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" Literally thousands of e-mails over the course of a book go out to people I've never met, people who might end up being the focus of a chapter. "
Mary Roach
People
End
Focus
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" When I was a kid, I hated everything. I was really skinny, and I'd have a milkshake with an egg in it. Growing up, I ate, like, five different foods. I was not an adventurous eater. But as soon as I left home, that all changed and from that point on, I've been a pretty enthusiastic eater of new and strange food. "
Mary Roach
Growing
Strange
Home
" Mushy food is a form of sensory deprivation. In the same way that a dark, silent room will eventually drive you to hallucinate, the mind rebels against bland, single-texture foods, edibles that do not engage the oral device. "
Mary Roach
Mind
Dark
Food
" I'm drawn to the taboos that surround the human body. I find it fascinating that we are repelled by many of the acts and processes that keep us alive. "
Mary Roach
Alive
Human Body
Human
" To me, NASA is kind of the magical kingdom. I was sort of a geek, and you go there, and there are just these wondrously strange things and people. "
Mary Roach
Magical
Me
Kind
" I think by and large, humans prefer to think of themselves as minds from the neck up. We don't really like to think of ourselves as another animal, another digesting, excreting, mating, snoring, sleeping kind of sack of guts. I don't think we like that. I think we'd rather not be reminded of it. "
Mary Roach
Animal
Sleeping
Think
" The Internet is a boon for hypochondriacs like me. "
Mary Roach
Internet
Me
Boon
" People don't appreciate their intestines until something goes wrong. But I always hope that people gain a little appreciation for their guts. "
Mary Roach
Appreciation
Appreciate
Hope
" My books are not really books; they're endless chains of distraction shoved inside a cover. Many of them begin at the search box of Pub Med, an Internet database of medical journal articles. "
Mary Roach
Internet
Search
Medical
" Astronauts are like these mythic legends, but really, they are just regular people, people who wear chinos. "
Mary Roach
Like
People
Astronauts
" The broader the topic, the easier it is, not only to fill a book, but to set the bar pretty high for really great stuff. "
Mary Roach
High
Pretty
Book
" When someone tells me, 'Oh, we have so many problems on Earth; space exploration costs too much money,' I say, 'I absolutely agree with you. But I still hope we do it.' "
Mary Roach
Earth
Money
Problems
" Everybody is going to die, so people are enthralled by the possibility that they don't have to completely die, that there is something that comes afterward. It's like if you're going to France for the summer, you're going to read up on it. Everyone just wants to know where they're going, or if they're going anywhere. "
Mary Roach
You
People
Know
" Most of the people who are engaged in the subjects that I look into are pretty interesting. Whether its sex researchers or someone who's devoted their career to saliva or somebody who does research with cadavers, there's an inherent fascination in the subject matter of their work. "
Mary Roach
Work
Research
People
" I spend a lot of my time on the phone, pestering people. 'What's new in your lab? Can I come visit your lab? When can I come visit your lab?' I'm basically a professional pesterer. "
Mary Roach
Time
New
People
" I believe that not everything we humans encounter in our lives can be neatly and convincingly tucked away inside the orderly cabinetry of science. "
Mary Roach
Everything
I Believe
Science
" If you could really guarantee that the money would be spent on something more worthwhile, I'd say, absolutely, scrap the space program, but it never works that way. "
Mary Roach
Way
Say
Money
" I've read plenty of amazing science pieces where the writers don't hang out in labs. I just have fun doing it. And I get rewarded for it; I get gushy, especially when kids tell me they expected to be bored by my books, but weren't. "
Mary Roach
Have Fun
Amazing
Me
" Spacewalking is a little like rock climbing in that everything, including and especially oneself, must be tethered or docked at all times. If you forget to tether a tool, it's gone. Ditto yourself. "
Mary Roach
Rock
You
Everything
" I had a bike accident a few years ago, and I went to the emergency room, and I had to have a gash sewn up. And I am the kind of person that I was sitting up fascinated, watching, to the extent that the doctor said, 'Do you want to do a couple of stitches? You seem to be very interested.' "
Mary Roach
Bike
Doctor
You
" I make lists to keep my anxiety level down. If I write down 15 things to be done, I lose that vague, nagging sense that there are an overwhelming number of things to be done, all of which are on the brink of being forgotten. "
Mary Roach
Lose
Anxiety
Forgotten
" Animals' taste systems are specialized for the niche they occupy in the environment. That includes us. As hunters and foragers of the dry savannah, our earliest forebears evolved a taste for important but scarce nutrients: salt and high-energy fats and sugars. That, in a nutshell, explains the widespread popularity of junk food. "
Mary Roach
Important
Animals
Environment
" Any time you can take a book a little beyond the realm of pure entertainment, I think it's a good thing. But I don't really have it on my to-do list when I write a book. It just evolves naturally during the process of immersing yourself in a subject. "
Mary Roach
Yourself
You
Time
" Weightlessness was unbelievable. It's physical euphoria: Nothing about you has any weight. You don't realize that you are weighed down all the time by yourself, and your organs, and your head. Your arms weigh down your shoulders. In space simulation, you get to fly like Superman! You're hanging in the air! It's the coolest thing. "
Mary Roach
Time
You
Yourself
" Will I switch to E-reading? I won't, mainly because I love the look and feel of books - particularly hardbacks. I love them enough to put up with the minor hassles of lugging them around and maneuvering them in my lap and having to set them aside while I eat my cheeseburger. "
Mary Roach
Enough
Love
Will
" A fine book, in the perfect setting, when there's all the time in the world to read it: Life holds greater joys, but none come to mind just now. "
Mary Roach
Time
Mind
Life
" Every now and then, someone will tell me that one of my books has made them laugh out loud. I never believe them because: a.) my books don't make me laugh out loud; and b.) sometimes I have said this to a writer, when really what I meant was, 'Your book made me smile appreciatively.' "
Mary Roach
Smile
Laugh
Someone
" Dead people never seem to address the obvious - the things you'd think they'd be bursting to talk about, and the things all of us not-yet-dead are madly curious about. Such as: 'Hey, where are you now? What do you do all day? What's it feel like being dead? Can you see me? Even when I'm on the toilet? Would you cut that out?' "
Mary Roach
Me
Day
You
" Science is you! It's your head, it's your dog, it's your iPhone - it's the world. How do you see that as boring? If it's boring, it's because you're learning it from a textbook. "
Mary Roach
Dog
World
See
" You won't see me writing about particle physics, or even planetary geology, or chemistry. I practically failed chemistry, and if I had to write a book in any of those areas, I don't think it would go well. "
Mary Roach
Book
Chemistry
Me
" I've always been a bit of a space geek. I wrote an article years ago about the neutral buoyancy tank, which is this biblically sized pool where they train astronauts. And it was just the coolest thing. "
Mary Roach
Always
Space
Train