Crumble Quotes & Sayings

Each of you knows that the foundation of our faith is charity. Without it, our religion would crumble. We will never be truly Catholic unless we conform our entire lives to the two commandments that are the essence of the Catholic faith: to love the Lord, our God, with all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. — Pier Giorgio Frassati

Blessed are they that crumble; from them new worlds are made. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The human drama is reaching its denouement. The great unveiling is approaching, a time when the power structures of the world begin to crumble and people of the heart sing out a new truth. Many voices are joining the chorus, many feet are walking the path, many minds are dreaming possibilities for a magnificent future. For beneath the crises that are looming at every level of civilization, the global heart is awakening, beating out the rhythm of a new and glorious dance, calling us to a better way of living. — Anodea Judith

All these soft kinds [of stone] have the advantage that they can be easily worked as soon as they have been taken from the quarries. Under cover, they play their part well; but in open and exposed situations the frost and rime make them crumble, and they go to pieces. On the seacoast, too, the salt eats away and dissolves them, nor can they stand great heat either. — Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing. And the only thing that will remain will be Islam. — Siraj Wahhaj

Sometimes I get it right and I sometimes I get it wrong. But fashion is all about having fun. I think fashion has been hijacked by the fashion industry creating rules on what one should wear and I feel like breaking the mold and seeing that the world won't crumble. — Helena Bonham Carter

That's what History teaches us, I think, that life goes on, even though individuals die and whole civilizations crumble away: The simple things last; they are repeated over and over by each generation. — Philip Reeve

If we didn't have strong feelings, how could we love or fight? When our flesh is cut, we bleed. When our heart is broken, we cry. There's nothing wrong with that. It only becomes a problem when it gets in the way of what you have to do. You can't crumble when others are counting on you. — Robert Liparulo

When my world seems to crumble all around, and foolish people try to bring me down, I just think of your smile face, and I'm flying. — Madonna Ciccone

10. Comparison is the root of all feelings of inferiority. The moment you begin examining other people's strengths against your most obvious weaknesses, your self-esteem starts to crumble! — James C. Dobson

Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"You told me once that you loved me because I was human," I said, my voice tiny. "Will you still
love me when I'm an angel? Even if I won't be human anymore?"
"Always," he said, green eyes bright. "Even if you stop loving me."
I felt myself begin to crumble and I left the armory and him sitting on the — Courtney Allison Moulton

A measure of victory has been won, and honors have been bestowed in token thereof. But honours fade or are forgotten, and monuments crumble into dust. It is the battle itself that matters - and the battle must go on. — Elizabeth Kenny

Upon your shattered ruins where
This vine will flourish still, as rare,
As fresh, as fragrant as of old.
Love will not crumble. — Eleanor Farjeon

I wander though China. Without ever having boarded a plane. My travels take place here in the Tokoyo subways, in the backseat of a taxi ... all of a sudden this city will start to go. In a flash, the buildings will crumble. Over the Tokyo streets will fall my China, like ash, leaching into everything it touches. Slowly, gradually, until nothing remains. No, this isn't a place for me. — Haruki Murakami

PLEASE BELIEVE that I am falling apart. I am not speaking metaphorically; nor is this the opening gambit of some melodramatic, riddling, grubby appeal for pity. I mean quite simply that I have begun to crack all over like an old jug - that my poor body, singular, unlovely, buffeted by too much history, subjected to drainage above and drainage below, mutilated by doors, brained by spittoons, has started coming apart at the seams. In short, I am literally disintegrating, slowly for the moment, although there are signs of acceleration. I ask you only to accept (as I have accepted) that I shall eventually crumble into (approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious, dust. — Salman Rushdie

He realized then that he'd never want to be with anyone else, he'd never want to be anywhere else, and he would surely crumble to ash if this woman walked out his life. — Justine Dell

I've never felt this lonely.
But then I've never witnessed someone falling apart. Even his blank stare, as he watches his world crumble around himself, is beautiful. And I've never seen someone break so perfectly.
And all I can do is watch because he won't let me in.
Because just like his darkness, his misery is his own.
But what does that make me?
A passerby?
No.
I can't just stand by.
Why doesn't he understand that I can't watch him fall apart? That the sharp ends of the broken glass that is his heart, cut me too. — Kady Hunt

Doesn't all experience crumble in the end to mere literary material? — Ellen Glasgow

No, I'll repine at death no more, But with a cheerful gasp resign To the cold dungeon of the ground These dying, withering limbs of mine. Let worms devour my wasting flesh, And crumble all my bones to dust:
My God shall raise my frame anew, At the revival of the just. — Isaac Watts

She blames herself. I hurt from knowing that I hurt her. Even when we know all of these other people are to blame. My friends. The media. Not her. Not me.

I can't help myself. I continue the cycle and I say, "I don't want to hurt you."

Lily is quiet for a moment before she says, "I'm tougher than you think. You just need to believe in me. You know, like a fairy."

I do believe in fairies. I do. I do. The jubilant chorus from Peter Pan fills my ears.

I look up at her, tears in both our eyes. Is that how we end this? I trust that I can share my grief with her and that she won't crumble beneath the pain?

She nods to me like go on. I can handle it. — Becca Ritchie & Kristia Ritchie

I knew it was loads easier to crumble under the weight of grief than it was to stand up with it on your back, but every day you carry it forward you get stronger and stronger, and eventually it doesn't feel as heavy as it once did. — R.S. Grey

Exceptionally hard decisions can deplete your energy to the point at which you finally cave in. If you mentally crumble and degenerate into negative thinking, you'll magnify the problem to the point where it can haunt you. — John C. Maxwell

When a heart breaks a substance spills out like cement and pours through the bloodstream, hardening everything. In time, I know my heart will mend and the rock inside will crack and crumble away. But for now I'm as solid as a column. And alone I stand. — Sarah Noffke

The walls he's built around himself will crumble, and some really diabolical developments will push him toward the answers he fears. — Scott Allie

I AM a little worn out, raddled, squashed, downtrodden, shot full of holes. Mortars have mortared me to bits. I am a little crumbly, decaying, yes, yes. I am sinking and drying up a little. I am a bit scalded and scorched, yes, yes. That's what it does to you. That's life. I am not old, not in the least, certainly I am not eighty, by no means, but I am not sixteen any more either. Quite definitely I am a bit old and used up. That's what it does to you. I am decaying a little, and I am crumbling, peeling a little. That's life. Am I a little bit over the hill? Hmm! Maybe. But that doesn't make me eighty, not by a long way. I am very tough, I can vouch for that. I am no longer young, but I am not old yet, definitely not. I am aging, fading a little, but that doesn't matter; I am not yet altogether old, though I am probably a little nervous and over the hill. It's natural that one should crumble a bit with the passage of time, but that doesn't matter. — Robert Walser

hardly had my knife severed the head of each, before the whole body began to melt away and crumble into its native dust, as though the death that should have come centuries ago had at last assert himself and say at once and loud, "I am here! — Bram Stoker

Yahweh is the creator of all that there is. He is the most real thing, the only eternal thing. Our hearts will stop beating, our eyes will close, the mountains may someday crumble, the trees will wither away, but Yahweh will always be. — Connilyn Cossette

And there it was, a snap in his chest, the audible noise of his best intentions cracking in half and cracking again, a chain reaction of thick cracks causing hairline cracks, causing the whole goddamned works, the whole vast machinery of his human willpower, to crumble downward into his abdominal cavity, where it lay pretty much useless. — Beatriz Williams

You can knock down a genuine belief, if you load up with enough facts that contradict it; but a belief that's built on nothing except who the person wants to be, nothing can crumble that. — Tana French

All this time Lock and I had managed to be civil to one another. No drama, all efficiency. But look him in the eyes? No, I couldn't do that. That would cut me wide open, and there would be blood. Lots of blood. I'd crumble into a heap on the floor then beg him to collect the pieces. — Cat Porter

What other words, we may almost ask, are memorable and worthy to be repeated than those which love has inspired? It is wonderful that they were ever uttered. They are few and rare indeed, but, like a strain of music, they are incessantly repeated and modulated by the memory. All other words crumble off with the stucco which overlies the heart. We should not dare to repeat these now aloud. We are not competent to hear them at all times. — Henry David Thoreau

