34 Quotes by Marilyn Johnson

Bibliomancy? It’s defined for us a little further down: “Divination by jolly well Looking It Up.

Bibliomancy: “Divination by jolly well Looking It Up.

You can tell the archaeologists, of course, by their photos. The tourists’ photos feature people in front of mountains, terraces, stone structures, sundials. The archaeologists wait until the people move away to take theirs: they want the terrace, the stone wall, the lintel, the human-made thing, all sans humans.

They seemed to be quiet types, the women and men in rubber-soled shoes. Their favorite word, after literacy, was privacy – for their patrons and themselves.

Yes, librarians use punctuation marks to make little emoticons, smiley and frowny faces in their correspondence, but if there were one for an ironic wink, or a sarcastic lip curl, they’d wear it out.

Who knows how many people are invisible because their stories don’t fit our categories?

One graduate student told me, “When the Apocalypse comes, you want to know an archaeologist, because we know how to make fire, catch food, and create hill forts,” and I promptly added her to my address book. Knows how to make hill forts – who can say when that will come in handy?