On Drew Gilpin Faust:

She wanted to understand how whole classes of people can get caught up in a shared worldview, to the point that they simply can't see.

Robin Nagle:

What is that thing? What is that mental process where we invisibilize something that's present all the time?

You can understand the entire cosmos of a culture by looking at its definitions of dirty and clean, and acceptable versus unacceptable, the profane and the sacred. You can start with something as humble as dirt and read it out to an entire worldview.

Decius:

One must assume that all garbage is monitored by the state. Anything less would be a pre-911 mentality.

Seth Kugel:

That's not grime you're seeing, it's historical charm!

Michiru Hoshino:

Oh! I feel it. I feel the cosmos!

Alex Carp:

Many of Professor Nagle's insights come from exploring the social energy and meaning of an accelerated elimination process that, in the effort to make a city's garbage invisible, has created Fresh Kills, one of the only man-made structures massive enough to be visible from earth's orbit.

Emily Cockayne:

Focusing on offenses to the eyes, ears, noses, taste buds, and skin of inhabitants of England's pre-Industrial Revolution cities, Hubbub transports us to a world in which residents were scarred by smallpox, refuse rotted in the streets, pigs and dogs roamed free, and food hygiene consisted of little more than spit and polish. Through the stories of a large cast of characters from varied walks of life, the book compares what daily life was like in different cities across England from 1600 to 1770.

An exchange:

Moe: You gotta ... think hard, and come up with a slogan that appeals to all the lazy slobs out there.
Homer: [moans] Can't someone else do it?
Moe: "Can't someone else do it?", that's perfect!

Matt Taibbi:

If America is now circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain.