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Top 250 Mary Roach Quotes (2025 Update)
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Mary Roach Quote: “US government button specifications run to twenty-two pages. This fact on its own yields a sense of what it is like to design garments for the Army.”

201. “US government button specifications run to twenty-two pages. This fact on its own yields a sense of what it is like to design garments for the Army.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Brave and anal: the ideal space explorer. Though you don’t find “anal” on any of those lists of recommended astronaut attributes. NASA doesn’t really use words like anal. Unless they have to.”

202. “Brave and anal: the ideal space explorer. Though you don’t find “anal” on any of those lists of recommended astronaut attributes. NASA doesn’t really use words like anal. Unless they have to.”

Mary Roach Quote: “As a feature of the common man’s funeral, the open casket is a relatively recent development: around 150 years. According to Mack, it serves several purposes, aside from providing what undertakers call “the memory picture.” It reassures the family that, one, their loved one is unequivocally dead and not about to be buried alive, and, two, that the body in the casket is indeed their loved one, and not the stiff from the container beside his.”

203. “As a feature of the common man’s funeral, the open casket is a relatively recent development: around 150 years. According to Mack, it serves several purposes, aside from providing what undertakers call “the memory picture.” It reassures the family that, one, their loved one is unequivocally dead and not about to be buried alive, and, two, that the body in the casket is indeed their loved one, and not the stiff from the container beside his.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Space Shuttle toilets have always been mounted on the floor, but you would not call them normal. The original shuttle toilet bowl featured a set of 1,200 rpm Waring blender blades positioned a brief 6 inches below the sitter’s anatomy. The macerator would pulp the feces and tissue – meaning, if all went well, the paper, not the scrotal, variety – and fling it to the sides of a holding tank.”

204. “Space Shuttle toilets have always been mounted on the floor, but you would not call them normal. The original shuttle toilet bowl featured a set of 1,200 rpm Waring blender blades positioned a brief 6 inches below the sitter’s anatomy. The macerator would pulp the feces and tissue – meaning, if all went well, the paper, not the scrotal, variety – and fling it to the sides of a holding tank.”

Mary Roach Quote: “He told me that a German doctor named Wolff figured it out in the 1800s by studying X-rays of infants’ hips as they transitioned from crawling to walking. “A whole new evolution of bone structure takes place to support the mechanical loads associated with walking,” said Lang. “Wolff had the great insight that form follows function.” Alas, Wolff did not have the great insight that cancer follows gratuitous X-raying with primitive nineteenth-century X-ray machines.”

205. “He told me that a German doctor named Wolff figured it out in the 1800s by studying X-rays of infants’ hips as they transitioned from crawling to walking. “A whole new evolution of bone structure takes place to support the mechanical loads associated with walking,” said Lang. “Wolff had the great insight that form follows function.” Alas, Wolff did not have the great insight that cancer follows gratuitous X-raying with primitive nineteenth-century X-ray machines.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Not all that surprisingly, Holmes began to go insane, spending his final years in and out of institutions. At seventy, he was placing ads in mortuary trade journals for a rubber-coated canvas body removal bag that could, he suggested, double as a sleeping bag. Shortly before he died, Holmes is said to have requested that he not be embalmed, though whether this was a function of sanity or insanity was never made clear.”

206. “Not all that surprisingly, Holmes began to go insane, spending his final years in and out of institutions. At seventy, he was placing ads in mortuary trade journals for a rubber-coated canvas body removal bag that could, he suggested, double as a sleeping bag. Shortly before he died, Holmes is said to have requested that he not be embalmed, though whether this was a function of sanity or insanity was never made clear.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Rawson points out that although snakes can’t taste, they have a primitive sense of smell. They’ll extend their tongue to gather volatile molecules and then pull it back in and plug it into the vomeronasal organ at the roof of the mouth to get a reading. Snakes are keenly attuned to the aroma of favored prey – so much so that if you slip a rat’s face and hide, Hannibal Lecter–style, over the snout of a non-favored prey item, a python will try to swallow it.”

207. “Rawson points out that although snakes can’t taste, they have a primitive sense of smell. They’ll extend their tongue to gather volatile molecules and then pull it back in and plug it into the vomeronasal organ at the roof of the mouth to get a reading. Snakes are keenly attuned to the aroma of favored prey – so much so that if you slip a rat’s face and hide, Hannibal Lecter–style, over the snout of a non-favored prey item, a python will try to swallow it.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Gelatin fed to animals, the committee reported, was found to “excite an intolerable distaste to a degree which renders starvation preferable.”

