From Theodore Dalrymple:
“There is often more heroism in a life of quiet decency than in one of flamboyant deeds; but our minds are like those of bower birds, attracted to the bright, shiny, meretricious, and sensational.”
I wish I could write like that. The thought isn’t even central to Dalrymple’s essay; it just sits there, like a beautiful flower at the side of a busy interstate.