19 Quotes by Denise Kiernan

It was a reminder in this time of tarnishing gilt, that should all else crumble, memories of gestures made, thoughtfulness considered, and seeds of inspiration planted, might outlast all.

The "hillbilly" girls were generating more enriched Tubealloy per run than the PhDs had...The District Engineer understood perfectly. Those girls...had been trained like soldiers. Do what you're told. Don't ask why.

The doctors made plans to collect biological samples--tissues, urine, feces--all of which would be tested for the presence of plutonium, to see how it would travel, how much of it would remain in the body, and what effect it might have on HP-12 [Ebb Cade]. The day after the injection [April, 1945], Dr. Friedell sent news to Los Alamos. "I think we will have access to considerable clinical material here and we hope to do a number of subjects," he wrote.

It was a time of repurposing. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without,” was the motto of the time.

Case in point: On one of their first dates, he brought her a box of Ivory Flakes soap. Who needs flowers? Roses fade, but flaky soap available from the PX lasted months. Having Ivory Flakes was a rarity in itself, and also saved her valuable time – one less line to stand in, only to find that the grocer was out. Again. That was romance, as far as Colleen was concerned. Maybe this guy was a keeper after all.

I hope for some sort of peace – but I fear that machines are ahead of morals by some centuries and when morals catch up perhaps there’ll be no reason for any of it. I hope not. But we are only termites on a planet and maybe when we forge too deeply into the planet there will be a reckoning – who knows?

They fought to smile through the lines and the mud and the long hours, dancing under the stars and under the watchful eyes of their government, an Orwellian backdrop for a Rockwellian world.

Forget jumping grains of sand – that was enough energy to displace a chunk of desert.

So ended a day many had dreaded,” Natalie wrote in her diary on Christmas Day, “but by doing and thinking of others, we had forgotten self.