Quotes from Robert Sullivan

Sometimes I think the city is naturally conducive to coincidences in the same way that Plains states like Nebraska and Oklahoma are conducive to twisters, in the same way that mountain lakes are conducive to lightning.

Deep in their rat tendons, rats know history.

The next day, an American soldier who saw morning arrive in Princeton described the snowless but brittle battlefield as something beautiful: "bright, serene, and extremely cold, with a hoar frost which bespangled every object.

Ingesting poison, fighting for food, being attacked by a larger rat or beaten with a toilet plunger: these are everyday rat dangers that make the life expectancy of the rat in the city approximately one year.

War, like human settlement, is a function of geology.

It is neither God's grace nor innate goodness which saves man's soul alive; it is rather his need for the community, his concept of the desirable life as one lived collectively.

A historic measure of Paris's urbanity has been the description by Parisians of large rats on its subway system, or metro. I recently visited Paris with an eye toward seeing large rats. When I did not, after spending several hours being watched on metro platforms by wary Parisians, I began to realize that being able to readily spot rats in a specific city is an acquired skill, akin to learning a local dialect.