208. “Gelatin fed to animals, the committee reported, was found to “excite an intolerable distaste to a degree which renders starvation preferable.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Now we’re going to set the features,” says Theo. He lifts one of the man’s eyelids and packs tufts of cotton underneath to fill out the lid the way the man’s eyeballs once did. Oddly, the culture I associate most closely with cotton, the Egyptians, did not use their famous Egyptian cotton for plumping out withered eyes. The ancient Egyptians put pearl onions in there. Onions. Speaking for myself, if I had to have a small round martini garnish inserted under my eyelids, I would go with olives.”

209. “Now we’re going to set the features,” says Theo. He lifts one of the man’s eyelids and packs tufts of cotton underneath to fill out the lid the way the man’s eyeballs once did. Oddly, the culture I associate most closely with cotton, the Egyptians, did not use their famous Egyptian cotton for plumping out withered eyes. The ancient Egyptians put pearl onions in there. Onions. Speaking for myself, if I had to have a small round martini garnish inserted under my eyelids, I would go with olives.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Humans are better equipped for sight than for smell. We process visual input ten times faster than olfactory.”

210. “Humans are better equipped for sight than for smell. We process visual input ten times faster than olfactory.”

Mary Roach Quote: “This is why you don’t just stick bodies in the refrigerator before an open-casket funeral. Mack is telling me about a ninety-seven-year-old woman who looked sixty after her embalming. “We had to paint in wrinkles, or the family wouldn’t recognize her.”

211. “This is why you don’t just stick bodies in the refrigerator before an open-casket funeral. Mack is telling me about a ninety-seven-year-old woman who looked sixty after her embalming. “We had to paint in wrinkles, or the family wouldn’t recognize her.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Making matters riskier: bed pans! “The notorious frequency of sudden and unexpected deaths of patients while using bed pans in hospitals has been commented upon for many years,” wrote the Cincinnati doctors. Notorious enough for a term to be coined: “bed pan death.” Lying flat is as counterproductive a posture as squatting is productive. Squatting passively increases the pressure on the rectum. It does the pushing for you. It.”

212. “Making matters riskier: bed pans! “The notorious frequency of sudden and unexpected deaths of patients while using bed pans in hospitals has been commented upon for many years,” wrote the Cincinnati doctors. Notorious enough for a term to be coined: “bed pan death.” Lying flat is as counterproductive a posture as squatting is productive. Squatting passively increases the pressure on the rectum. It does the pushing for you. It.”

Mary Roach Quote: “All the clothes in my closet are Oakland, California, clothes. You can’t wear those anywhere else. The barometric pressure drops and then where are you?”

213. “All the clothes in my closet are Oakland, California, clothes. You can’t wear those anywhere else. The barometric pressure drops and then where are you?”

Mary Roach Quote: “The writing is always the easy part, provided I can get the good material. It’s the getting of the good material that’s a challenge.”

214. “The writing is always the easy part, provided I can get the good material. It’s the getting of the good material that’s a challenge.”

Mary Roach Quote: “I ask Nichopoulos to talk about precisely, medically, what caused Presley’s death. “The night he died he was bigger than usual,” he begins. Depending on how long it had been since Presley had managed to empty himself, his girth fluctuated between big and stupendous. He sometimes appeared to be gaining or losing twenty pounds from one performance to the next. “He wanted to get rid of his gut that night. He was pushing and pushing. Holding his breath.” As the constipated do.”

215. “I ask Nichopoulos to talk about precisely, medically, what caused Presley’s death. “The night he died he was bigger than usual,” he begins. Depending on how long it had been since Presley had managed to empty himself, his girth fluctuated between big and stupendous. He sometimes appeared to be gaining or losing twenty pounds from one performance to the next. “He wanted to get rid of his gut that night. He was pushing and pushing. Holding his breath.” As the constipated do.”

Mary Roach Quote: “There are people who would love to spend their last ten years, or five years, or whatever it is, on the surface of Mars.”

216. “There are people who would love to spend their last ten years, or five years, or whatever it is, on the surface of Mars.”

Mary Roach Quote: “He describes opening up an artery, flushing the blood out with water, and pumping in alcohol. I’ve been to frat parties like that.”

