"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion."
-- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address
...because it was science that, oh, cured polio. I could list others... Oh, Western medicine doesn't work; I'm sorry, we cured polio. What more do you want? Your herbalism has done jack; we cured polio. And guess what? It cures polio even if you don't believe in it.
-- Penn Jillette, from an interview with The Onion AV Club
I hope nobody takes this the wrong way, but mundanes are just weird. I mean, not all of them; and I'm sure most of them are very nice people; but I will never in my life worry about whether my bath towels match. Holiday-theme door pillows, and chair-leg protectors that look like little cows, are like sex toys for a specialized perversion engaged in by individuals belonging to the third of five genders of an alien species resident on some distant planet.
There's a reality show on TLC called Trading Spaces. The idea is that two households swap homes for 48 hours. During that time, each redecorates one room of the other's house, with the help of the show's crew of designers and carpenters.
Patrick found the whole thing confusing. "I've never understood this 'interior decorating' stuff," he told me, the first time he saw an episode.
"Okay. By our standards, mundanes own hardly any books."
"Uh-huh?"
"Interior decoration is what they do with all that empty space."
-- Teresa Nielsen Hayden, in her blog