Quotes about the night
page 28

Richard Wilbur photo
Tommy Franks photo
Douglas Adams photo
Vanna Bonta photo

“It was a perfect summer night. So good, it was true.”

Source: Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel (1995), Ch. 48

Thomas Guthrie photo
André Maurois photo
Willie Nelson photo
Bryan Adams photo
Stephenie Meyer photo
Tanith Lee photo

“Night, the dark widow, came walking on the hills.”

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 7 (p. 69)

Muhammad photo
Anne Sexton photo
John Keats photo

“In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

"In drear-nighted December' (1817), st. 1

“Sometimes at night, I turn on the light so as not to see.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

A veces, de noche, enciendo una luz, para no ver.
Voces (1943)

Vincent Gallo photo
Nathalia Crane photo
Maxine Waters photo
Tanya Reinhart photo
Jim Steinman photo

“Though it's cold and lonely in the deep dark night
I can see paradise by the dashboard light.”

Jim Steinman (1947) American musician

Bat out of Hell (1977), Paradise by the Dashboard Light

Steve Kilbey photo
Charles Symmons photo
Peter Gabriel photo

“For more than four years it has been my honor and my privilege to serve as the leader of the greatest police department in the world. This organization is made up of police officers, detectives and leaders who every day and every night go out and earn the title New York's Finest, and to have the opportunity to lead them and serve the people of New York City is something I have cherished and will always look back on with pride.”

Howard Safir (1941)

A statement by Safir in a press release announcing his resignation as New York City Police Commissioner.
[Archives of the Mayor's Press Office, http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/html/2000b/pr307-00.html, Release #307-00 - MAYOR GIULIANI AND POLICE COMMISSIONER SAFIR ANNOUNCE THAT SAFIR IS LEAVING THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT, The City of New York, 2000-08-09, 2007-12-20]

Howard Stern photo
Wilfred Thesiger photo
Colleen Fitzpatrick photo
Gordon Lightfoot photo
Warren Zevon photo

“So much to do, there's plenty on the farm;
I'll sleep when I'm dead.
Saturday night I like to raise a little harm;
I'll sleep when I'm dead.”

Warren Zevon (1947–2003) American singer-songwriter

"I'll Sleep When I'm Dead"
Warren Zevon (1976)

Sam Harris photo

“This is a common criticism: the idea that the atheist is guilty of a literalist reading of scripture, and that it’s a very naive way of approaching religion, and there’s a far more sophisticated and nuanced view of religion on offer and the atheist is disregarding that. A few problems with this: anyone making that argument is failing to acknowledge just how many people really do approach these texts literally or functionally - whether they’re selective literalists, or literal all the way down the line. There are certain passages in scripture that just cannot be read figuratively. And people really do live by the lights of what is literally laid out in these books. So, the Koran says “hate the infidel” and Muslims hate the infidel because the Koran spells it out ad nauseam. Now, it’s true that you can cherry-pick scripture, and you can look for all the good parts. You can ignore where it says in Leviticus that if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding night you’re supposed to stone her to death on her father’s doorstep. Most religious people ignore those passages, which really can only be read literally, and say that “they were only appropriate for the time” and “they don’t apply now”. And likewise, Muslims try to have the same reading of passages that advocate holy war. They say “well, these were appropriate to those battles that Mohammed was fighting, but now we don’t have to fight those battles”. This is all a good thing, but we should recognize what’s happening here: people are feeling pressure from a host of all-too-human concerns that have nothing, in principle, to do with God: secularism, and human rights, and democracy, and scientific progress. These have made certain passages in scripture untenable. This is coming from outside religion, and religion is now making a great show of its sophistication in grappling with these pressures. This is an example of religion losing the argument with modernity.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris in interview by Big Think (04/07/2007) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zV3vIXZ-1Y&t=6s
2000s

David Draiman photo
Joseph Stella photo
José Martí photo

“I dream of cloisters of marble
where in divine silence
the heroes, standing, rest;
at night, in light of the soul,
I speak with them: at night!
They are in a row: I walk
among the rows: the stone hands
I kiss them;
the stone eyes open;
the stone lips move;
the stone beards tremble;
they seize the sword of stone; they cry:
place the sword in the sheath!
Mute, I kiss their hand.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Sueño con claustros de mármol
donde en silencio divino
los héroes, de pie, reposan;
¡de noche, a la luz del alma,
hablo con ellos: de noche!
Están en fila: paseo
entre las filas: las manos
de piedra les beso: abren
los ojos de piedra: mueven
los labios de piedra: tiemblan
las barbas de piedra: empuñan
la espada de piedra: lloran:
¡viba la espade en la vaina!
Mudo, les beso la mano.
Simple Verses (1891), I dream of cloisters of marble

Charles Darwin photo

“M. Perrier found that their exposure to the dry air of a room for only a single night was fatal to them. On the other hand he kept several large worms alive for nearly four months, completely submerged in water.”