217. “He describes opening up an artery, flushing the blood out with water, and pumping in alcohol. I’ve been to frat parties like that.”

Mary Roach Quote: “The paper does not provide the exact number of penises eaten by ducks, but the author says there have been enough over the years to prompt the coining of a popular saying: ‘I better get home or the ducks will have something to eat.”

218. “The paper does not provide the exact number of penises eaten by ducks, but the author says there have been enough over the years to prompt the coining of a popular saying: ‘I better get home or the ducks will have something to eat.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Stanford University suggests that a two-year mission to Mars would have about the same effect on one’s skeleton. Would an astronaut returning from Mars run the risk of stepping out of the capsule into Earth gravity and snapping a bone?”

219. “Stanford University suggests that a two-year mission to Mars would have about the same effect on one’s skeleton. Would an astronaut returning from Mars run the risk of stepping out of the capsule into Earth gravity and snapping a bone?”

Mary Roach Quote: “The only conclusion I feel sure of at this point,” he mused, “is that women are too complicated.”

220. “The only conclusion I feel sure of at this point,” he mused, “is that women are too complicated.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Pretty much any amino acid arrangement can be hydrolyzed, including those of the recyclable that dares not speak its name. A four-person crew will, over the course of three years, generate somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand pounds of feces. In the ominous words of sixties space nutritionist Emil Mrak, “The possibility of reuse must be considered.” Sometime.”

221. “Pretty much any amino acid arrangement can be hydrolyzed, including those of the recyclable that dares not speak its name. A four-person crew will, over the course of three years, generate somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand pounds of feces. In the ominous words of sixties space nutritionist Emil Mrak, “The possibility of reuse must be considered.” Sometime.”

Mary Roach Quote: “The pole is nonconductive, enabling the savvy rescuer to save a life without joining the growing conga line of electrocution victims.”

222. “The pole is nonconductive, enabling the savvy rescuer to save a life without joining the growing conga line of electrocution victims.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Which ones, in short, make the difference in the consumer’s mouth and mind? “And you can’t ask the consumer,” says Langstaff. “You ask the consumer, ‘Why does it taste better?’ They say, ‘Because I like it better.’” The consumer’s flavor lexicon is tiny: yum and yuck.”

223. “Which ones, in short, make the difference in the consumer’s mouth and mind? “And you can’t ask the consumer,” says Langstaff. “You ask the consumer, ‘Why does it taste better?’ They say, ‘Because I like it better.’” The consumer’s flavor lexicon is tiny: yum and yuck.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Morning breath” is hydrogen sulfide released by bacteria consuming shed tongue cells while you mouth-breathe for eight hours; saliva normally washes the debris away.”

224. “Morning breath” is hydrogen sulfide released by bacteria consuming shed tongue cells while you mouth-breathe for eight hours; saliva normally washes the debris away.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Navy personnel began clamoring for it. To the embarrassment of many, the current Navy working uniform is a blue camouflage print. Unsure whether perhaps I was missing the point, I asked a Navy commander about the rationale. He looked down at his trousers and sighed. “That’s so no one can see you if you fall overboard.” No.”

225. “Navy personnel began clamoring for it. To the embarrassment of many, the current Navy working uniform is a blue camouflage print. Unsure whether perhaps I was missing the point, I asked a Navy commander about the rationale. He looked down at his trousers and sighed. “That’s so no one can see you if you fall overboard.” No.”

Mary Roach Quote: “What does this tell us about sharks? Should women be worried? Hard to say. How crazy are sharks for seal meat? Do dead groupers smell like used tampons? Unknown. I’d stay in my deck chair, if I were menstruating you.”

226. “What does this tell us about sharks? Should women be worried? Hard to say. How crazy are sharks for seal meat? Do dead groupers smell like used tampons? Unknown. I’d stay in my deck chair, if I were menstruating you.”

Mary Roach Quote: “If you don’t have a pair of cadaver shoes, you’re not doing enough research.”

227. “If you don’t have a pair of cadaver shoes, you’re not doing enough research.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Animals have evolved to survive,” Rawson says. They like what’s best for them. People blanch to see “fish meal” or “meat meal” on a pet-food ingredient panel, but meal – which variously includes organs, heads, skin, and bones – most closely resembles the diet of dogs and cats in the wild.”

