Quotes about back (7784 quotes, page 25)

“Imprisoned under all our layers of long underwear, thick socks, shirts, vests, jackets, coats and hoods were these tropical bodies; the steam and hot water brought color back into the pallor, found the nacreous hollow in a hip, detected the subtly raised triceps, rinsed a sharp clavicle in a softening flood, swirled dull brown hair into a smooth black cap and pulled evening gloves of light over raw hands and skinny, blue-veined forearms.Just as each shell held to the ears roars with a different ocean timbre, each of these bodies spoke to me with a different music, though all sounded to me unlike my own and only with the greatest effort could I remember I was longing after my own sex. Indeed, each of these beings seemed to possess his very own sex.”

Edmund White book A Boy's Own Story

Source: A Boy's Own Story (1982), Chapter Six (p. 153).

Music , Sex , Color , Effort

“Lying down to sleep on the earthen riverbank, I thought, Vrindavan is attracting my heart like no other place. What is happening to me? Please reveal Your divine will. With this prayer, I drifted off to sleep.
Before dawn, I awoke to the ringing of temple bells, signaling that it was time to begin my journey to Hardwar. But my body lay there like a corpse. Gasping in pain, I couldn’t move. A blazing fever consumed me from within, and under the spell of unbearable nausea, my stomach churned. Like a hostage, I lay on that riverbank. As the sun rose, celebrating a new day, I felt my life force sinking. Death that morning would have been a welcome relief. Hours passed.
At noon, I still lay there. This fever will surely kill me, I thought.
Just when I felt it couldn’t get any worse, I saw in the overcast sky something that chilled my heart. Vultures circled above, their keen sights focused on me. It seemed the fever was cooking me for their lunch, and they were just waiting until I was well done. They hovered lower and lower. One swooped to the ground, a huge black and white bird with a long, curving neck and sloping beak. It stared, sizing up my condition, then jabbed its pointed beak into my ribcage. My body recoiled, my mind screamed, and my eyes stared back at my assailant, seeking pity. The vulture flapped its gigantic wings and rejoined its fellow predators circling above. On the damp soil, I gazed up at the birds as they soared in impatient circles. Suddenly, my vision blurred and I momentarily blacked out. When I came to, I felt I was burning alive from inside out. Perspiring, trembling, and gagging, I gave up all hope.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps approaching. A local farmer herding his cows noticed me and took pity. Pressing the back of his hand to my forehead, he looked skyward toward the vultures and, understanding my predicament, lifted me onto a bullock cart. As we jostled along the muddy paths, the vultures followed overhead. The farmer entrusted me to a charitable hospital where the attendants placed me in the free ward. Eight beds lined each side of the room. The impoverished and sadhu patients alike occupied all sixteen beds. For hours, I lay unattended in a bed near the entrance. Finally that evening the doctor came and, after performing a series of tests, concluded that I was suffering from severe typhoid fever and dehydration. In a matter-of-fact tone, he said, “You will likely die, but we will try to save your life.””

Radhanath Swami (1950) Gaudiya Vaishnava guru

Republished on The Journey Home website.
The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Tulsi Books, 2010)

Life , Death , Pain , Hope

“Neil Cavuto: Yeah but, you can't, Congressman, we've got a pretty good economy going here, right? We've got productivity soaring. We've got retail sales that are strong. We've got corporate earnings that for, what, the 19th quarter, are up double digit? We've got a market chasing highs, I mean, this isn't happening in a vacuum, right?
Ron Paul: Yeah, that's nice, but when you have to borrow, you know… My personal finances would be very good if I borrowed a million dollars every month. But, someday, the bills will become due. And the bills will come due in this country, and then we'll have to pay for it. We can't afford this war, and we can't afford the entitlement system.
Neil Cavuto: Look, Congressman, did you say this 10 years ago, when the numbers were similarly strong…
Ron Paul: Go back and check.
Neil Cavuto: …and we were still borrowing a good deal then.
Ron Paul: That's right, that means the dollar bubble is much bigger than ever.
Neil Cavuto: So what's gonna happen?
Ron Paul: We've had the NASDAQ bubble collapse already. We have the housing bubble in the middle of a collapse, so the dollar bubble will collapse as well. We have to live within our means. You can't print money out of the blue, and think you can print your money into prosperity.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Your World with Neil Cavuto, FOX News, May 15, 2007 http://www.newshounds.us/2007/05/16/rep_ron_paul_tells_fox_newsrepublicans_the_truth_they_dont_like_hearing_it.php http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU2RK0TNbXk
2000s, 2006-2009

Money , War , Thinking , Strong

“I would die to make you mine
Bleed me dry almost every time
But I don't mind, no I don't mind it
I would come back 1000 times”

Sara Bareilles (1979) American pop rock singer-songwriter and pianist

"1000 Times"
Lyrics, The Blessed Unrest (2013)

Time

“If you just want to say, "Steve Jobs invented the world, and then the rest of us came along," that's fine. If you’re interested, [Vista development chief] Jim Allchin will be glad to educate you feature by feature what the truth is. … Let’s be realistic, who came up with "File/Edit/View/Help"? Do you want to go back to the original Mac and think about where those interface concepts came from?”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Interview with Steven Levy in Newsweek (31 January 2007) "Finally, Vista Makes Its Debut. Now What?" http://archive.is/20130105003445/www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2007/01/31/finally-vista-makes-its-debut-now-what.html
2000s

Truth , World , Education , Thinking

“To achieve the structure it takes a damn long time, so my paintings are always in work for a very long time—sometimes a year. Not that I work on them every day. I will have them, and then come back to them after a year, and also return intermittently. It’s not easily done. I am not able to do “one, two, a painting.” I try to do it very quickly, but it doesn’t work with me. I simply can’t do it. Very often people look and say, 'Ah, fantastic! That’s a beautiful painting.'”

Per Kirkeby (1938–2018) Danish artist

But the moment they are out the door I start working on it. I rework it.
In a talk with Kosinski, before 'Per Kirkeby at the Phillips', in The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. January, 2013
Kirkeby spoke to exhibition co-curator Dorothy Kosinski about the necessity of time in the development of a painting.
1995 and later

People , Beauty , Time , Painting

“I think that the polls taken in Baghdad explain it very well, they seem to understand. The United States invaded Iraq to gain control of one of the major sources of the world’s energy, right in the heart of the world’s energy producing regions. To create, if they can, a dependent client state. To have permanent military bases. And to gain what’s called “critical leverage” - I’m quoting Zbigniew Brzezinski - to gain critical leverage over rivals, the European and Asian economies. It’s been understood since the Second World War, that if you have your hand on that spigot, the main source of the world’s energy, you have what early planners called “veto power” over others. Iraq is also the last part of the world where there are vast, untapped, easily accessible energy resources. And you can be sure that they want the profits from that to go primarily to U. S.-based multinationals and back to the U. S. Treasury, not to rivals. There are plenty of reasons for invading Iraq.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 2000s, 2004, Interview by Bill Maher, 2004

War , World , Quotes , Understanding

“Like Fichte, Brentano had one simple and powerful insight. He declared: there is a basic difference between a mental and physical act. if I slip on the snow and fall flat on my back, that is an unintentional physical act. But there is no such thing as an unintentional mental act. When I think, I have to think about something; I have to focus my mind on it. You could compare all mental acts (thinking, willing, loving, trying to remember something) to a searchlight beam stabbing into the darkness. There is an element of will, of 'intentionality,' in all mental activity. So it is quite inaccurate to compare mental activity to chemistry, or to a kind of drifting, like leaves on a stream. It flows purposefully or not at all.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Rudolf Steiner: The Man and His Vision (1985), p. 35

Love , Thinking

“Oh, no! It is impossible. War is a kind of game, and has its fixed rules, whereby, when we are well acquainted with them, we can pretty correctly tell how the trial will go. Tomorrow it seems, the die is to be cast, and, in my judgement, without the least chance on our side. The militia will, I suppose as usual, play the back game. That is, get out of battle as fast as their legs will carry them. But that, you know, won't do for me. I am an old soldier, and cannot run, and I believe I have some brave fellows that will stand by me to the last. So, when you hear of our battle, you will probably hear that your old friend, De Kalb, is at rest.”

Johann de Kalb (1721–1780) American general

In August 1780, as quoted in "Death of Baron De Kalb" https://books.google.com/books?id=k2QAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=%22I+thank+you+sir+for+your+generous+sympathy,+but+I+die+the+death+I+always+prayed+for:+the+death+of+a+soldier+fighting+for+the+rights+of+man%22&source=bl&ots=-93hJzoCYU&sig=tAag8ObQI-ZjiII56viczov02wM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VlYVVcuJI4KmNsazgYgL&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22I%20thank%20you%20sir%20for%20your%20generous%20sympathy%2C%20but%20I%20die%20the%20death%20I%20always%20prayed%20for%3A%20the%20death%20of%20a%20soldier%20fighting%20for%20the%20rights%20of%20man%22&f=false (1849), by Benjamin Franklin Ells, The Western Miscellany, Volume 1, p. 233.
1780s

War , Game , Chance

“I'm a country boy. I hate New York. But that's where things happen, so I use it as a base for stories, I know enough about it. But I have to keep going back there.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

Crime Time interview (2001)

Hate , Boy , Country

“When I was a kid back in Kentucky, we went to this church where my uncle preached. It was kind of a weird Baptist, full-on kind of place. People kept running up to the pulpit and grabbing his ankles and being saved. Lots of crying. Even then, at six or seven, I questioned how pure the emotion could be if it were on such display.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Quoted in Kevin Sessums, "Johnny Be Good," http://www.johnnydeppfan.com/interviews/vanifair.htm Vanity Fair (February 1997)

People , Question , Cry

“However extensively Lenin was prepared to creatively develop the Marxism he inherited, he was not prepared to ‘skip stages’ in achieving socialism. Socialism required, as prerequisite, the modernization and industrial development of its economic base. To create the missing material prerequisites, Lenin was prepared to fall back on a centrally supervised market-influenced program of state capitalism.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

Source: Marxism, Fascism & Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism, (2008), p. 56

“Your daddy had to go back to school a little. He had some strange thoughts — and he wanted other grown-ups to believe them. It's not right for others to believe wrong thoughts, is it?”

James Clavell book The Children's Story

"Teacher" to Johnny
The Children's Story (1982)

School

“We need our highest judicial body to stop this childish bickering and get back to debating the kinds of weighty constitutional issues that have absorbed the court in recent years, such as whether a city can legally force an exotic dancer to cover her entire nipple, or just the part that pokes out.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up http://books.google.com/books?id=Dl1Q8FYJT1cC&pg=PA57&dq=%22We+need+our+highest+judicial+body+to+stop+this+childish+bickering%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2H22UMHfGYeGiQKdp4GwBw&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22We%20need%20our%20highest%20judicial%20body%20to%20stop%20this%20childish%20bickering%22&f=false
Dave Barry is not Making This Up (1994)

Parting

“Tarzan of the Apes had decided to mark his evolution from the lower orders in every possible manner, and nothing seemed to him a more distinguishing badge of manhood than ornaments and clothing.
To this end, therefore, he collected the various arm and leg ornaments he had taken from the black warriors who had succumbed to his swift and silent noose, and donned them all after the way he had seen them worn.
About his neck hung the golden chain from which depended the diamond encrusted locket of his mother, the Lady Alice. At his back was a quiver of arrows slung from a leathern shoulder belt, another piece of loot from some vanquished black.
About his waist was a belt of tiny strips of rawhide fashioned by himself as a support for the home-made scabbard in which hung his father's hunting knife. The long bow which had been Kulonga's hung over his left shoulder.
The young Lord Greystoke was indeed a strange and war-like figure, his mass of black hair falling to his shoulders behind and cut with his hunting knife to a rude bang upon his forehead, that it might not fall before his eyes.
His straight and perfect figure, muscled as the best of the ancient Roman gladiators must have been muscled, and yet with the soft and sinuous curves of a Greek god, told at a glance the wondrous combination of enormous strength with suppleness and speed.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 13 : His Own Kind

God , War , Way , Home

“I have never been a material girl. My father always told me never to love anything that cannot love you back.”

Imelda Marcos (1929) Former First Lady of the Philippines

As quoted in TIME magazine (November 1996) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985518,00.html.

Love , Girl

“When I asked Bhutto what he thought of Assad, he described the Syrian leader as “The Levanter.” Knowing that, like himself, I was a keen reader of thrillers, the Pakistani Prime Minister knew that I would get the message. However, it was only months later when, having read Eric Ambler’s 1972 novel The Levanter that I understood Bhutto’s one-word pen portrayal of Hafez Al-Assad. In The Levanter the hero, or anti-hero if you prefer, is a British businessman who, having lived in Syria for years, has almost “gone native” and become a man of uncertain identity. He is a bit of this and a bit of that, and a bit of everything else, in a region that is a mosaic of minorities. He doesn’t believe in anything and is loyal to no one. He could be your friend in the morning but betray you in the evening. He has only two goals in life: to survive and to make money… Today, Bashar Al-Assad is playing the role of the son of the Levanter, offering his services to any would-be buyer through interviews with whoever passes through the corner of Damascus where he is hiding. At first glance, the Levanter may appear attractive to those engaged in sordid games. In the end, however, the Levanter must betray his existing paymaster in order to begin serving a new one. Four years ago, Bashar switched to the Tehran-Moscow axis and is now trying to switch back to the Tel-Aviv-Washington one that he and his father served for decades. However, if the story has one lesson to teach, it is that the Levanter is always the source of the problem, rather than part of the solution. ISIS is there because almost half a century of repression by the Assads produced the conditions for its emergence. What is needed is a policy based on the truth of the situation in which both Assad and ISIS are parts of the same problem.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Opinion: Like Father, Like Son http://www.aawsat.net/2015/02/article55341622/opinion-like-father-like-son, Ashraq Al-Awsat (February 20, 2015).

Life , Money , Truth , Game

“They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 23, st. 4.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

“We need to have policies that stimulate the economy, and the economy is stimulated when business feels confident that we can put people back to work.”

Sharron Angle (1949) Former member of the Nevada Assembly from 1999 to 2007

Sharron Angle Asked Tough Policy Questions
KLAS-TV
2010-10-29
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/13412483/sharron-angle-asked-tough-policy-questions
2010-10-29
Leanne
Sharron Angle Rebuffs Press: I’ll Answer Questions When I’m the Senator
Blue Wave News
2010-10-30
http://bluewavenews.com/blog/2010/10/30/sharron-angle-rebuffs-press-ill-answer-questions-when-im-the-senator/
2010-10-30
to CBS reporter Nathan Baca, at McCarran International Airport

People , Feeling , Confidence , Business

“A message needs to go back. Vincent - you're also fired!”

Alan Sugar (1947) British business magnate, media personality, and political advisor

The Apprentice, Series 7

“I call on Fate to give me back my soul.”

Friedrich Hölderlin book Hyperion

Hyperion

Fate , Soul

“I was raised in Germany until I was 13, and then my family decided to go back to Turkey. It was good in a way, because I studied music. And I went to a Turkish classical music school and studied music for three years. And then I just realized that I can't do anything else but singing music. And everything just happened naturally.”

Tarkan (1972) Turkish singer

Tarkan finds his moves take him across borders, CNN Worldbeat, August 9, 1999 http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/Music/9908/09/tarkan.wb/index.html,

School , Family , Music , Way

“The only people who criticize me are writers. You say, maybe I no team player. Did a player ever come to you and say I no team player? Who say that? The writers, right. I win four batting championships. Why I no team player? I kill myself in the outfield. You say, I no team player. You never see me loaf on the field. I break my back. Even Harry Walker tell me: "Roberto, why you want to break your back? Look at the other fellows. Take it easy." Super stars, my foot. They say Mickey Mantle is a super star. He's limping. They say poor Mickey. I play with four stitches in my foot and nobody knows about it. […] The fans are good to me. Only the writers are bad."”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente Back, Lashes Out at Writers; Buc Explodes Over 'Team Player' Image" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LJxRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=02wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7083%2C4907609 by Charley Feeney, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Monday, March 31, 1969), p. 29
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1969</big>

People , Star

“When the fight comes, always endeavour to chase the enemy around to your left side. Chase him towards awkward places, and try to keep him with his back to awkward places. When the enemy gets into an inconvenient position, do not let him look around, but conscientiously chase him around and pin him down. In houses, chase the enemy into the thresholds, lintels, doors, verandas, pillars, and so on, again not letting him see his situation.
Always chase the enemy into bad footholds, obstacles at the side, and so on, using the virtues of the place to establish predominant positions from which to fight. You must research and train diligently in this.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Fire Book

Fight , Housing , Training

“All you have really to do is to keep your back as straight as you can; and not think about what is upon it. The real and essential meaning of "virtue" is that straightness of back.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 170.

Thinking

“I was lucky to be part of the "underground comix" thing in which cartoonists were completely free to express themselves. To function on those terms means putting everything out in the open—no need to hold anything back—total liberation from censorship, including the inner censor! A lot of my satire is considered by some to be "too hard." My "negro" characters are not about black people, but are more about pushing these "uncool" stereotypes in readers' faces, so suddenly they have to deal with a very tacky part of our human nature. … Who did I think I was appealing to? I don't know. I was just being a punk, putting down on paper all these messy parts of the culture we internalize and keep quiet about. I admit I'm occasionally embarrassed when I look at some of that work now.”

Robert Crumb (1943) American cartoonist

The R. Crumb Handbook by Robert Crumb and Peter Poplaski (2005), p. 256

People , Nature , Thinking , Parting

“Obliged to find an apartment of their own, my parents searched the neighbourhood and chose one within walking distance of the park. Showing them out after they had viewed it, the landlady said: "And you'll be glad to know I don't take Jews." Her mistake made clear to her, the antisemitic landlady was renounced, and another apartment found. But her blunder left its mark. Back on the street my mother made a vow. Her unborn baby would have a label proclaiming his race to the world. He would be called "The Jew"”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

Yehudi
Source: Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999), Issue 372 http://newint.org/features/2004/10/01/yehudi-menuhin/, New Internationalist Magazine

World , Search , Parent , Baby

“Is there something you lack
When I'm flat on my back
Is there something that I can do for you?”

Justine Frischmann (1969) English musician

"Stutter", from Elastica (1995)
Lyrics

“[partition of Ireland], … the betrayal of the national democracy of Industrial Ulster, would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements while it lasted.”

James Connolly (1868–1916) Irish republican and socialist leader

in P. Beresford Ellis (ed.), James Connolly - Selected Writings, p. 275.