Source: The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (1881), Chapter 1: Habits of Worms, pp. 12-13 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=27&itemID=F1357&viewtype=image.

Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Gabrielle Roy photo
Jim Steinman photo

“It's all we ever wanted
And all we'll ever need
And now it's slipping through our fingers
Faster than the speed of night.”

Jim Steinman (1947) American musician

"Faster Than The Speed Of Night" (1983)

Anatole France photo

“And to me it seems that you have fallen asleep upon a white rock, and in a parish of dreams, and have dreamt all this in a moment while it was night.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Philopatris, xxi, as translated in the epigraph, p. 8
The White Stone (1905)

Mike Oldfield photo
Paul Klee photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“In two nights you're going to have the Republican candidates here. They all support the war. They all support the president. They all supported the escalation. Each of us is trying in our own way to bring the war to an end.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Democratic Presidential Debate, Manchester, New Hampshire, June 3, 2007 http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/resources/lewinsky/timeline/
Presidential campaign (January 20, 2007 – 2008)

John Galt (novelist) photo

“The sword is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of Allah, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven, and at the day of judgment his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim.”

John Galt (novelist) (1779–1839) British writer

Attributed to Muhammad, as quoted in The Wandering Jew (1820), p. 262 https://books.google.com/books?id=IARgAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA262&dq=The+sword+is+the+key+of+heaven+and+hell;+a+drop+of+blood+shed+in+the+cause+of+Allah,+a+night+spent+in+arms,+is+of+more+avail+than+two+months+of+fasting+or+prayer:+whosoever+falls+in+battle,+his+sins+are+forgiven&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjxyNix_-bcAhUaTY8KHT2oB74Q6AEIWTAJ#v=onepage&q=The%20sword%20is%20the%20key%20of%20heaven%20and%20hell%3B%20a%20drop%20of%20blood%20shed%20in%20the%20cause%20of%20Allah%2C%20a%20night%20spent%20in%20arms%2C%20is%20of%20more%20avail%20than%20two%20months%20of%20fasting%20or%20prayer%3A%20whosoever%20falls%20in%20battle%2C%20his%20sins%20are%20forgiven&f=false

Ilana Mercer photo

“Whether they are armed with bombs or bacteria, stopping weaponized individuals from harming others ─ intentionally or unintentionally ─ falls perfectly within the purview of the “night-watchman state of classical-liberal theory”.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“The Swine Are Loose,” http://takimag.com/article/the_swine_are_loose#axzz3461cvrNm Taki’s Magazine, May 2, 2009.
2000s, 2009

Jesse Ventura photo
John Fante photo
Pauline Kael photo
Francis Turner Palgrave photo
William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme photo

“It is my hope, and my brother’s hope… to build houses in which our work-people will be able to live and see comfortable. Semi-detached houses, with gardens back and front, in which they will be able to know more about the science of life than they can in a back slum, and in which they will learn that there is more enjoyment in life than a mere going to and returning from work, and looking forward to Saturday night to draw their wages.”

William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925) English industrialist, philanthropist, and politician

Messrs. Lever’s New Soap Works, Port Sunlight, Cheshire. Full Reports of the Ceremony of Cutting the First Sod, and Proceedings at the Inaugural Banquet, 1888, pp.28-29; Cited in: Viscount William Hulme Lever Leverhulme, ‎William Hulme Lever Leverhulme (2d viscount) (1927). Viscount Leverhulme, p. 49

Emo Philips photo
Jon Stewart photo
Ethan Allen photo
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon photo
James Beattie photo

“But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
Oh when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?”

James Beattie (1735–1803) Scottish poet, moralist and philosopher

The Hermit

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Mike Oldfield photo
Bill Engvall photo
Joanna Newsom photo
Filippo Baldinucci photo

“He who puts up at the first inn he comes across, very often passes a bad night.”

Filippo Baldinucci (1625–1697) Italian art historian

Chi alloggia alia prima osteria in ch’ ei avviene, trova ben spesso la mala notte.
La Veglia. (Ed. Milan, 1812. Opere, Vol. XIV., p. 223).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 261.

Zainab Salbi photo
Narendra Modi photo
Anne Murray photo
Sarah Chang photo

“I like to slip out in the middle of the night and take my Lamborghini and drive it really fast on the highway. There’s a particular one close to my house in Pasadena. I just roll down the windows, and it’s kind of like I just slip into the night.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

Erika Jayne interview to CR Fashion Book https://www.crfashionbook.com/fashion/a19743941/erika-jayne-pretty-mess-real-housewives-fashion/ (2018)

Gwendolyn Brooks photo

“Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."”

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) American writer

You will be right.
Speech to the Young : Speech to the Progress-Toward

Margaret Thatcher photo

“It is a great night. It is the end of Socialism.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

On hearing the results of the 1992 general election (9 April 1992), as reported in The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt: Volume Two (2000) by Woodrow Wyatt.
Post-Prime Ministerial

Kenneth Grahame photo
Joni Mitchell photo
Boniface Mwangi photo
Peter Greenaway photo
Musa al-Kadhim photo

“The sleep of a wise man is far better than the worship of an ignorant one during the night.”

Musa al-Kadhim (745–799) Seventh of the Twelve Imams and regarded by Sunnis as a renowned scholar

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 419.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, Religious

“Manuel Mercado Acosta is an indio from the mountains of Durango. His father operated a mescal distillery before the revolutionaries drove him out. He met my mother while riding a motorcycle in El Paso. Juana Fierro Acosta is my mother. She could have been a singer in a Juarez cantina but instead decided to be Manuel’s wife because he had a slick mustache, a fast bike and promised to take her out of the slums across from the Rio Grande. She had only one demand in return for the two sons and three daughters she would bear him: “No handouts. No relief. I never want to be on welfare.” I doubt he really promised her anything in a very loud, clear voice. My father was a horsetrader even though he got rid of both the mustache and the bike when FDR drafted him, a wetback, into the U. S. Navy on June 22, 1943. He tried to get into the Marines, but when they found out he was a good swimmer and a non-citizen they put him in a sailor suit and made him drive a barge in Okinawa. We lived in a two-room shack without a floor. We had to pump our water and use kerosene if we wanted to read at night. But we never went hungry. My old man always bought the pinto beans and the white flour for the tortillas in 100-pound sacks which my mother used to make dresses, sheets and curtains. We had two acres of land which we planted every year with corn, tomatoes and yellow chiles for the hot sauce. Even before my father woke us, my old ma was busy at work making the tortillas at 5:00 A. M. while he chopped the logs we’d hauled up from the river on the weekends.”

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 72.

Ellen DeGeneres photo
Pat Sajak photo

“I now believe global warming alarmists are unpatriotic racists knowingly misleading for their own ends. Good night.”

Pat Sajak (1946) American television host

Pat Sajak, Twitter 4:38 AM - 20 May 2014; Cited in: Anthony Watts. " Quotes of the Week: ‘Light bulb moment’ for CNN chief – Pat Sajak goes nuclear http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/20/quote-of-the-week-light-bulb-moment-for-cnn-chief/." at wattsupwiththat.com, May 20, 2014.
2010s

Elizabeth Barrett Browning photo
Walter Cronkite photo
George Raymond Richard Martin photo
Malcolm McDowell photo

“I do recall one particular night shoot… We were called to the set at four o'clock in the afternoon. As usual, nothing was ready. They'd built a set of Tiberius's grotto, on three acres, and were assembling all of the extras and background. The producers worriedly asked if I would go into Peter's trailer (he was playing Tiberius) and go through the lines with him, which we did few times.
And then he told me the most remarkable story – whether it is true or not I have no idea – about his grave-robbing Etruscan tombs. He said the best way to find Etruscan jewellery and artefacts was to find the drains in the tombs, and very gingerly sift through them with your fingers because, as the bodies decompose, all of the artifacts deposit themselves into the channels. The thought of Peter O'Toole on his hands and knees in an Etruscan catacomb makes for a lovely image.
We spent hours and hours in this trailer. He was smoking … it certainly wasn't tobacco. By the time we got onto the set, 12 hours had passed. We couldn't believe our eyes: the set was covered with people engaging in every sexual perversion in the book. We were totally bemused.
Peter would start off his speech, "Rome was but a city…" then pause, look around, and say to me: "Are they doing the Irish jig over there?"”