228. “Animals have evolved to survive,” Rawson says. They like what’s best for them. People blanch to see “fish meal” or “meat meal” on a pet-food ingredient panel, but meal – which variously includes organs, heads, skin, and bones – most closely resembles the diet of dogs and cats in the wild.”

Mary Roach Quote: “After six months, you forget how heavy things are. Like, yourself.” You also, after months of weightlessness, forget how to use your legs. “Your muscles don’t remember what to do.” And astronauts have no pit crew to rush.”

229. “After six months, you forget how heavy things are. Like, yourself.” You also, after months of weightlessness, forget how to use your legs. “Your muscles don’t remember what to do.” And astronauts have no pit crew to rush.”

Mary Roach Quote: “That was the mindset that propelled one of the AMRL’s least popular liquid diets into a long and lucrative career as Carnation Instant Breakfast.”

230. “That was the mindset that propelled one of the AMRL’s least popular liquid diets into a long and lucrative career as Carnation Instant Breakfast.”

Mary Roach Quote: “For the forces of any given blast, one type may stretch, say, a fifth of its length without tearing, while another may manage just 5 percent. WIAMan will be calibrated to reflect these differences and predict the consequences.”

231. “For the forces of any given blast, one type may stretch, say, a fifth of its length without tearing, while another may manage just 5 percent. WIAMan will be calibrated to reflect these differences and predict the consequences.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Not a single one was shipped to the field. Why? Because the National Defense Research Committee had been working on a far more lasting and penetrative weapon for use against the Japanese. Seventeen days before the second and final Final Report on Who, Me? was released, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. O.”

232. “Not a single one was shipped to the field. Why? Because the National Defense Research Committee had been working on a far more lasting and penetrative weapon for use against the Japanese. Seventeen days before the second and final Final Report on Who, Me? was released, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. O.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Whenever Mark takes over the explaining, Brockhoff drops back and takes out her phone. She does not seem rude, just grindingly busy and determined to stay on top of her day. I see her come and go in my peripheral vision, pacing, answering email. She gives the impression of someone for whom idleness is almost physically unbearable. She is gorgeous, articulate, fast-moving, powerful. Lesser humans left blinking in her wake. Brockhoff.”

233. “Whenever Mark takes over the explaining, Brockhoff drops back and takes out her phone. She does not seem rude, just grindingly busy and determined to stay on top of her day. I see her come and go in my peripheral vision, pacing, answering email. She gives the impression of someone for whom idleness is almost physically unbearable. She is gorgeous, articulate, fast-moving, powerful. Lesser humans left blinking in her wake. Brockhoff.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Because it’s hard for people to gauge quality by flavor, they tend to gauge it by price. That’s a mistake. Langstaff.”

234. “Because it’s hard for people to gauge quality by flavor, they tend to gauge it by price. That’s a mistake. Langstaff.”

Mary Roach Quote: “People pooh-pooh Bud. It’s an extremely well-made beer. It’s clean, it’s refreshing. If you’re mowing the lawn and you come in and you want something refreshing and thirst-quenching, you wouldn’t drink this.” She indicates the IPA. Of all the descriptors.”

235. “People pooh-pooh Bud. It’s an extremely well-made beer. It’s clean, it’s refreshing. If you’re mowing the lawn and you come in and you want something refreshing and thirst-quenching, you wouldn’t drink this.” She indicates the IPA. Of all the descriptors.”

Mary Roach Quote: “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.”

236. “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 Quote: “He has a minor in explosives and the slightly bitter, misanthropic personality of someone who shouldn’t.”

237. “He has a minor in explosives and the slightly bitter, misanthropic personality of someone who shouldn’t.”

Mary Roach Quote: “They have this idea that they can send astronauts up and the bone loss will level off in a few months, but the evidence that has come back doesn’t support that view. If you look at a two-year mission to Mars, it’s kind of a scary prospect.”

238. “They have this idea that they can send astronauts up and the bone loss will level off in a few months, but the evidence that has come back doesn’t support that view. If you look at a two-year mission to Mars, it’s kind of a scary prospect.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Riddle traveled a lot in his twenties and recalls being hit by a realization. So much of people’s lives – their opportunities, their health and longevity – comes down to where they were born. “It’s so random,” he says.”

239. “Riddle traveled a lot in his twenties and recalls being hit by a realization. So much of people’s lives – their opportunities, their health and longevity – comes down to where they were born. “It’s so random,” he says.”

