“It was 27 June 1930 that Chief Inspector Maigret had his first encounter with the dead man, who was destined to be a most intimate and disturbing feature of his life for weeks on end.”  Georges Simenon, Stonewalled.

“Among all the home businesses touted these days, I can think of none that is easier to get into, cheaper to start, or offers more potential for recognition, respect, and reward than nonfiction book writing.” Marc McCutcheon, Damn! Why Didn’t I Write That? How Ordinary People ore Raking in $100,000 . . . or more Writing Nonfiction Books & How You Can Too!

“The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief.” Sarah Vowell, The Wordy Shipmates.

“No one in the tiny Ozark town of Mill Springs, Missouri, was likely to have been surprised when William McFadden decided to drink himself blind one day in 1873.” Mark Adams, Mr. America: How Muscular Millionaire Bernarr MacFadden Transformed the Nation through Sex, Salad, and the Ultimate Starvation Diet.

“Various are the pleas and arguments which men of corrupt minds frequently urge against the yielding obedience to the just and holy commands of God.”  George Whitefield, The Sermons of George Whitefield.

“It is our good fortune to live in an age when philosophy is thought to be a harmless affair.” Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World.

“Both sides in the American Civil War professed to be fighting for freedom.”  James M. McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era.

“Not all the gallantry of General Lee can redeem, quite, his foolhardiness at Gettysburg.” Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America.

“If Samuel had known his mother was leaving, he might have paid more attention.” Nathan Hill, The Nix.

“Just as the German Reformation was largely the work of a single individual, Martin Luther, so the Scottish Reformation was the achievement of one man of heroic will and tireless energy: John Knox.” Arthur Herman, How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything In It.

“The air still smelled of charcoal when I arrived in Venice three days after the fire.” John Berendt, The City of Falling Angels.

“Thirst is deadlier than hunger.”  Tom Standage, A History of the World in 6 Glasses.

“When Europeans began imagining Africa beyond the Sahara, the continent they pictured was a dreamscape, a site for fantasies of the ferocious and the supernatural.”  Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa.

“The American Academy of Emergency Medicine confirms it: Each year, between one and two dozen adult males are admitted to ERs after having castrated themselves.”  David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays.