Lily Brooks-Dalton Quotes

He wanted to tell her about his work, his achievements, but also his failures -to confess his sins, and to be forgiven. Here, at the very end of his life, he had so much to say and yet so little strenght to say it.

. . .as the silence wore on it grew cacophonous.

...I didn't want to be a passenger on someone else's motorcycle.
I wanted to be the one riding that motherfucker.

The dream clung to her. Her sleep had been full of Jupiter ever since the survey last week: that overwhelming, unstoppable girth; the swirling patterns of the atmosphere, dark belts and light stripes rolling in circular rivers of ammonia crystal clouds; every shade of orange in the spectrum, from soft, sand-coloured regions to vivid streams of molten vermilion; the breathtaking speed of a ten-hour orbit, whipping around and around the planet like a spinning top; the opaque surface, simmering and roaring in century-old tempests. And the moons! The ancient, pockmarked skin of Callisto and the icy crust of Ganymede. The rusty cracks of Europa's subterranean oceans. The volcanoes of Io, magma fireworks leaping up from the surface.

On a motorcycle, I learned to let go of the vast uncertainty and focus instead on what is in front of me: the surface of the road and the curve of it, the vehicles in front and behind, the wind and the rain and the wildlife peeking out of the grass. There are times when I struggle to manage every last detail as it whips pat me, to hold on to past and present and future simultaneously, but they're not mine to understand, or control. I have to remind myself, again and again, that only this is mine: this moment, this heartbeat, this decision.

There is a delicate ridge one must ride between fear and reason on a motorcycle - lean too far in either direction and there will be consequences.

Riding that ridge between reason and recklessness, stillness and speed, is the first, maybe the most important, thing I learned about motorcycles.