Quotes about back (7784 quotes, page 53)

“I can generate suctional forces, which act indirectly and are entirely undetectable. No current of air can be noticed; only an almost imperceptible cooling, as occurs when air is sucked in strongly with the back of the hand held in front of the mouth. It is therefore incorrect to say that I have copied the cyclones and typhoons of the tropics.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Implosion Magazine, No. 83, p. 17. (Callum Coats: Energy Evolution (2000))
Implosion Magazine

“It’s funny how one summer can change everything. It must be something about the heat and the smell of chlorine, fresh-cut grass and honeysuckle, asphalt sizzling after late-day thunderstorms, the steam rising while everything drips around it. Something about long, lazy days and whirring air conditioners and bright plastic flip-flops from the drugstore thwacking down the street. Something about fall being so close, another year, another Christmas, another beginning. So much in one summer, stirring up like the storms that crest at the end of each day, blowing out all the heat and dirt to leave everything gasping and cool. Everyone can reach back to one summer and lay a finger to it, finding the exact point when everything changed. That summer was mine.”

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

That Summer (1996)

Grass , Change , Christmas , Summer

“Last year, initially The Scotsman newspaper — being Scottish and J. K. Rowling being Scottish — and because of the English tendency to try and tear down their idols, they kept trying to build stories which said J. K. Rowling ripped off Neil Gaiman. They kept getting in touch with me and I kept declining to play because I thought it was silly. And then The Daily Mirror in England ran an article about that mad woman who was trying to sue J. K. Rowling over having stolen muggles from her. And they finished off with a line saying [something like]: And Neil Gaiman has accused her of stealing.
Luckily I found this online and I found it the night it came out by pure coincidence and the reporter's e-mail address was at the bottom of the thing so I fired off an e-mail saying: "This is not true, I never said this. You are making this up." I got an apologetic e-mail back, but by the time I'd gotten the apologetic e-mail back it was already in The Daily Mail the following morning and it was very obvious that The Daily Mail‘s research [had] consisted of reading The Daily Mirror. And you're going: journalists are so lazy.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

On stories which implied that Harry Potter was merely a revised Timothy Hunter of Gaiman's The Books of Magic, in January magazine interview (2002) http://januarymagazine.com/profiles/gaiman.html

Tear , Time , Reading , Madness

“The myths have always condemned those who "looked back." Condemned them, whatever the paradise may have been which they were leaving. Hence this shadow over each departure from your decision”

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961) Swedish diplomat, economist, and author

Markings (1964)

Departure , Decision

“You know, we can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately own handguns and rifles -- it's something I strongly support -- we can't be so fixated on that that we are unable to think about the reality of life that millions of Americans face on streets that are unsafe, under conditions that no other nation—no other nations—has permitted to exist. And at some point, I still hope that the leadership of the National Rifle Association will go back to doing what it did when I was a boy and which made me want to be a lifetime member because they put out valuable information about hunting and marksmanship and safe use of guns. But just to know of the conditions we face today in a lot of our cities and other places in this country and the enormous threat to public safety is amazing.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session at the Adult Learning Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=46264, March 1, 1993
1990s

Life , Hope , Boy , Support

“I have presented the periodic table as a kind of travel guide to an imaginary country, of which the elements are the various regions. This kingdom has a geography: the elements lie in particular juxtaposition to one another, and they are used to produce goods, much as a prairie produces wheat and a lake produces fish. It also has a history. Indeed, it has three kinds of history: the elements were discovered much as the lands of the world were discovered; the kingdom was mapped, just as the world was mapped, and the relative positions of the elements came to take on a great significance; and the elements have their own cosmic history, which can be traced back to the stars.”

Peter Atkins (1940) British chemist

Preface
Periodic Kingdom (1995)

Lie , World , Travel , History

“No orioles yet on willows—you set out
and promised you'd come back when cuckoos sang.
Cuckoos have followed orioles grown old—
before the house some swallows chirp and peep.”

Đặng Trần Côn (1710–1745) writer

Source: Chinh phụ ngâm, Lines 125–128

Housing

“A myth has it that in the Texas League some years back, Billy Williams hit a line drive so hard it broke the leg of a rival first baseman. The myth is total nonsense. Williams actually hit a one-bounce ground shot that broke the leg of a rival second baseman. When Billy Williams sets the record straight, he laughs, and tiny white lights glitter in his black eyes, like the tips of icepicks. You know," he says, "nobody likes to hurt anybody. But you have to think I hit that ball pretty good." This is the Billy Williams laugh. It is not a friendly laugh. It is the laugh of an arrogant hitter. Stan Musial used to giggle that way, and no one would confuse it with a girlish giggle. Ted Williams used to grin that way when he talked about hitting. Not a friendly grin; a wicked grin. That is Billy Williams' laugh. It is probably the way the legendary Billy the Kid laughed before he killed a man. Cold as the tip of an icepick. Not that Billy Williams is not a friendly man. He is. Very. He is one of the nicest guys in baseball. But he knows how to separate the two—nice guy, big league hitter.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From "Billy Williams: Invisible Iron Man," in Baseball Stars of 1971 (March 1971), edited by Ray Robinson, p. 106
Sports-related

