Crooked Earth Quotes & Sayings

The Donkey
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet. — G.K. Chesterton

Seen from Earth, a comet is a prodigy, coming out of the void for no reason, returning to the void for no reason. They call it unpredictable because they cannot predict it. From the comet's own point of view, nothing could be simpler. It starts in the outer darkness, aims directly at the sun, and never stops till it gets there. Everything else spins in its same orbit forever. The comet heads for the source. They call it crooked because it is too straight. They call it unpredictable because it is too fixed. They call it chaotic because it is too linear. — Scott Alexander

We have been happily borne - or perhaps have unhappily dragged our weary way - down the long and crooked streets of our lives, past all kinds of walls and fences made of rotting wood, rammed earth, brick, concrete, iron railings. We have never given a thought to what lies behind them. We have never tried to penetrate them with our vision or our understanding. But there is where the Gulag country begins, right next to us, two yards away from us. In addition, we have failed to notice an enormous number of closely fitted, well-disguised doors and gates in these fences. All those gates were prepared for us, every last one! And all of a sudden the fateful gate swings quickly open, and four white male hands, unaccustomed to physical labor but nonetheless strong and tenacious, grab us by the leg, arm, collar, cap, ear, and drag us in like a sack, and the gate behind us, the gate to our past life, is slammed shut once and for all.
That's all there is to it! You are arrested! — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

An iron rod being placed on the outside of a building from the highest part continued down into the moist earth, in any direction strait or crooked, following the form of the roof or other parts of the building, will receive the lightning at its upper end, attracting it so as to prevent it's striking any other part; and, affording it a good conveyance into the earth, will prevent its damaging any part of the building. — Benjamin Franklin

Life and the work on the mountain had left their mark. Everything about him was warped and crooked. His back seemed to be heading down towards the earth in a tight curve, and he increasingly had the feeling that his spine was growing up over his head. On the mountain his foothold was still firm, and not even the strong autumn downwinds could make him lose his balance, but he stood like a tree that was already rotten inside — Robert Seethaler

There was a rustling of fabric as he turned on his side, resting his head in his crooked arm. How oddly intimate it felt to be lying beside him like this, but his eyes were gentle as he rested his hand across her stomach. It was so big it nearly covered her entire middle. "I hope someday we have a daughter who has your kindness." Yes, a daughter. A smile curved her lips as she tried to imagine how Michael would pamper and fuss over a little girl. Or would he roughhouse with a daughter as he did with his boys? It was hard to predict, but no matter what, she knew Michael would be an amazing father. And she knew she would gladly follow him to the ends of the earth, for God had blessed her with the priceless gift of a family. — Elizabeth Camden

He wasn't a pretty boy, his nose was crooked and his grin lopsided, but he had that square-jawed, salt-of-the-earth handsome look that made a girl think of loose-hipped cowboys and demanding Scottish Lairds. And speaking of Scottish Lairds, old mate was a redhead. Usually gingers weren't her scene but this guy's hair was the rich coppery-auburn of a fox's pelt. It gleamed like rose gold under the floodlights, his short beard the exact colour as the stuff on his head. Big Red was doing it for her. Big time. And apparently, the feeling was mutual. — Eve Dangerfield

The suggestion that the body really wanted to go straight but some mysterious agent made it go crooked is picturesque but unscientific. It makes two properties out of one; and then we wonder why they are always proportional to one another - why the gravitational force on different bodies is proportional to their inertia or mass. The dissection becomes untenable when we admit that all frames of reference are on the same footing. The projectile which describes a parabola relative to an observer on the earth's surface describes a straight line relative to the man in the lift. Our teacher will not easily persuade the man in the lift who sees the apple remaining where he released it, that the apple really would of its own initiative rush upwards were it not that an invisible tug exactly counteracts this tendency. (The reader will verify that this is the doctrine the teacher would have to inculcate if he went as a missionary to the men in the lift.) — Arthur Stanley Eddington