Democracy , Betrayal

“A mother gave her children Aesop’s fables to read, in the hope of educating and improving their minds; but they very soon brought the book back, and the eldest, wise beyond his years, delivered himself as follows: This is no book for us; it’s much too childish and stupid. You can’t make us believe that foxes and wolves and ravens are able to talk; we’ve got beyond stories of that kind! In these young hopefuls you have the enlightened Rationalists of the future.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

“Similes, Parables and Fables” Parerga and Paralipomena
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)

Children , Books , Stupidity , Education

“Each man's place in the social scheme of his village is know; the contribution which he must make to the work and ceremonial of the village and the share of the whole which he will receive back again are likewise defined. For failure to receive what is due to him, he is fined even more heavily than for failure to give that which is due from him. Just as a man must accept his privileges as well as discharge his duties, so is he also the guardian of his own status and if, as may happen to a high caste, that status is affronted, he himself must perform a ceremony to restore it.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1940s, Balinese Character (1942), p. 7

Failure

“So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 10

World , Feeling , Dependency

“(DVD introduction) Well, welcome to your very own DVD of me, DVB, and ‘Mind Control’. If you weren’t expecting me and thought you were buying Reginald Perrin, then press eject now before you begin vomiting. Otherwise, please, please ensure that you are sitting in an extreme level of comfort, preferably in pre-worn slippers and, I trust, with your extended family around you. If you have seen the film ‘Signs’ and would like to wear the pointy tin foil hats now would be a good time to put them on you can’t be too careful. Well, pphhh, goodness me, er, it’s been a meteoric rise over these last years. The money and sex are exhausting and I have you the viewer to thank. Thanks. We’ve put together some of the pieces from the specials and series in glistening digital format, each pixel hand picked and gently polished and brought to you in wide-sound, surround-screen enjoyment. I hope you enjoy watching them as much as I’ll enjoy the royalties from this, which is enormously. If you don’t like it and HMV won’t take it back because you’ve got sticky all over it then the disc makes an excellent beer coaster or wheels for a space truck or can be immense fun just putting it on your finger and [waggling it], like that. But I hope you do like it. When I first started developing these techniques I had no idea that they were going to prove at all popular and for all my nancing about and staring I’m actually really excited to have a DVD out and can’t wait to go and find it in Discount Books & Puzzles next to the Dizzie Gillespie CD box sets and disappointing erotica. I hope you like it and if you do, please go and buy another one.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

Money , Books , Family , Hope

“We're importing radical Islamic terrorism into the West through a failed immigration system and through an intelligence community held back by our president.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

Intelligence , Communication

“John Philoponus (c. 490-570) of Alexandria… refuted Aristotle's theory that the velocities of falling bodies in a given medium are proportional to their weight, making the observation that "if one lets fall simultaneously from the same height two bodies differing greatly in weight, one will find that the ratio of the times of their motion does not correspond to the ratios of their weights, but the difference in time is a very small one." …He also criticized Aristotle's antiperistasis theory of projectile motion, which states that the air displaced by the object flows back to push it from behind. Instead Philoponus concluded that "some incorporeal kinetic power is imparted by the thrower to the object thrown" and that "if an arrow or a stone is projected by force in a void, the same will happen much more easily, nothing being necessary except the thrower."”

John Freely (1926–2017) American physicist

This is the famous "impetus theory," which was revived in medieval Islam and again in fourteenth century Europe, giving rise to the beginning of modern dynamics.
Source: Before Galileo, The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (2012), p. 8

Time

“Three of the four elements are shared by all creatures, but fire was a gift to humans alone. Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can become with fire without immediate excruciation. Every smoker is an embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home. We smoke to capture the power of the sun, to pacify Hell, to identify with the primordial spark, to feed on the marrow of the volcano. It's not the tobacco we're after but the fire. When we smoke, we are performing a version of the fire dance, a ritual as ancient as lightning.”

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)

God , Home , Hell , Sun

“I can work, I can travel, I can sleep anywhere,
Cross every border with nothing to declare.
You can look back babe, but it's best not to stare.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Big Weekend
Lyrics, Highway Companion (2006)

Travel , Sleep

“He said the Brothers owed the Herondales because of old ties. If he dies, it will be--"
"--No one's fault. I remember when he put the protection spell on you. I told him I never wanted you to have anything to do with the Shadowhunters. He said it might not be my choice. He said that the pull of the Shadowhunters is like a riptide-- and he was right. I thought we had fought free, but here we are, back in Alicante, back in a war, and there sits my daughter with blood on her face and a Morgenstern blade in her hands.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Clary Fray and Jocelyn Fray, about Brother Zachariah, pg. 220
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

War , Daughters

“Go back to Earth with a lip unsealed—go back with an open eye,
“And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die:
“That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one—
“And the God that you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Tomlinson, l. 58-61.
Other works

Men , God , Books

“I have to believe… the reason I got the part is that in their eyes I represented the character and what he’d really be like if he were alive. But the reason I represented him is that as a kid growing up I constantly thought about it. I was a bit of a loner. I used to come back home from school and then while I was kicking a ball against the wall for hours, I’d daydream about this. I really believe this shapes our lives and brings things to us. Fans like to think that there’s an element of kismet when an actor is cast as a superhero — that the actor was somehow fated to play the character. I believe that if there is such a thing that it would apply in my case. If you look at my screen test, which you can see online, you can see the dedication that I had… even in the screen test. I was so into it, that for me, it was real.”

Burt Ward (1945) American actor

Burt Ward — A Slice of SciFi Interview http://www.sliceofscifi.com/2011/04/27/burt-ward-a-slice-of-scifi-interview/ (April 27, 2011)

Fate , School , Home , Thinking

“If I were the type of artist that didn't care whether or not my works communicated with viewers then I wouldn't bother exhibiting them, I might as well stock them in a warehouse. But I do exhibit and I do care because I want to communicate back to the viewer what I've viewed. My paintings are inspired by my homeland's traditional spaces. My colors are the colors of monasteries and mosques, the color of ruins of Sassanid and Seljuq era, colors of Bazaars of Isfahan and Shiraz, and colors of northern-Iran's ceramics. I have sensed all these colors, forms and everything within my painting's frame from the viewer's own world.”

Guity Novin (1944) artist

Source: Negin (1971), p. 57

World , Color , Communication , Sense

“Without comprehension, the immigrant would forever remain shut—a stranger in America. Until America can release the heart as well as train the hand of the immigrant, he would forever remain driven back upon himself, corroded by the very richness of the unused gifts within his soul.”

Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) American writer

How I Found America, pt. 3, from Hungry Hearts and Other Stories (1920)

Soul , Heart , Training

“This time during the Second World War is part of my history, part of my memory, but it is the latest part of my memory, so the memories of each human being goes much more back, it goes to the dinosaurs, even later [Kiefer means: earlier].... I think we even remember geological times. So this is one little part of our / of mine memory”

Anselm Kiefer (1945) German painter and sculptor

the Second World War
n.p.
Tim Marlow joins Anselm Kiefer to discuss his work' - 2005

War , World , History , Thinking

“I just want to go back to rockin', but I'm uncertain as to what to actually do … The truth is, I never stopped thinking about rock 'n' roll for a second that I'm on holiday.”

