“On the geological time scale, a human lifetime is reduced to a brevity that is too inhibiting to think about deep time. ... Geologists ... see the unbelievable swiftness with which one evolving species on the Earth has learned to reach into the dirt of some tropical island and fling 747s across the sky ... Seeing a race unaware of its own instantaneousness in time, they can reel off all the species that have come and gone, with emphasis on those that have specialized themselves to death.” ThinkingHumansEarthRaceGoneSeeingSkyLifetimeSpeciesScalesEvolveIslandsDirtUnbelievableEmphasisFlingBrevityTropicalGeologistSwiftnessGeological TimeTropical Islands Author:John McPhee
“On a certain scale, it does look like I do a lot. But that’s my day, all day long, sitting there wondering when I’m going to be able to get started. And the routine of doing this six days a week puts a little drop in a bucket each day, and that’s the key. Because if you put a drop in a bucket every day, after three hundred and sixty-five days, the bucket’s going to have some water in it.” IfsLooksLittlesLongDoeAbleCertainThreeWaterWonderFiveWeekKeysSixHundredSittingScalesEach DayRoutineSixtyBuckets Author:John McPhee
