But it’s your inner ear, not your ass, that’s the problem. And your inner ear is a liar

You have to fly by the seat of your pants, they say. Meaning: A real pilot feels the plane’s every movement in his ass. But it’s your inner ear, not your ass, that’s the problem. And your inner ear is a liar. A man, blindfolded and spun slowly in a rotating chair, will think when the chair slows that it has stopped. When it has stopped, he will think it has begun to spin the other way. The mistake happens deep in his ear, among the tiny hair cells and drifting fluid inside the semicircular canals of the bony labyrinth. These are the minute, impossibly fragile internal instruments that detect the yaw, pitch, and roll of the human head—wondrous little gizmos to be sure but poorly evolved for flight.

M. Shipstead, Great Circle (2021), loc. 3,084

Conan is the barbarian hero to end all barbarian heroes; his later imitations seem pallid by comparison

Conan is the barbarian hero to end all barbarian heroes; his later imitations seem pallid by comparison. In “A Witch Shall Be Born,” Conan is captured and crucified. As he hangs on the cross, a vulture flies down to peck his eyes out. Conan bites the vulture’s head off. You just can’t have a hero tougher than that.

L. Sprague deCamp, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers (1976), loc. 2,896

For one thing, Morris was not strong on plot. His adventures and encounters “just happen.”

At 65,000 words, this novel is shorter than most of Morris’s fantasies, which is all to the good. It starts off well but tends to peter out. For one thing, Morris was not strong on plot. His adventures and encounters “just happen.” Morris could no doubt have defended himself by saying that he was writing, not a “modern” novel, but a medieval romance of the type of those of Chrestien de Troyes, Gottfried von Strassburg, Lodovico Ariosto, and Sir Thomas Malory. They never worried about intricate, logical, self-consistent plots either.

L. Sprague deCamp, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers (1976), loc. 925

They were not about to sit down and master the techniques of dry farming when murder and robbery were so much more fu

A reason for the ferocity of Howard’s barbarians is that the barbarians he knew the most about, the Comanche Indians of Texas, were one of the most warlike peoples on earth. Having just been promoted from food-gathering savagery by acquiring horses, they were not about to sit down and master the techniques of dry farming when murder and robbery were so much more fun.

L. Sprague deCamp, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers (1976), loc. 672

Those who fancy that they would relish life in a bygone era assume that they would arrive in the earlier milieu with all the health, wealth, and social status needed to enjoy their visit

Needless to say, those who fancy that they would relish life in a bygone era assume that they would arrive in the earlier milieu with all the health, wealth, and social status needed to enjoy their visit. Nobody would wish to find himself an Irish peasant during the Famine of the 1840s, or a medieval serf, or a slave in the Athenian silver mines at Laureion. Actually, if one were translated to the body of such a dweller in former times, chosen at random, one would be hundreds of times more likely to find oneself a downtrodden proletarian than a baron or an Athenian eupatrid, because the affluent in those days were such a tiny fraction of the whole. For that matter, such a translation would drastically cut one’s life expectancy, because there were so many illnesses and injuries that in those days were fatal.

L. Sprague deCamp, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers (1976), loc. 485

House numbers exist not to help you find your way, but rather to help the government find you

"The great enterprise of numbering the houses,” Tantner writes, “is characteristic of the eighteenth century. Without any trace of irony, the house number can be considered one of the most important innovations of the Age of Enlightenment, of that century obsessed, as it was, with order and classification.” House numbers were not invented to help you navigate the city or receive your mail, though they perform these two functions admirably. Instead, they were designed to make you easier to tax, imprison, and police. House numbers exist not to help you find your way, but rather to help the government find you.

D. Mask, The address book (2020), 91

Addresses were helping to empower the people who lived there by helping them to feel a part of society

And inclusion is one of the secret weapons of street addresses. Employees at the World Bank soon found that addresses were helping to empower the people who lived there by helping them to feel a part of society. This is particularly true in slum areas. “A citizen is not an anonymous entity lost in the urban jungle and known only by his relatives and co-workers; he has an established identity,” a group of experts wrote in a book on street addressing. Citizens should have a way to “reach and be reached by associations and government agencies,” and to be reached by fellow citizens, even ones they didn’t know before. In other words, without an address, you are limited to communicating only with people who know you. And it’s often people who don’t know you who can most help you.

D. Mask, The address book (2020), 30