Joe Strummer (1952–2002) British musician, singer, actor and songwriter

Strummer on Man, God, Law and the Clash (31 January 1988)

Truth , Thinking , Holiday

“Let me just tell you how thrilling it really is, and how, what a challenge it is, because in 1988 the question is whether we're going forward to tomorrow or whether we're going to go past to the back! … That's a Hoosierism. You've got to get used to that!”

Dan Quayle (1947) American politician, lawyer

Speech to California delegates to the Republican National Convention (17 August 1988)

Question , Past

“Obviously, the intention was not to go back to images traditionally valued as worthy or holy images and shapes, but exactly the opposite; its main purpose had to be, to realise as sacred art anything which so far had been regarded as of little value and pitiful.”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

quote from 1988
1981 - 1990
Source: Tàpies, Werke auf Papier 1943 – 2003, Achim Sommer, Kunsthalle Emden, Altana 2004, p. 38

Art , Quotes

“I've got bills to pay and children who need clothes.
I know there's fish out there but where God only knows.
They say these waters aren't what they used to be.
But I've got people back on land who count on me.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

The Downeaster Alexa.
Song lyrics, Storm Front (1989)

God , Children , People , Fish

“I'd take over World of Warcraft and I'd close it. I just want better virtual worlds. Sacrificing one of the best so its players have to seek out alternatives would be a sure-fire way to ensure that unknown gems got the chance they deserved, and that new games were developed to push back the boundaries. Er, I would get to do this anonymously, wouldn't I?”

Richard Bartle (1960) British writer

From an interview http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2007/07/17/id_close_world_of_warcraft_mud_creator_richard_bartle_on_the_state_of_virtual_worlds.html with Keith Stuart on Guardian Unlimited's http://www.guardian.co.uk Gamesblog
The question that prompted this was "If you could take over control of one major MMORPG - which would you choose and what would you do with it?"

World , Way , Game , Chance

“Harmonizing opposites by going back to their source is the distinctive quality of the Zen attitude, the Middle Way: embracing contradictions, making a synthesis of them, achieving balance.”

Taisen Deshimaru (1914–1982) Japanese Buddhist monk

As quoted in Zen and the Art of Systems Analysis : Meditations on Computer Systems Development (2002) by Patrick McDermott, p. xix

Way

“That was how I came to understand, how I came to know why all these brothers wrote and talked so big. Even the Knowledged feared the streets. But the rhyme pad was a spell book—it summoned asphalt elementals, elder gods, and weeping ancestors, all of whom had your back. That summer, I knew what Fruitie was trying to say, that when under the aegis of hip-hop, you never lived alone, you never walked alone.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975) writer, journalist, and educator

Source: The Beautiful Struggle: A Memoir (2008), p. 111.

God , Books , Fear , Understanding

“The sin is yours, but the shame and sorrow are mine, the past I cannot retrieve, the future is still unspoiled and I will not embitter it by any willful sin. Before I was innocently guilty, now I should be doubly guilty if I went back to the 'gay free life I love.' Atone for the wrong you have done me by ceasing to tempt and trouble me. I will not yield, though you hunt me to death.”

Louisa May Alcott A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)

Love , Life , Death , Past

“There was the noise of a bolt shot back, and the door opened a few inches, enough to show a long snout and a pair of sleepy blinking eyes.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 4, "Mr. Badger"

“The neanderthal experiment was simultaneously the high and low point of the genetic revolution. Successful in that a long-dead cousin of Homo sapien was brought back from extinction, yet a failure in that the scientists, so happy to gaze upon their experiments from their ever lofty ivory towers, had not seen so far as to consider the social implications that a new species of man might command in a world unvisited by their like for over 30 millennia. It was little surprise that so many neanderthals felt confused and unprepared for the pressures of modern life. It was Homo sapien at his least sapient.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Lost In A Good Book (2002), ch. 4a, p. 67

Life , World , Failure , Success

“"We have to be back in three hours," Ronan said. "I just fed Chainsaw but she'll need it again." "This," Gansey replied "is precisely why I didn't want to have a baby with you.””

Maggie Stiefvater (1981) American writer

Ronan and Gansey
The Raven Cycle Series, The Raven Boys (2012)

Baby

“Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.”

Philip Larkin book The Less Deceived

Next, Please
The Less Deceived (1955)

Silence , Water

“Why can't this priest go back to Los Angeles and leave me alone? Why is he taking me to lunch when he should be out there visiting the sick and the dying? That's what priests are for.”

Frank McCourt book 'Tis

§10
'Tis (2000)

Angels

“How wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with them, and is therefore continually in retreat. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don’t know.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Letters and papers from Prison (1997), p. 311. May 25, 1944 letter to Eberhard Bethge,

God , Knowledge

“(At Foozie’s birthday party on Friday, April 6, 1997) I got to the celebration early and pretty soon some friends pulled me into a back area and said “Perform something!” and there was this wig and dress lying there. I told them “Well, I don’t do that sort of thing. I don’t dress like a woman…” While they were trying to talk me into it another friend ran in and yelled “Do something and I mean fast! There are over four hundred people out there! You’d better hurry up Foozie!” I was dumbfounded, four hundred people!? So, I thought why not and replied, “That’s Miss Foozie to you!””

Miss Foozie (1960) drag queen

and that’s how it all started.
[ Terry Oldes http://www.terryoldes.com/, A Barrel Full of Monkeys – OR – More Baggage Than Ann Miller Brought On the Love Boat, 2008-03-28, 2007-08-14, Starbooks Press http://www.starbookspress.com/, Sarasota, Florida, Foozie, http://www.missfoozie.com/terryoldes.htm]
[ Terry Oldes http://www.terryoldes.com/, Miss Foozie, http://www.missfoozie.com/terryoldes.htm, "Foozie" by Terry Oldes, MISS FOOZIE http://www.missfoozie.com/, 2009-03-30]

People , Lying , Birthday

“Jahangir, when a prince, at one time intended demolishing some of the Hindu temples at Banaras but desisted there from on Man Singh's intervention. In his reign conversions to Islam were encouraged, conversions back from Islam to Hinduism were punished. When he visited Kangra, he celebrated the Muslim occupation of the fort by desecrating its famous temple. At Pushkar he broke the image of Varaha and a bull was sacrificed to signify the victory of Islam over idolatry.”