Mary Roach Quote: “The question then becomes, was it necessary, once the likes of Vesalius had pretty much figured out the basics, for every student of anatomy to get right in there and figure them out all over again? Why couldn’t models and preserved prosections be used to teach anatomy? Do gross anatomy labs reinvent the wheel? The questions were especially relevant in Knox’s day, given the way in which bodies were procured, but they are still relevant today.”

240. “The question then becomes, was it necessary, once the likes of Vesalius had pretty much figured out the basics, for every student of anatomy to get right in there and figure them out all over again? Why couldn’t models and preserved prosections be used to teach anatomy? Do gross anatomy labs reinvent the wheel? The questions were especially relevant in Knox’s day, given the way in which bodies were procured, but they are still relevant today.”

Mary Roach Quote: “A four-person crew will, over the course of three years, generate somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand pounds of feces. In the ominous words of sixties space nutritionist Emil Mrak, “The possibility of reuse must be considered.” Sometime.”

241. “A four-person crew will, over the course of three years, generate somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand pounds of feces. In the ominous words of sixties space nutritionist Emil Mrak, “The possibility of reuse must be considered.” Sometime.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Is it possible to bolster one’s hip bones by doing some type of controlled fall? Here.”

242. “Is it possible to bolster one’s hip bones by doing some type of controlled fall? Here.”

Mary Roach Quote: “You may be thinking, Wow, that Mary Roach has her head up her ass. To which I say: Only briefly, and with the utmost respect.”

243. “You may be thinking, Wow, that Mary Roach has her head up her ass. To which I say: Only briefly, and with the utmost respect.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Now she’s coming out one of the nostrils, across the septum, and then she’s going to reenter the mouth. There are a variety of ways of closing the mouth,” he adds, and then he begins talking about something called a needle injector. I pose my own mouth to resemble the mouth of someone who is quietly horrified, and this works quite well to close Theo’s mouth. The suturing proceeds in silence. Theo.”

244. “Now she’s coming out one of the nostrils, across the septum, and then she’s going to reenter the mouth. There are a variety of ways of closing the mouth,” he adds, and then he begins talking about something called a needle injector. I pose my own mouth to resemble the mouth of someone who is quietly horrified, and this works quite well to close Theo’s mouth. The suturing proceeds in silence. Theo.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Ka was the essence of teh person: spirit, intelligence, feelings and passions, humor, grudges, annoying television theme songs, all the things that make a person a person and not a nematode.”

245. “Ka was the essence of teh person: spirit, intelligence, feelings and passions, humor, grudges, annoying television theme songs, all the things that make a person a person and not a nematode.”

Mary Roach Quote: “For every twenty-four hours awake, Belenky told me, people lose 25 percent of their capacity for useful mental work.”

246. “For every twenty-four hours awake, Belenky told me, people lose 25 percent of their capacity for useful mental work.”

Mary Roach Quote: “One of the things I love about manned space exploration is that it forces people to unlace certain notions of what is and isn’t acceptable. And possible. It’s amazing what sometimes gets accomplished via an initially jarring but ultimately harmless shift in thinking.”

247. “One of the things I love about manned space exploration is that it forces people to unlace certain notions of what is and isn’t acceptable. And possible. It’s amazing what sometimes gets accomplished via an initially jarring but ultimately harmless shift in thinking.”

Mary Roach Quote: “A study in the journal Obesity Surgery reported no significant differences in the size of the stomachs of morbidly obese people as compared with non-obese control subjects. It is hormones and metabolism, calories consumed and calories burned, that determine one’s weight, not holding capacity.”

248. “A study in the journal Obesity Surgery reported no significant differences in the size of the stomachs of morbidly obese people as compared with non-obese control subjects. It is hormones and metabolism, calories consumed and calories burned, that determine one’s weight, not holding capacity.”

Mary Roach Quote: “The other problem with classroom-based efforts to change eating habits was that children don’t decide what’s for dinner. Mead and her team soon realized they had to get to the person they called the “gatekeeper” – Mom.”

249. “The other problem with classroom-based efforts to change eating habits was that children don’t decide what’s for dinner. Mead and her team soon realized they had to get to the person they called the “gatekeeper” – Mom.”

Mary Roach Quote: “Expert economics coming to the assistance of ambitious unintelligence.” Let them chew cake.”

250. “Expert economics coming to the assistance of ambitious unintelligence.” Let them chew cake.”

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