“If you’re going to hang me, you mustn’t expect to be able to intimidate me into sparing your feelings during the execution.”

— Randall Jarrell

“The Obscurity of the Poet”, p. 17
Poetry and the Age (1953)
Context: If my tone is mocking, the tone of someone accustomed to helplessness, this is natural: the poet is a condemned man for whom the State will not even buy breakfast — and as someone said, “If you’re going to hang me, you mustn’t expect to be able to intimidate me into sparing your feelings during the execution.”

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Randall Jarrell 215

poet, critic, novelist, essayist 1914–1965

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Father Mine

“Now you think about this, too: you’re not charming, dashing, or debonair. You’re funny looking, as a matter of fact. You’re too busy to spare much time for me, and even if you did take me out night-clubbing somewhere, you’d be so out of place that I couldn’t enjoy it. But you do one thing: you let me feel that my rules are as worthwhile to me as yours are to you. When you ask me to do something, I know you won’t be hurt if I refuse. And if I do it, you don’t feel that you’ve scored a point in some kind of complex game. You don’t try to use me, cozen me, or change me. I take up as much room in the world, the way you see it, as you do. Do you have any idea of how rare a thing that is?”

Algis Budrys book Rogue Moon

Source: Rogue Moon (1960), Chapter 6 (pp. 127-128)

“Treat people with respect, whoever they are, and expect your governments to treat everybody with respect. And if you do that, then you’re going to be okay.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall (April 2014)

“Please, don't torture me with cliches. If you're going to try to intimidate me, have the courtesy to go away for a while, acquire a better education, improve your vocabulary, and come back with some fresh metaphors.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

“If you repeat to the Führer the story of the radio message from your agent, I won't go to the gallows alone. You and the Reichsführer will hang beside me.”

Karl Wolff (1900–1984) SS general

To Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Quoted in "The Last 100 Days" - by John Toland - 1966

“As long as you’re fighting on the level of civil rights, you’re under Uncle Sam’s jurisdiction. You’re going to his court expecting him to correct the problem. He created the problem. He’s the criminal. You don’t take your case to the criminal; you take your criminal to court.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)
Context: So those of us whose political, and economic, and social philosophy is black nationalism have become involved in the civil rights struggle. We have injected ourselves into the civil rights struggle, and we intend to expand it from the level of civil rights to the level of human rights. As long as you’re fighting on the level of civil rights, you’re under Uncle Sam’s jurisdiction. You’re going to his court expecting him to correct the problem. He created the problem. He’s the criminal. You don’t take your case to the criminal; you take your criminal to court.

“How beautiful you must be
to have been able to lead me
this far with only
the sound of your going away”

W.S. Merwin (1927–2019) American poet

Source: The Moon Before Morning

“If you’re really going to die on me, you could at least rub my neck before you go.”

Pat Cadigan book Synners

Source: Synners (1991), Chapter 1 (p. 2)

“Let me tell all the scum and all the leftists: you’re going to lose all of your jobs soon. The whole mainstream media is dying. We’re going to be in a huge Depression. You’re going to be living in your mothers’ basements. And I hope your little fake liberal culture you’ve got that’s totally fascist and Satanic — I hope it keeps you warm at night because that’s all you’re going to have, and it’s all you’re ever going to have. Okay? I just hope you understand that.”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

As quoted in "Alex Jones Melts Globalists over Terror: Mind-Controlled Media Sacrificing the West for Islam" https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/21/alex-jones-melts-globalists-terror-mind-controlled-media-sacrificing-west-islam/ by Rebecca Mansour, Breitbart.com (21 September 2016) ( video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJIB9UAZY-c)
2016

“You'll never be able to let him go. You'll always feel wrong about being with me.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Gale and Katniss (p. 197)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)
Context: "I don't stand a chance if he doesn't get better. You'll never be able to let him go. You'll always feel wrong about being with me."
"The way I always felt wrong kissing him because of you," I say.

“If you’re going to hang me, you mustn’t expect to be able to intimidate me into sparing your feelings during the execution.”

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Randall Jarrell 215

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