“Two hallmarks of Homo Sapiens are decoration and self-identification.”

“In 1494, King Charles VIII of France invaded Italy. Within months, his army collapsed and fled. It was routed not by the Italian army but by a microbe. A mysterious new disease spread through sex killed many of Charles’s soldiers and left survivors weak and disfigured. French soldiers spread the disease across much of Europe, and then it moved into Africa and Asia. Many called it the French disease. The French called it the Italian disease. Arabs called it the Christian disease. Today, it is called syphilis.”

“Some ancient eukaryote swallowed a photosynthesizing bacteria and became a sunlight gathering alga. Millions of years later one of these algae was devoured by a second eukaryote. This new host gutted the alga, casting away its nucleus and its mitochondria, keeping only the chloroplast. That thief of a thief was the ancestor or Plasmodium and Toxoplasma. And this Russian-doll sequence of events explains why you can cure malaria with an antibiotic that kills bacteria: because Plasmodium has a former bacterium inside it doing some vital business.”

“The extra clutter adds no important insight; instead, it offers more clutter in which erros can lurk.”

“Via Joseph Campbell: My friend Heinrich Zimmer of years ago used to say, "The best things can't be told," because they transcend thought. "The second best are misunderstood," because those are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which can't be thought about, and one gets stuck in the thoughts."The third best are what we talk about.”

“The gentry protect their names like hymens,They suck their names like thumbs,But they sign their names and something happens.While Zimmer, I can write, Zimmer,All day, and nothing happens.”

“SPIDER PIGSPIDER PIGDoes whatever a SPIDER PIG doesCan he swingFrom a webNo he cantHe’s a pigLook ouut!He is a SPIDER PIG!!”