Jahangir (1569–1627) 4th Mughal Emperor

Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 2

Time , Victory

“ 2The writer once had an eight-year-old car in good running condition. A friend of his, a repairman who knew the condition of the car, kept urging him to make it for a new model. "But why?" the writer asked. "The old car's in fine shape still." The repairman answered scornfully, "Yeah, but what the hell. All you've got is transportation."
Recently, the term "transportation car" has begun to appear in advertisements; for example, "'48 Dodge -- Runs perfectly good; transportation car. Leaving, must sell. $100." (Classified section of the Pali Press, Kailua Hawaii.) Apparently it means a car that has no symbolic or prestige value and is good only for getting you there and bringing you back -- a miserable kind of vehicle indeed! ”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Footnote, p. 26
Language in Thought and Action (1949), The Symbolic Process

Cars , Hell , Appearance

“I didn't like the trade. Santurce is close to my home town and I like the fans there. They good to me and cheer me all the time. I may not go back. I may work in Pittsburgh.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Reacting to the sale of his erstwhile winter ball team, Santurce, and his subsequent trade to San Juan; as quoted in "Roberto Does Better When He's Ailing" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rEQjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Ak4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7048%2C256258 by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (Saturday, March 2, 1957), p. 6
Baseball-related, <big><big>1950s</big></big>, <big>1957</big>

Home , Time

“I was never as cocksure again after that first LSD inspiration. Especially with fame and reputation. You become very uncertain, you have to follow your own act. I never did get that kind of spontaneous cocksureness back again. It’s like going from being the observer to the observed. I had been used to being invisible when I was young. After I became well-known, it was very hard to be anonymous in the world. Of course, at first I liked all the attention. Suddenly, good-looking girls were interested in me! Wow! I couldn’t believe it.”

Robert Crumb (1943) American cartoonist

"R. Crumb, The Art of Comics No. 1" http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6017/the-art-of-comics-no-1-r-crumb, The Paris Review, Summer 2010, No. 193.

World , Girl

“My budget blueprint will restrain spending, yet meet growing needs with a reasonable 4 percent growth rate, which is a little more than inflation. After paying the bills, my plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire. That would be a good worry to have. Finally, along with funding our priorities and paying down debt, my plan returns about one out of every four dollars of the surplus to the American taxpayers, who created the surplus in the first place. A surplus in tax revenue, after all, means that taxpayers have been overcharged. And usually when you've been overcharged, you expect to get something back. Tax relief means real help for both American families and the American economy. Everybody who pays income taxes will receive a tax cut. Nobody will be targeted in, and nobody will be targeted out. The typical family will get about $1,600 in tax relief, and that's real money. And that's money that will help American families manage their own accounts, manage your own balance sheets.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, Radio Address to the Nation (February 2001)

Money , Family , Help

“Can’t you approach the young worker and tell him that the way to live is to work for life and not for death? Is it beneath American scholars to try to do that?… Your only salvation is in carrying the idea of socialism to the working class and coming back to storm—to storm, yes, to storm—the bastions of capitalism.”

Isaac Deutscher (1907–1967) British historian

Isaac Deutscher, quoted in S. Unger, "Deutscher and the New Left in America", in D. Horowitz (ed).

Life , Death , Way , Idea

“The force of the idea was such that I drew the car to the side of the road and stopped and, for some reason, laughed. It was a loud laugh, unsteady, and sounded, even to my own ears, slightly maniacal. Thinking back now, I realise it was less a laugh than the birth-cry of my dark and twin brother Benjamin Black.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville on the birth of his dark twin, Benjamin Black (2011)

Cars , Idea , Birth , Thinking

“No honest man or woman in Germany feels responsible for these things. Good Germans took Nazism as a new religion. These people are shocked by the revelations which have shown that Nazism was not idealism, but a means to the performance of criminal acts…
In war a German feels bound to join the ranks without question. Three of my sons were called up. I could not hold back. I wrote from the concentration camp to Admiral Raeder, C. in C. of the Navy, asking to be allowed to return to the submarine service or to do any other service in the Navy. I heard nothing for several months, and then a reply came, not from Raeder but from Keitel, head of the Wehrmacht. He thanked me, but regretted I could not be employed on active service.”

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor

Replying to questions on the atrocities of the concentration camps, at a press conference in Naples, Italy, and confirming that he actually had written a widely publicized letter from such a camp, early in the war, to be permitted to serve in the military (5 June 1945)

War , People , Religion , Feeling

“He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Source: Retaliation (1774), Line 107.

“"What are you doing here, Caroni?" Brother Leon asked, looking up from his desk. He squinted toward the doorway. "It is Caroni, isn't it?" "Yes, it is," David answered, closing the door soundlessly, hiding the object in his hand behind his back.”

Robert Cormier book Beyond the Chocolate War

Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 232

“Robin Hood: Watch my back!
Achoo: Yo' back just got punched twice.”

Mel Brooks (1926) American director, writer, actor, and producer

Robin Hood: Men in Tights

“Tomorrow, millions of people will gather with loved ones across Canada and around the world to mark the Christmas holiday.
On this day, Christians reflect on their faith and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. This occasion inspires families and communities to come together, share what they have, and give back to those less fortunate.
May we take this time to reflect on our many blessings, and remind our loved ones how much they mean to us.
On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada and our entire Liberal Caucus, Sophie and I wish you all a most joyous holiday season. From my family to yours: merry Christmas.”

Justin Trudeau (1971) 23rd Prime Minister of Canada; eldest son of Pierre Trudeau

Statement by Liberal Party of Canada Leader Justin Trudeau on Christmas http://www.liberal.ca/statement-by-liberal-party-of-canada-leader-justin-trudeau-on-christmas/ (24 December 2014)
2014

