“Jim Dilley, the father of the Laguna Greenbelt, used to take roses to the secretaries of the county Board of Supervisors when he'd go to do battle over open space with the secretaries' bosses. Jim Dilley was a nice man, kind and gentle. He smoked a pipe. His eyes twinkled as though he knew a joke the rest of us didn't. But he's dead, and the Board is still alive, and that is a joke on us of monstrous proportions. I'm not nice, kind or gentle. The Board keeps rubber-stamping building permits, and this is my goodbye to these shores. After 36 years, my wife and I will soon leave Orange County for Costa Rica, to join the Peace Corps, and that, too, is a joke. We traipse off to bring peace to Costa Rica, which hasn't had an army since 1948.”

—  Arnold Hano

From &quot;OC Forum: O.C. Can You Say?&quot; https://books.google.com/books?id=FhEEAAAAMBAJ&amp;pg=PA8 in Orange Coast Magazine (July 1991), p. 8 <br class="br">Other Topics

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Jim Dilley, the father of the Laguna Greenbelt, used to take roses to the secretaries of the county Board of Supervisor…" by Arnold Hano?
Arnold Hano photo
Arnold Hano34
American writer 1922

Related quotes

Dean Acheson photo

“…old inhabitants of the bureaucratic jungle like (Secretary) Hull knew that Cabinet boards and committees were paper tigers. They made a fine show in a parade but soon dissolved in the rain…After attend a few meetings (of this board), the Secretary deputized me to 'explain his absence' and substitute for him.”

Dean Acheson book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), State Department Management, Leadership Perspectives

Margaret Cho photo

“Like when Jay Leno made jokes about Koreans eating dog, but the hidden messages, our invisibility, is more harmful to us than any of those fools on "board."”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, INVISIBILITY

Richard Rodríguez photo

“Still, from his books, I am convinced Nixon was not a coarse-grained man. Perhaps he was even delicate. Hannah Nixon used to joke that she had wanted a daughter. And she said about Nixon, her famous son, long after he had boarded the train and made something of himself in the world, “He was no child prodigy.” But Hannah also remembered the way young Nixon needed her, as none of her other children did: “As a schoolboy, he used to like to have me sit with him when he studied."”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

Ken Ham photo

“Now Noah didn't need to take all the SPECIES of land animals on board- just representatives of the KINDS. In other words, he didn't need all the varieties of dogs - just two dogs that would give rise to numerous species in the new world after the flood. Calculations show that probably only around 16,000 animals were needed on board the ark.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Did Adam have a Bellybutton?: And other tough questions about the Bible (2000)

“Put a lot of paint & a wooden ball or other object on a board. Push to the other end of the board. Use this in a painting.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

ruler on board.
Book A (sketchbook), p 52, c 1964: as quoted in Jasper Johns, Writings, sketchbook Notes, Interviews, ed. Kirk Varnedoe, Moma New York, 1996, p. 58
1960s

Oliver Goldsmith photo

“A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad
When he put on his clothes.”

Oliver Goldsmith book The Vicar of Wakefield

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 17, An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, st. 3.

Nicholas Sparks photo

“I knew my dad was a good man, a kind man, and though he'd led a wounded life, he'd done the best he could in raising me.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Best of Me

John Tyree, Chapter 16, p. 198
2000s, Dear John (2006)
Source: The Best of Me

“Nobody ever wrote so well so fast as Jim. One year he wrote, and we published, nine novels. It was an obsession. Back in 1941, his father had been in an asylum in Oklahoma City, begging Jim to get him out. Jim needed money to get him out, so he said to his father, "Give me a month, and I'll raise the money." His father brightened, because Jim never went back on his word. Jim took a bus to New York City and went door to door to the publishing houses, asking for money for a hotel room, a rented typewriter and meals so he could write a novel. Finally, at Modern Age, they took a chance, and in 10 days he wrote a novel. But things being what they are in publishing, it was a month plus one day before Jim got his advance. The same day, a telegram arrived. His father had committed suicide, ripping the excelsior out of his mattress and stuffing it down his throat. When Jim would drink he would sometimes cry and say, "Why couldn't he have waited another day? Didn't he trust me?"”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From "Jim Thompson, 1906 - 1977," in The Los Angeles Times (May 1, 1977), p. X3
Other Topics

George Eliot photo

“[Christian] … he felt very much like an uninitiated chess-player who sees that the pieces are in a peculiar position on the board, and might open the way for him to give checkmate, if he only knew how.”

George Eliot book Felix Holt, the Radical

Source: Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Chapter 25 (at page 210)

Sam Manekshaw photo

“A ‘Yes man’ is a dangerous man. He is a menace. He will go very far. He can become a minister, a secretary or a Field Marshall but he can never become a leader nor, ever be respected. He will be used by his superiors, disliked by his colleagues and despised by his subordinates. So discard the ‘Yes man’.”

Sam Manekshaw (1914–2008) First Field marshal of the Indian Army

His lecture on leadership quoted in "Field Marshal KM Kariappa Memorial Lectures, 1995-2000", page=28

Related topics