“Back and forth the fantastic tableaux would spin, past his cruel plebe hazing, the self-discovery at the West Texas Military Academy, the patriarchal Judge MacArthur, all beard and cigar smoke, presiding over dynastic feats at Washington's 1201 N Street; the chimes of the drawing-room clock there telling off the quarters; the ceremonial changing of the guard at Leavenworth; his father's tales of Sherman's dauntless Boys in Blue; his mother's imperious commands to fight and fight and never lower his blade short of victory; the clean crack of Krag rifles and the warm prickling of desert sand as he played with his brother outside the fort stockade; the rumbling of the sunset gun and Pinky's face tilting downward, her lambent smile gilding the child's upturned features while he clutched at her cascading skirts; the yellow notes of the bugles as he stirred in his cradle; the chant of sergeants hawking cadence on the parade ground outside; and, snapping proudly in the overarching sky above him, the flag, and the flag, and the flag.”

— William Manchester

Source: American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 (1978), p. 709

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

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William Manchester 6

(April 1, 1922 – June 1, 2004) American author, journalist … 1922–2004

Dan Simmons book The Fall of Hyperion

Source: The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Chapter 29 (pp. 226-227)

“Other children had fathers and mothers and honored them, and they prospered and lived to a ripe old age; but he was often bitter towards his father and mother and dishonored them in his heart. His mother had cuckolded his father, and his father had betrayed his mother, and both of them had betrayed the boy. The only consolation was that he had a Father in heaven. And yet—it would have been better to have a father on earth.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book One: The Revelation of the Deity

“Isn't he [Bush] the worst president ever? I mean, when his term is over, he has to walk back to Texas.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

The Decider (21 July 2007)

“he thinks about his journey nearly done.
One day he'll clock on and never clock off
or clock off and never clock on”

Roger McGough (1937) British writer and poet

"My Busconductor", from The Mersey Sound (1967)

“I think what he went through as a child was very heavy. He never got over his mother leaving his father, and following her mother to Florida, to an area that was very different, and losing his father. When he was seven years old, this was a very sensitive boy, who was wide-eyed and trusting, and not knowing how to protect himself at all.”

Sandra Seacat (1936) American acting teacher and actress

As heard in the "Mickey Rourke" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_KOo2uaH3E installment of The Dark Side of Fame with Piers Morgan, broadcast October 6, 2008.

“He had sworn on his father's honour, his mother's life, his brother's masculinity, his sister's purity and his prophet's beard that he would never set foot there again. God, knowing people, thinks little of honour or purity or even life, but vows made on his prophet he loves to confound.”

Ian McDonald book The Dervish House

Source: The Dervish House (2010), Ch. 5, §6 (p. 178)

“Laughing at his own son, who got his mother, and by his mother's means his father also, to indulge him, he told him that he had the most power of any one in Greece: "For the Athenians command the rest of Greece, I command the Athenians, your mother commands me, and you command your mother."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Life of Themistocles

“The Boy made his way back to the village in a state of great despondency. First of all, there wasn't going to be any fight; next, his dear and honoured friend the dragon hadn't shown up in quite such a heroic light as he would have liked; and lastly, whether the dragon was a hero at heart or not, it made no difference, for St. George would most undoubtedly cut his head off.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Reluctant Dragon

Dream Days (1898), The Reluctant Dragon

“She wanted to tell me. Maybe she even tried. But she couldn't. It wasn't because I was only twelve. It was because I was her child, created by her and Father because they wanted to be in bed together and nothing else would do, nobody else would do. You see? … Because to the child, he was not created by his mother's and his father's passion or capacity for it. He couldn't have been because he was there first, he came first, before the passion; he created the passion, not only it but the man and the woman who served it; his father is not his father but his son-in-law, his mother not his mother but his daughter-in-law if he is a girl. … and if a boy or a girl really is his father's and her mother's father-in-law or mother-in-law, which would make the girl her brother's mother no matter how much younger she was, then a girl with just one brother and him a twin at that, would maybe be his wife and mother too.”

William Faulkner book The Town

Charles Mallinson in Ch. 19; Charles Mallinson's mother, Maggie, and his uncle, Gavin Stevens, besides being their parents' only children, are twins.
The Town (1957)

“Man warring on himself an old tale is;
But Man discovering the source of all his sorrow in himself,
Finding his left hand and his right
Are similar sons, are children fighting
In the porchyards of the void?!”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Christ, Old Student in a New School (1972)

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William Manchester 6

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