Love , People , World , Family

“well boss
mehitabel the cat
has reappeared in her old
haunts with a
flock of kittens

archy she said to me
yesterday
the life of a female
artist is continually
hampered what in hell
have i done to deserve
all these kittens
i look back on my life
and it seems to me to be
just one damned kitten
after another
i am a dancer archy
and my only prayer
is to be allowed
to give my best to my art
but just as i feel
that i am succeeding
in my life work
along comes another batch
of these damned kittens
it is not archy
that i am shy on mother love
god knows i care for
the sweet little things
curse them
but am i never to be allowed
to live my own life
i have purposely avoided
matrimony in the interests
of the higher life
but i might just
as well have been a domestic
slave for all the freedom
i have gained
i hope none of them
gets run over by
an automobile
my heart would bleed
if anything happened
to them and i found it out
but it isn t fair archy
it isn t fair
these damned tom cats have all
the fun and freedom
if i was like some of these
green eyed feline vamps i know
i would simply walk out on the
bunch of them and
let them shift for themselves
but i am not that kind
archy i am full of mother love
my kindness has always
been my curse
a tender heart is the cross i bear
self sacrifice always and forever
is my motto damn them
i will make a home
for the sweet innocent
little things
unless of course providence
in his wisdom should remove
them they are living
just now in an abandoned
garbage can just behind
a made over stable in greenwich
village and if it rained
into the can before i could
get back and rescue them
i am afraid the little
dears might drown
it makes me shudder just
to think of it
of course if i were a family cat
they would probably
be drowned anyhow
sometimes i think
the kinder thing would be
for me to carry the
sweet little things
over to the river
and drop them in myself
but a mother s love archy
is so unreasonable
something always prevents me
these terrible
conflicts are always
presenting themselves
to the artist
the eternal struggle
between art and life archy
is something fierce
yes something fierce
my what a dramatic
life i have lived
one moment up the next
moment down again
but always gay archy always gay
and always the lady too
in spite of hell
well boss it will
be interesting to note
just how mehitabel
works out her present problem
a dark mystery still broods
over the manner
in which the former
family of three kittens
disappeared
one day she was talking to me
of the kittens
and the next day when i asked
her about them
she said innocently
what kittens
interrogation point
and that was all
i could ever get out
of her on the subject
we had a heavy rain
right after she spoke to me
but probably that garbage can
leaks so the kittens
have not yet
been drowned”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

mehitabel and her kittens http://donmarquis.com/reading-room/kittens/
archy and mehitabel (1927)

Love , Life , Wisdom , God

“I'm backing David Cameron's campaign out of pure, cynical self-interest.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

"Conference Diary", The Independent, 5 October 2005, p. 7.
On The 2005 Conservative Leadership Contest.
2000s, 2005

“With each time hunting moves back, it is Coca-Cola that advances.”

Roselyne Bachelot (1946) French politician

À chaque fois que la chasse recule, c'est le Coca-Cola qui s'avance.
Quoted in Le Monde, Feb. 11th, 2003.

Time

“He has a traditional shopper's DNA, an eye for freshness and appearance, and a consistent sense of a home to go back to.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

Friend of My Youth (2017)

Home , Sense , Appearance

“It was a miracle — more than a miracle — when I found you, Melanie. Right now, if I was given the choice between having the world back and having you, I wouldn't be able to give you up. Not to save five billion lives.”

Stephenie Meyer book The Host

Jared Howe to Melanie Stryder, p. 78
The Host (2008)

World

“This is why we are on record claiming that the missional conversation — refactoring mission back into the equation of church — contains the seeds of authenticity and renewal for Christianity in our time and place.”

Alan Hirsch (1959) South African missionary

Source: The Faith of Leap (2011), p. 159

Time

“Back to Foulke, Red Sox fans have longed to hear it! The Boston Red Sox are World Champions!”

Joe Buck (1969) American sportscaster

Calling the last play of the 2004 World Series in Game 4. The Red Sox swept the St. Louis Cardinals for their first World Series title in 86 years.
2000s

World

“I could not find my way back in dreams, I knew then. They were memory and desire, terror and hope; they told me only what I already knew.”

Patricia A. McKillip book Winter Rose

Source: Winter Rose (1996), Chapter 16, p. 155.

Dreams , Hope , Way , Memory

“In the first place I have an enormous regard for common sense. Any time we discover some great thing and it contradicts common sense, we better go back to the laboratory and check it.”

Harry Harlow (1905–1981) American psychologist

in interview with Carol Tavris, as cited in Love According To Harry Harlow http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/love-according-to-harry-harlow#.WE2jv33d7cs, t the Association for Psychological Science's Observer, by Deborah Blum, January 2012.

Sense , Time

“I always back UN action where we can find it, but I do not think it should be a limit to our help. There have been multiple UN resolutions that say [to] Assad: stop killing indiscriminately your own citizens.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

Speaking on BBC Daily Politics show — UK 'should enforce Syria no-fly zone even if Russia vetoes UN resolution' https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/12/uk-should-be-prepared-enforce-syria-no-fly-zone-russian-veto-un-isis-assad (12 October 2015)

Thinking , Help

“I'm a very lucky guy. I had so many people help me over the years that I never had many problems. If I had a problem, I could sit down with someone and they would explain the problem to me, and the problem become like a baseball game. You're at home plate now, how do you get to first? How do you get to second? How do you get to third? When you get back to home, your problem is solved. That's the way I view the business world, I view it as a baseball game. Once you start thinking the way you've been taught to think over so many years, you have no problems.”

Willie Mays (1931) Baseball player

Academy of Achievement Interview (1996)

People , World , Way , Guy

“These plays and stories have for their continual theme the passing away of gods and men and cities before the mysterious power which is sometimes called by some great god's name but more often 'Time.' His travellers, who travel by so many rivers and deserts and listen to sounding names none heard before, come back with no tale that does not tell of vague rebellion against that power, and all the beautiful things they have seen get something of their charm from the pathos of fragility. This poet who has imagined colours, ceremonies and incredible processions that never passed before the eyes of Edgar Allen Poe or of De Quincey, and remembered as much fabulous beauty as Sir John Mandeville, has yet never wearied of the most universal of emotions and the one most constantly associated with the sense of beauty; and when we come to examine those astonishments that seemed so alien we find that he has but transfigured with beauty the common sights of the world.”

Lord Dunsany (1878–1957) Irish writer and dramatist

About

Men , God , World , Beauty

“When you're ready to make the change and you don't feel that you have the strength, know that you are connected with the same strength that moves the world; you just have to stop turning your back on it and connect with it.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 83

World , Feeling , Change

“There's a place
between desire and memory, some back porch
we can neither wish nor recall”

Don McKay (1942) Canadian poet

'Apparatus' 1997 McClelland & Stewart Nov 2014
Other quotes

Memory

“I return to economics and to economists, and to the question of why the profession’s directions have evolved in the manners evident from this book. A major conservative economist once explained that a source of his antipathy to government traced back to the defeat of his southern ancestors by a larger north economy. Here is a similar factoid. Joan Robinson once wrote that her opposition to having the U. K. enter the European Market was due to the fact that she “had more friends in [Nehru’s] India than on the continent.””

Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist

Coeditor's Forword in Inside the economist’s mind: conversations with eminent economists (2007)
New millennium

Books , Question

“[On paying the toll at the Severn Bridge] It's worth £5.40 to have that moment where you stop, then you come through and there are no lanes! It takes a very strange sort of man who doesn't go: 'The race is on! Come on, woohoo! First one to the lanes!! Order, order, back in order OK but I had fun while it lasted.”

