Quotes About Adaptation

Change is good, but sometimes leaving things the way they've always been is better.

None of that used to be in Brian and now it was a part of him, a changed part of him, a grown part of him, and the two things, his mind and his body, had come together as well, had made a connection with each other that he didn't quite understand.

But perhaps more than his body was the change in his mind, or in the way he was--was becoming. I am not the same, he thought. I see, I hear differently.

He was not the same and would never be again like he had been. That was one of the true things, the new things. And the other one was that he would not die, he would not let death in again.

Sometimes it would be nice if life just kept happening the way it's happening, if things got to a good place and just stayed there, didn't change.

He had forgotten the most important thing about living in the wilderness, the one thing he'd thought he would never forget-expect the unexpected. What you didn't think would get you, would get you. Plan on the worst and be happy when it didn't come.

That simple. You lived or you died. And in between the two, if you kept your mind open and aware and listened and smelled and watched... In between you learned. from Northwind

The vast country is still there, but it has somehow been altered by intrusions, peopled to death. It is all gone, all changed, all tamed and pacified and cleaned and boiled and sanitized and made healthy and politically correct.

He had forgotten the most important thing about living in the wilderness, the one thing he'd thought he would never forget—expect the unexpected. What you didn't think would get you, would get you. Plan on the worst and be happy when it didn't come.

He moved around, did his toilet—drawing a picture in the snow when he did—and was amazed how well the boots worked, kept his feet warm and comfortable.

Do what you can as you can. Trouble, problems, will come no matter what you do, and you must respond as they come.

The three things I had going for me: an inbred Russian willingness to get drunk and chummy, an inbred Jewish willingness to laugh strategically at myself, and, most impressively, my new äppärät.

It's just a passing thing,' Vishnu had told me about his girlfriend's beliefs. 'It's like their way of assimilating into the West. It's like a social club. One more generation, it'll be over.

1979. Coming to America after a childhood spent in the Soviet Union is equivalent to stumbling off a monochromatic cliff and landing in a pool of pure Technicolor.

After all, this is America, and you can swap out the parts of yourself that don't work. You can rebuild yourself piece by piece.

After he had taught himself to be friendly, everything else became harder. He had to let go of his nerdy passions. He couldn't do both at once.

It's so difficult to go to a strange town, even in America. I went to Dayton once, when I was in a basketball camp...

Yes, the revolution was coming for them, too. How many revolutions would they have to live through during the never-ending historicity of their goddamned lives?

This is the superhumanity of the immigrant, but woe be to the all-too-human offspring living in the shadow of such strength.

They drove to a mall in a former industrial building called Ponce City Market, which was like Chelsea Market in New York, only it was in Atlanta. They climbed up the elevated tracks to a new park called the BeltLine, which was just like the High Line in New York, only it was also in Atlanta.

what used to be the Friendly's restaurant but

You must realize that these are abnormal times and there's no way that any of us can keep ourselves pure

Wolves in shells are crueler than stray ones.

In my Paris apartment, when a neighbor drives nails into the wall at an undue hour, I naturalize the noise by imagining that I am in my house in Dijon, where I have a garden. And finding everything I hear quite natural, I say to myself: That's my woodpecker at work in the acacia tree. This is my method for obtaining calm when things disturb me.