Malcolm McDowell (1943) English actor

I'd look over and there would be two dwarves and an amputee dancing around some girls splayed out on a giant dildo. This went on quite a few times.
As quoted in "Malcolm McDowell on Peter O'Toole: Caligula, catacombs and chicken gizzards" https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/dec/17/malcolm-mcdowell-peter-otoole-caligula-graves, The Guardian (17 December, 2013)

Michelle Obama photo

“People who work the day shift, kiss their kids goodnight, and head out for the night shift — without disappointment, without regret — that goodnight kiss a reminder of everything they're working for.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2000s, Democratic National Convention speech (2008)

Karel Čapek photo
Cesare Pavese photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo

“Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

The Armada, l. 34 (1833)

Paul Simon photo
Daniel Handler photo

“At this point in the dreadful story I am writing, I must interrupt for a moment and describe something that happened to a good friend of mine named Mr. Sirin. Mr. Sirin was a lepidoptrerist, a word which usually means "a person who studies butterflies." In this case, however, the word "lepidopterist" means "a man who was being pursued by angry government officials," and on the night I am telling you about they were right on his heels. Mr. Sirin looked back to see how close they were--four officers in their bright-pink uniforms, with small flashlights in their left hands and large nets in their right--and realized that in a moment they would catch up, and arrest him and his six favorite butterflies, which were frantically flapping alongside him. Mr. Sirin did not care much if he was captured--he had been in prison four and a half times over the course of his long and complicated life--but he cared very much about the butterflies. He realized that these six delicate insects would undoubtedly perish in bug prison, where poisonous spiders, stinging bees, and other criminals would rip them to shreds. So, as the secret police closed in, Mr. Sirin opened his mouth as wide as he could and swallowed all six butterflies whole, quickly placing them in the dark but safe confines of his empty stomach. It was not a pleasant feeling to have these six insects living inside him, but Mr. Sirin kept them there for three years, eating only the lightest foods served in prison so as not to crush the insects with a clump of broccoli or a baked potato. When his prison sentence was over, Mr. Sirin burped up the grateful butterflies and resumed his lepidoptery work in a community that was much more friendly to scientists and their specimens.”

Lemony Snicket
The Hostile Hospital (2001)

Jim Morrison photo

“You know the day destroys the night,
Night divides the day,
Tried to run —
Tried to hide —
Break on through to the other side!”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

"Break on Through (To The Other Side)" from The Doors (1967)

Jimmy Kimmel photo

“We've always known Jimmy's had a great deal of raw talent. It's exciting watching him use that talent to become such a dynamic and gifted late night host. The sky is the limit for Jimmy and this show.”

Jimmy Kimmel (1967) American talk show host and comedian

ABC Chairman Lloyd Braun — reported in ZAP2IT.COM (December 10, 2003) "'Jimmy Kimmel' back for a second season", Chicago Tribune RedEye Edition, Chicago Tribune, p. 46.
About

Hilaire Belloc photo

“In soft deluding lies let fools delight.
A shadow marks our days, which end in Night.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

"On a Sundial"
Sonnets and Verse (1938)

“You know, I was born at night but not last night, sir. There is no operation at the CIA that is conducted without approval of lawyers. It is the bane of our existence, and it is a detriment to the defense of America, but, nonetheless, that is the fact.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

Discussing Extraordinary Rendition of terrorist suspects during testimony to government committees, April 17 2007.
2000s

Chinmayananda Saraswati photo
Samuel Rutherford photo

“The night will close the door & fasten my anchor within the veil and I shall go away to sleep.”

Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) Scottish Reformed theologian

Letter 333
Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Andrew Bonar)

Roger Federer photo

“No, the other one was a night session too and I was wearing a white! No I'm not superstitious at all as you can see and… I try not to be… and because I try no to be, I guess I am… So it's really strange!”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

After defeating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, quarter final of Australian Open 2013, when asked by Jim Courier if he was wearing a black tee-shirt for a night session as a superstitious man. Interview on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAjeKP5i_HM