Just as I'm about to continue walking along the shoreline, the left third of the iceberg breaks off suddenly and crashes violently, like a high-rise apartment building imploding in the heart of the city. Tears roll down my face uncontrollably as I watch the two distinct halves of the iceberg drift further and further apart from each other. It's devastating to watch something that seems so strong and unbreakable crumble in an instant. Even more devastating is the feeling that there's nothing I can do about it. — Shannon Mullen

One day, tens of millions of years from now, someone will find me rusted into the mud of a world they have never seen, and when they crumble me between their fingers, it will be you they find. — Jeanette Winterson

I will outlaw bullshit. After the passage of this law the patriarchy will inevitably start to crumble as will the concept of war itself which is largely a large load of bullshit. — Roseanne Barr

I wouldn't mind a bit seeing all civilization crumble like a mason's scaffolding before the building was finished
— Gustave Flaubert

He protected his feelings in walls he imagined, but castles crumble exposing the frightened child. — Ozzy Osbourne

Some friends don't understand this. They don't understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you're wonderful just the way you are. They don't understand that I can't remember anyone ever saying that to me. I am so demanding and difficult for my friends because I want to crumble and fall apart before them so that they will love me even though I am no fun, lying in bed, crying all the time, not moving. Depression is all about If you loved me you would. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

People leave. They die. Their dwellings crumble. That's the storyline, the only plot there will ever be. — Blake Crouch

I'd seen old Yardley Slickers- the makeup now just a waxy crumble- sell for almost one hundred dollars on the internet. So grown women could smell it again, that chemical, flowery fug. That's how badly people wanted it- to know that their lives had happened, that the person they once had been, still existed inside of them.

There were so many things that returned me. The tang of soy, the smoke in someone's hair, the grassy hills turning blond in June. An arrangement of oaks and boulders could, seen out of the corner of my eye, crack open something in my chest, palms going suddenly slick with adrenaline. — Emma Cline

I never really recovered from the shock of discovering that women do what we do; they save their best pairs for the nights when they are going to sleep with somebody. When you live with a woman, these faded, shrunken tatty scraps suddenly appear on radiators all over the house; your lascivious schoolboy dreams of adulthood as a time when you are surrounded by exotic lingerie for ever and ever amen ... those dreams crumble to dust. — Nick Hornby

More often than not, family stories turn out to be etched in sand rather than granite. Even the parts we think are true - even the parts about ourselves - crumble — Diane Chamberlain

Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure. — Edward Thorndike

Love is the
ecstasy when the walls between two people crumble down, when two lives meet, when two lives
unite. — Osho

After you're gone, people will forget your name, no matter how important it was, and your face, no matter how pretty it was, and what you said, no matter how clever any of it sounded.
The things you've done will crumble and fade and the places you once loved, will change and be given new names.
You are only here for one moment and it lasts exactly one lifetime. — Pleasefindthis

In the back of the fridge I checked out some stewed apples destined to fester. I examined them closely and reckoned they had only a day to go, even by my standards. I spooned the apples into tiny bowls, tossed in some dried fruit and sprinkled them with crumble topping. Delicious, they said that night, scraping the bowls so clean they hardly needed to go in the dishwasher. The fools. — Helen Brown

Bible literacy matters because it protects us from falling into error. Both the false teacher and the secular humanist rely on biblical ignorance for their messages to take root, and the modern church has proven fertile ground for those messages. Because we do not know our Bibles, we crumble at the most basic challenges to our worldview. Disillusionment and apathy eat away at our ranks. Women, in particular, are leaving the church in unprecedented numbers.1 — Jen Wilkin

The Old Man at the Wheel
Measured against the immeasurable
universe, no word you have spoken
brought light. Brought
light to what, as a child, you thought
too dark to be survived. By exorcism
you survived. By submission, then making.
You let all the parts of that thing you would
cut out of you enter your poem because
enacting there all its parts allowed you
the illusion you could cut it from your soul.
Dilemmas of choice given what cannot
change alone roused you to words.
As you grip the things that were young when
you were young, they crumble in your hand.
Now you must drive west, which in November
means driving directly into the sun. — Frank Bidart

I think politics is deadly to write about, frankly. If you have a political agenda and you set out to write a novel to prove that, say, capitalism should crumble, then it's going to be a really bad novel. Very few people have been able to deal with political fiction - Dickens, Dostoyevsky. But even Tolstoy got really tiresome when he was talking about the serfs. You have to let characters be characters, not [gruff voice] Mr Capitalism or [girlie voice] Miss Anti-Fur. — Donna Tartt

