you do not often find yourself on the pointy end of power. Of course you are submitting all the time to the powers that be: to law, to physical and financial reality, to the preferences of family and friends and colleagues. That is the inherent compromise of living in the world; that is every person’s lack of omnipotence.”
― Julius Taranto, How I Won a Nobel Prize

“But you can always tell when a writer suggests knowledge he doesn’t in fact possess. It feels rickety, doesn’t it? Too few bolts holding the thing down.”
― Julius Taranto, How I Won a Nobel Prize

“I went a bit more Online, dangled my feet in the current. I distracted myself with political fury like regular people did in regular jobs.”
― Julius Taranto, How I Won a Nobel Prize

“Individuality doesn’t mean anything if we’re obliged to spend our lives heroically lunging at every injustice. People do horrible things to one another all day, all the time, the world over. Why isn’t it enough for me to do science? I’m trying to fix fucking climate change. Why do I have to be captive to every crisis? Why should I have to be in a constant state of broadcast, a pundit on every topic of public concern?”
― Julius Taranto, How I Won a Nobel Prize

“People are woke like they are saved. Don’t you see, wokeness is a theology? But a theology with no text, no god, no organizing myth or principles, no traditions. There is in this millennial religion only the vaguest sense of good and evil, applied to daily life by an ever-shifting clergy of popular priests and priestesses. On their phones at all hours, they “follow” the priest du jour, absorbing the gospel, then some find a new priest, schism, then schism again. They do have a religion: it is the religion of the mob.”
― Julius Taranto, How I Won a Nobel Prize

“Human lives typically do not look best in sharp relief.”
― Julius Taranto, How I Won a Nobel Prize