Michael McIntyre (1976) British comedian

The Comedy Roadshow

“He was not condemned to death, freedom awaited
him. What was the temptation, the one that worked?
Perhaps he wanted to live with a woman whose life
he had saved, who had seen down into the earth but
had nevertheless followed him back up to life. It was
his only chance to be a hero, to one person at least,
for if he became the hangman the others would
despise him. He was in prison for wounding another
man, on one finger of the right hand, with a sword.
This too is history.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Selected Poems 1976-1986 (1987), Marrying the Hangman

Life , Death , History , Freedom

“He seemed now to be also the embodiment of the fully emancipated male, perhaps the only one in America, the man who can do anything he wants, anything, can do it because he has money, the energy, and no apparent guilt. … The man who had everything, lost it, then got it back, letting nothing stand in his way, doing what few men can do.”

Gay Talese Frank Sinatra Has a Cold

Frank Sinatra Has a Cold (Esquire, April 1966)

Men , Money , Way

“It's very challenging to carve back market share.”

Paul Allen (1953–2018) American inventor, investor and philanthropist

The New York Times: "40 Busy Years Later, Paul Allen, a Microsoft Founder, Considers His Creation" https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/40-busy-years-later-a-microsoft-founder-considers-his-creation/ (03 May 2015)

“Books serve us simply by opening a window on all we wanted to say and feel and think about. We may not even notice that they have not said it themselves till we go back to them years later and do not find what we loved in them. You cannot keep the view by taking the window with you.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#92
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Love , Books , Feeling , Thinking

“I commend you on all you've done for PETA, wrestling the one-eyed trouser snake with your bare hands, gently cuddling it in your arms, and nurturing it back to health.”

Sarah Silverman (1970) American comedian and actress

To Pamela Anderson on the Comedy Central Roast (14 August 2005)

Health

“Somebody out there, show your compassion, come and kill me. Cut me free and watch me slowly shrivel, or slice me up and flush me down a toilet. Any way you like, I don't mind. Come on! You do it for your youngest children, you do it for your sick old parents. Come and do it for me. I can tell you'd like it. Don't be nervous, lovers! You'll never be found out, if that's what's holding you back: I'll stay silent to the end, be it swift or slow. Come on, people! I'm totally defenceless. Hurry up! Don't be shy. You have the right. You made me, you created me, so you know you have the right.”

Greg Egan (1961) Australian science fiction writer and former computer programmer

The Demon's Passage http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Demons%20Passage, published in Eidolon (Winter 1991)
Fiction

Children , People , Way , Lovers

“We are hurtling back into a Soviet abyss, into an information vacuum that spells death from our own ignorance. All we have left is the internet, where information is still freely available. For the rest, if you want to go on working as a journalist, it's total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial - whatever our special services, Putin's guard dogs, see fit.”

Anna Politkovskaya (1958–2006) Russian journalist

As quoted in " Poisoned by Putin: The horror of Beslan was made still worse by the intimidation of Russia's servile media http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/09/russia.media" (9 September 2004), The Guardian, Guardian News and Media Limited.

Death , Dogs

“Balachander is my inspiration. He had a heart problem 40 years back. He has been making films for another 46 years. He can never grow old. My father used to be like that until he suffered a stroke. Then I suddenly realized he was an old man. That's also true of my brothers Chandra Haasan and to an extent Charu Haasan. I can never imagine them being old.”

Kamal Haasan (1954) Indian actor

Aamir's choice of films makes Kamal Haasan happy

Imagination , Problem , Suffering , Heart

“Go by reverently, and read with sober care
How a great people, riding with defiant shouts
The centaur of Revolution,
Spurred and whipped to frenzy,
Shook with terror, seeing the mist of the sea
Over the precipice they were nearing,
And fell from his back in precipitate awe
To celebrate the Feast of the Supreme Being.”

Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950) American writer

" Captain Orlando Killion http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/captain-orlando-killion/'

People , Reading , Sea

“'So then at forty-six years of age I came here to learn to live by cliches,' is what Day says to Charlotte Treat right after Randy Lenz asked what time it was, again, at 0825. 'To turn my will and life over to the care of cliches. One day at a time. Easy does it. First things first. Courage is fear that has said its prayers. Ask for help. Thy will not mine be done. It works if you work it. Grow or go. Keep coming back.' […] I walk around with my arms out straight in front of me and recite these cliches. In a monotone. No inflection necessary. Could that be one? Could that be added to the cliche-pool? "No inflection necessary"? Too many syllables, probably.'”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest (1996)

Life , Age , Fear , Courage

“p>A bird in the gusty wind
Deftly changes directionA youth tries to pick up
A pennyThe grapevine in fantasy
Stretches its tentaclesThe Wave in retreat
Arches its back.”

Gu Cheng (1956–1993) Chinese poet

"Curve" [Huxian]

Youth , Bird , Change

“The decent people in this administration — mainly career military brass and Condi's circle — are finally pushing back against the war crimes of Cheney and Rumsfeld. But the Bush mojo is the same. They don't actually care about the effectiveness of their policies, just how they can be used as wedge issues. Last summer, Karl Rove was determined to use torture and Gitmo as his electoral path to retaining the Congress. He thought he could portray the Democrats as weak on terror. Of course, only cowards and failures use torture. And how many Democrats or Republicans could have made us more vulnerable to more terror than Bush has these past five years?”

Andrew Sullivan (1963) Journalist, writer, blogger

"The Alternative to Torture" http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/the_alternative.html The Daily Dish (30 May 2007)

War , People , Failure , Past

“Barring love and war, few enterprises are undertaken with such abandon, or by such diverse individuals, or with so paradoxical a mixture of appetite and altruism, as that group of avocations known as outdoor recreation. It is, by common consent, a good thing for people to get back to nature. But wherein lies the goodness, and what can be done to encourage its pursuit?”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Conservation Esthetic", p. 165.

Love , War , People , Nature

“Though it makes me sick to do so without my writers, there are more than a hundred people whose financial well-being depends on our show. It is time to go back to work.”

Jimmy Kimmel (1967) American talk show host and comedian

On returning back to work at Jimmy Kimmel Live! during the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike — reported in San Mateo County Times staff (December 19, 2007) "Here is your pregnant Spears", San Mateo County Times.

People , Time , Dependency

Quotes about back page 25

Quotes about back
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