If the sky that we look upon should tumble and fall. Or the mountain should crumble to the sea. I won't cry, no I won't shed a tear, just as long as you stand by me. — Ben E. King

Tradition is the living faith of dead people to which we must add our chapter while we have the gift of life. Traditionalism is the dead faith of living people who fear that if anything changes, the whole enterprise will crumble. — Jaroslav Pelikan

I want art that makes the world seem more unreal. I want fiction that can crumble the world and build it back into something new. — Lincoln Michel

Gods of all the world, say something," she cried, and Talat startled beneath her.
"I love you," said Luthe. "I will love you till the stars crumble, which is a less idle threat than is usual to lovers on parting. Go quickly, for I cannot bear this."
She closed her legs violently around the nervous Talat, and he leaped into a gallop. Long after Aerin was out of sight, Luthe lay full length upon the ground, and pressed his ear to it, and listened to Talat's hoofbeats carrying Aerin farther and farther away. — Robin McKinley

The blaze from the trees spreads to tablecloths and crepe paper - a chain reaction so brilliantly spectacular and terrible, I ache to be a part of it ... to devour and destroy,then relish in the plunder.
I could do it.I could stand here amid the flames,let them lap at my skin,and laugh in a death-defying haze - because they belong to me. I could watch the world crumble and then dance,triumphant,in the snowfall of ash left behind.
All I have to do is set the power free. Escape the chains of my humanity,let madness be my guide. — A.G. Howard

It is evident, indeed, that such a doctrine, taken by itself in a literal manner, had no future. The world, in continuing to exist, caused it to crumble. One generation of man at the most was the limit of its endurance. The faith of the first Christian generation is intelligible, but the faith of the second generation is no longer so. After the death of John, or of the last survivor, whoever he might be, of the group which had seen the master, the word of Jesus was convicted of falsehood. — Ernest Renan

A lot of what we know to be history isn't ... it serves a purpose. Events are exaggerated, heroes fabricated, goals are rewritten to appear more noble than they actually were. All to manipulate public opinion, to manufacture a common purpose or enemy. And the cornerstone of a really great movement? A powerful symbol. Take away or tarnish that and everything starts to crumble, everything's questioned. — Louise Penny

Men are born and die. Kingdoms soar and crumble. Yet still the sun rises and sets. Few things are sure, but that there will always be a tomorrow and everything that has a beginning, also has an end. — N. Gemini Sasson

Not enough info makes for a lot of dead cats."
"Dead cats?"
"You know, 'Curiosity killed the cat.' And I have enough curiosity to start a feline genocide."
"Feline genocide?"
"Yeah. If you don't explain Apollo, the cat kingdom will crumble. Cats all over the world will suddenly plop down in unmoving masses of fur, their food will dry up in smelly chunks of fish, and when people call, 'Here, kitty kitty kitty,' no cats will come running; they'll just-" Walter suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong?" Ashley asked.
Walter stared straight ahead. "I just realized . . . if all those things happened, no one would notice the difference." ~Walter~ — Bryan Davis

Rather than worrying about work, schedules, and deadlines, I felt at peace with God. He was in control. The world at large would not crumble because I turned off my iPhone. This is how it's supposed to be. For the first time in who knows how long, I felt like myself. Fully alive. Fully present. And fully aware of God's goodness. — Craig Groeschel

Our hearts may have broken in Nebraska but in Colorado they split open along the fractures, crumble to pieces, blow away. The peaks and green valleys, the lakes set at the foot of mountains like offerings. Beautiful and doomed and thus terrible. — Ron Currie Jr.

When you understand, that what you're telling is just a story. It isn't happening anymore. When you realize the story you're telling is just words, when you can just crumble up and throw your past in the trashcan, then we'll figure out who you're going to be. — Chuck Palahniuk

there are some poems
that we leave behind
some that leave us behind

while some just live
silently
in the heart

crumble, sometimes
dwindle
disappear
die

and are reborn
when you smile again. — Sanober Khan

For our Hogwarts is in danger from external, deadly foes
And we must unite inside her or we'll crumble from within — J.K. Rowling

No! Kell shouted, reaching toward his brother, uselessly, desperately, but as his hand brushed the nearest person, the darkness leaped like fire from his fingers to the man's chest. He shuddered, and then collapsed, crumbling to ash as his body struck the street stones. Before he hit the ground, the people on either side of him began to fall as well, death rippling in a wave through the crowd, silently consuming everyone. Beyond them, the buildings began to crumble too, and the bridges, and the palace, until Kell was standing alone in an empty world. And then in the silence, he heard a sound: not a sob, or a scream, but a laugh. And it took him a moment to recognize the voice.
It was his. — Victoria Schwab

Ten years was not enough. Stone should
not crumble after just a decade of neglect. The filth should not have piled up so quickly - not with so few inhabitants, most of whom were incapacitated. It was as if Elantris were intent on dying, a city committing suicide. — Brandon Sanderson

You think the things you can touch and feel are the things that are real, but they are not. Over time, they all get old and decline. The people, the houses, the rocks and the mountains: one day they will all crumble. This is because they are not as real as the things that last forever. It is another one of the lessons we come to teach. — Kate McGahan

Why shouldn't you strengthen your own vibrations through fellowship with people seeking Self-realization, and by group meditation with them? This practice will fortify your own spiritual convictions you will find that many seemingly insuperable barriers in your life will crumble and dissolve in the waters of meditation. Your devotion and love for God will commingle with the devotion and love of others. Divine bliss will radiate from you, helping all persons you meet. — Paramahansa Yogananda

I know now that when the loving, honest moment comes it should be seized, and spoken, because it may never come again. And unvoiced, unmoving, unlived in the things we declare form heart to heart, those true and real feelings wither and crumble in the remembering hand that tries too late to reach for them. — Gregory David Roberts

What do you need me for? Salander's greatest fear, which was so huge and so black that it was of phobic proportions, was that people would laugh at her feelings. And all of a sudden all her carefully constructed self-confidence seemed to crumble. — Stieg Larsson

Life is much the same when it's going well
resonant and unremarkable. But who, not under disaster's seal, can understand what life is like when it begins to crumble? — Mary Oliver

...And unpredictability can spread: one powerful outlier can pave the way for others, and as more states joint the outlier, the foundations of the rule of law begin to crumble.

US counterterrorism practices--and the legal theories that under-pin them--are undermining the international rule of law in precisely this way... — Rosa Brooks

My favourite pudding is a toss-up between cheesecake - proper, New York cheesecake - and apple crumble and custard. Custard is very important, or dark chocolate mousse. Tea: probably Earl Grey, splash of milk. — Tom Hiddleston

The house that is built upon the sand will crumble at the first sign of a windstorm. — R.C. Sproul

She'd known it her whole life. It was the one thing she was certain of. That someday, everyone she loved would die. Everything she loved would crumble to ruin. It was the price of life. It was the price of love. It was the only ending for every true story. — Martha Brockenbrough

I really have to dance more often, and so I travel around. If I don't, I will crumble. — Rudolf Nureyev

It's always been the case that you have the really rich, and the really poor. But hey, look, all the great empires have their periods where they rule the world, and then they crumble. — Mickey Rourke

To-day I think
Only with scents, - scents dead leaves yield,
And bracken, and wild carrot's seed,
And the square mustard field;
Odours that rise
When the spade wounds the root of tree,
Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,
Rhubarb or celery;
The smoke's smell, too,
Flowing from where a bonfire burns
The dead, the waste, the dangerous,
And all to sweetness turns.
It is enough
To smell, to crumble the dark earth,
While the robin sings over again
Sad songs of Autumn mirth.
- A poem called DIGGING. — Edward Thomas

My heart had stopped as my world spun around me. I felt all the walls that had begun to crack and crumble slam right back into place as I looked into the eyes of the monster I knew was there all along. — Alicia Deters

There is a time in each of our lives when we are hurled into the terrible understanding that bedrock can crumble in the blink of an eye. — Shannon Polson

We are tiny flames, Helikaon, and we flicker alone in the great dark for no more than a heartbeat. When we strive for wealth, glory and fame, it is meaningless. The nations we fight for will one day cease to be. Even the mountains we gaze upon will crumble to dust. To truly live we must yearn for that which does not die. — David Gemmell

One of the reasons for this cataclysmic change of destinies was the inherent weakness of a decaying agricultural empire of the Mughals which after more than two hundred years of rule over vast areas of India, was at its terminal stage and needed a small push to crumble like a house of cards.That push was given by six East India Companies of different European countries which had extracted rights to trade with India from the Mughals but transformed themselves as the arbiters and protectors of several Indian states. In this process they not only became rich but also militarily strong because in the twilight years of the Mughal empire, deteriorating security environment necessitated to arm themselves to protect their economic interests. Because of their inherent superiority as representatives of rising industrial powers, they had access to modern techniques and technology of warfare, which turned out to be the decisive factor in capturing vast territories in India. — Shahid Hussain Raja

But you are never the same once you have acquired the knowledge that there is no self that will not crumble. We are told to learn self-reliance, but it's tricky if you have no self on which to rely. — Andrew Solomon

Unnatural, unorthodox, amoral: those pretensions crumble when confronted by true happiness. You shouldn't give another the authority to draw a line defining the boundaries of acceptable joy. — Darrell Drake

An ancient mustiness padded the air, tinged with with an acrid scent-a trace of the war between paper and oxygen, played out in slow inexorable burn that would one day crumble this empire to dust. -page 62 — Jennifer Lee Carrell

I looked forward to seeing it restored, not just for Grayson's sake, but for the sake of beauty itself. A place like this shouldn't be allowed to crumble to ruin. — Mia Sheridan

Where only a fool would build a house on shifting sand, the same goes for those who would build their lives on a lie - eventually, it is going to crumble. — Maggi Myers

A dramatic public display, Kay. The dam began to crumble with Columbine. It's not new, just the classification is. People have become addicted to attention, to fame. Profoundly disturbed individuals will kill and die for it. — Patricia Cornwell

Ben looked up, and the foundations of his life began to crumble. — K.J. Charles

I have tried to fight the impulse, the attraction, but my defenses crumble every time I see him. Since my divorce from Hank I'm practically love-starved. — Martha Lemasters

You're really cute, Midori," I corrected myself.
"What do you mean really cute?"
"So cute the mountains crumble and the oceans dry up. — Haruki Murakami

Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble. — Alan Perlis

But while you were doing it, he looked at me, and the look on his face - I still cannot describe it, other than in that moment, I felt something crumble inside me, like a tower of damp sand built too high: for him, and for you, and for me as well. And in his face, I knew my own would be echoed. — Hanya Yanagihara

Let it crumble! Let the rocks revile me and flowers wilt at my coming. Your whole universe is not enough to prove me wrong. You are the king of gods, king of stones and stars, king of the waves of the sea. But you are not the king of man. — Jean-Paul Sartre

My life's been defined by my actions. I've shaped my destiny through my battles. I would rather keep chasing after my dreams until I crumble into dust than sit around waiting for fate to show me mercy. — Koji Suzuki

Genet suggested that colonialism would crumble from the weight of its ignorance, its arrogance and greed, and that the oppressed would take over the positions of their former masters. They would be no better, no more courageous and no more merciful. I — Maya Angelou

My heart is closed, soon it will crumble away. Stifling my tears, I scream every day. My heart has shown me that believing is nothing. My own heart killed me. — Kyo

That's what memory is like: layers, one overlapping another, and compacting down the way old leaves slowly crumble and turn to a rich peaty soil, nourishing the new things that will grow. It's why it's important, remembering things. It's why it matters, when the memories aren't there, and no one fills in the gaps for you. — Julia Green

An idea built the wall of separation between the sexes, and an idea will crumble it to dust ... — Sarah Moore Grimke

For although we know that the years pass, that youth gives way to old age, that fortunes and thrones crumble (even the most solid among them) and that fame is transitory, the manner in which - by means of a sort of snapshot - we take cognisance of this moving universe whirled along by Time, has the contrary effect of immobilising it. — Marcel Proust

Few intellectual tyrannies can be more recalcitrant than the truths that everybody knows and nearly no one can defend with any decent data (for who needs proof of anything so obvious). And few intellectual activities can be more salutary than attempts to find out whether these rocks of ages might crumble at the slightest tap of an informational hammer. — Stephen Jay Gould

The subtlest change in New York is something people don't speak much about but that is in everyone's mind. The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now: in the sound of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition. (Written in 1949, 22 years before the World Trade Center was completed.) — E.B. White