Way , Guy , Thinking , Light

“I am tied by a very solid friendship to President Senghor. He is a statesman of international standing and a remarkable administrator, a master of the French language and an authentic poet. I spoke to him at length about the "negritude" which is a genuine doctrine of cultural synthesis. It echoed profoundly in me since, throughout my life, I have delved ceaselessly back to the deepest and most ancient roots of my own country.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

Page 145
Publications, The Shah's Story (1980), On world leaders and statesmen

Life , Friendship , Country

“There can be no doubt that the modem environment is changing faster than any environment ever previously changed; therefore, the social center of gravity constantly tends to shift more rapidly; and therefore modem civilization has unprecedented need of the administrative or generalizing mind. I take it to be an axiom, that perfection in administration must be commensurate to the bulk and momentum of the mass to be administered, otherwise the centrifugal will overcome the centripetal force, and the mass will disintegrate. In other words, civilization will dissolve. A moment arrives when the minds of any given dominant type fail to meet the demands made upon them, and are superseded by a younger type, which in tum is set aside by another still younger, until the limit of the administrative genius of that particular race has been reached. Then disintegration sets in, the social momentum is gradually relaxed, and society sinks back to a level at which it can cohere.”

Brooks Adams (1848–1927) American political writer

Source: The Theory of Social Revolutions,, p. 204-5, as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 9-10

Change , Perfection

“He [Turgot] now, in 1749, at the age of twenty two, wrote… a letter which has been an object of wonder among political thinkers ever since. Its subject was paper money. Discussing the ideas of John Law, and especially the essay of Terrasson which had supported them, he dissected them mercilessly, but in a way useful not only in those times but in these. …Terrasson's arguments in behalf of unlimited issues of paper had been put forth in 1720. …and he declared that the material used for bearing the sign of value is indifferent …and that if a sovereign issues enough of paper promises, he will be able to loan or even to give money in unlimited amounts to his needy subjects. …without danger of depreciation. …Terrasson also made the distinction between the note of a business man and notes issued by a government, that the former comes back and must be paid, but that the latter need not come back and can be kept afloat forever by simple governmental command, thus becoming that blessed thing—worshiped widely, not many years since, in our own country—"fiat money."”

Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) American politician

Source: Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason (1915), p. 168-169

Money , Age , Law , Way

“So you go on and on, with this intellectual fly down, your underwear exposed, and toilette paper hanging out the back of your pants.”

Hank Green (1980) American vlogger

about "saying stuff wrong" Stop Embarrassing Yourself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIvrDsnKuQ8&feature=related
Youtube

Flying

“Try not to use two actions. Like when kicking, Wing Chun doesn't like to lift the knee first and then kick because this is a two step action. Also the line of force is wrong because your kick will not have ground support. Instead, your kick will transmit back to your body to off-balance you. This is why Yip Man's kick in the second set looks a bit funny at first. We want to travel in a straight line from the ground to the target, not lift the knee first.”

Wong Shun Leung (1935–1997) martial artist

Wong Shun Leung Applied the Principle of a One-Step Action to Execute a Kick
Kicking and Kneeing
Source: Comments From Wong Shun Leung and Tsui Shan Ting, by Ray Van Raamsdonk http://www.springtimesong.com/wcqanda.htm

Travel , Support

“Robert Pattinson should not take back Kristen Stewart. She cheated on him like a dog & will do it again--just watch. He can do much better!”

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

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/258640349872926720, quoted in * 2017-08-14 Brittany Wong Robert Pattinson Finally Responds To Donald Trump’s Weird ‘Twilight’ Tweets The Huffington Post https://www.huffpost.com/entry/robert-pattinson-talks-trump-tweets_n_5991d173e4b09071f69b8768
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Donald Trump / Quotes / Donald Trump on social media / Twitter
2010s, 2012

Dogs , Cheating

“Just as a Muslim studies Islam, the Jew has to study Judaism. Everyone has to learn the heritage of his family and the history that dates back thousands of years.”

Lev Leviev (1956) Soviet-born Israeli businessman, philanthropist and investor

Interview, Jewish Chronicle, 7 March 2008 http://thejc.com/home.aspx?AId58607&ATypeId1&searchtrue2&srchstrLev%20leviev&srchtxt1&srchhead1&srchauthor1&srchsandp1&scsrch0

Family , History , Study , Learning

“I was very much aware that we still had to get safely back down the mountain again and that was quite an important factor. I really felt the most excitement when we finally got to the bottom of the mountain again and it was all behind us.”

Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) New Zealand mountaineer

Sir Edmund Hillary : King Of The World

Mountain

“.. but I must have it back [a sketch of mother with child at the breast] very soon, because I become attached to it... Such a sketch is a part of my life; it always stays. I use it ten or twenty times... It is a foundation on which I build.”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in Dutch (citaat van Jozef Israëls, in het Nederlands): ..maar, ik moet ze [een schets van moeder met kind aan de borst] heel gauw terug hebben, want ik hecht eraan.. .Zoo'n schets is een deel van mijn leven; die blijft altijd. Die gebruik ik tien, twintig maal.. .'t Is een basis, waar ik op bouw.
Quoted by N.H. Wolf, in 'Bij onze Nederlandsche kunstenaars. IV. - Jozef Israëls, Grootmeester der Nederlandsche Schilders', in Wereldkroniek, 8 Feb. 1902
Wolf wanted to lent the sketch to have a good photo taken of it for his article about Israëls
Quotes of Jozef Israels, after 1900

Life , Time , Parting

“I don’t mind people admiring me if they want to but I don’t think it’s very logical. It’s not like I was St. George knocking off some dumb dragon or anything like that. First of all, you’re talking about something I did a long, long time ago. Secondly, we were doing things that were not expected to last a lifetime. We figured they’d last about three years and then disappear forever. Remember there was no television back then and no place for the cartoons to go after they left the theaters. But I’m not trying to demean what we did. I always took the work very seriously and I’m proud to have been associated with the work we did. It’s just that adulation is impractical and makes me uncomfortable. Nobody noticed us back then. Nobody called us geniuses. And we didn’t feel like artists. We were just trying to make people laugh.”

Chuck Jones (1912–2002) American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films

Orange County Register, October 22, 1989

People , Feeling , Thinking , Time

“I'm not going to vote. I won't vote for a Catholic and I won't vote for a damned Republican. Maybe I've said that before. My ancestors were all Catholic and not very far back. And I have reason to hate the church.
I feel a curious kinship, though, with the Middle Ages. I have been more successful in selling tales laid in that period of time, than in any other. Truth it was an epoch for strange writers. Witches and werewolves, alchemists and necromancers, haunted the brains of those strange savage people, barbaric children that they were, and the only thing which was never believed was the truth. Those sons of the old pagan tribes were wrought upon by priest and monk, and they brought all their demons from their mythology and accepted all the demons of the new creed also, turning their old gods into devils. The slight knowledge which filtered through the monastaries from the ancient sources of decayed Greece and fallen Rome, was so distorted and perverted that by the time it reached the people, it resembled some monstrous legend. And the vague minded savages further garbed it in heathen garments. Oh, a brave time, by Satan! Any smooth rogue could swindle his way through life, as he can today, but then there was pageantry and high illusion and vanity, and the beloved tinsel of glory without which life is not worth living.
I hate the devotees of great wealth but I enjoy seeing the splendor that wealth can buy. And if I were wealthy, I'd live in a place with marble walls and marble floors, lapis lazulis ceilings and cloth-of-gold and I would have silver fountains in the courts, flinging an everlasting sheen of sparkling water in the air. Soft low music should breathe forever through the rooms and slim tigerish girls should glide through on softly falling feet, serving all the wants of me and my guests; girls with white bare limbs like molten gold and soft dreamy eyes.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

From a letter to Harold Preece (received October 20, 1928)
Letters

Life , God , Hate , Children

“Just like an amnesiac, trying to get my senses back.
Oh where did they go.”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

"Laughing with a Mouth of Blood"
Actor (2009)

Sense

“Gotta make you love me the way you used to do
Gotta get back the feeling and put wind in my sails
And chart a course that gets me back to you, back to you.
Oh, the lonely days, the lonely nights lookin' back in time.
Time, don't run out on me.”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

Time Don't Run Out on Me (1985), co-written with Gerry Goffin, performed by Anne Murray
Song lyrics, Singles

Love , Way , Feeling , Time

“[On being "genial, soft-spoken and unflappable" despite having "hard arguments"]: As far as my being friendly to most of my opponents, it comes from the fact that none of this is personal. I don't take any of this personal. I don't take any criticism of my ideas personal, and as far as I'm concerned, everything I believe is on the table and fit to be challenged. There's nothing I'm holding back, there's nothing that I'm holding sacred, such that if you were to doubt it, I would take your doubt personal, or I would see it as something that would diminish me personally.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, "PRIVATE: THE DAVID GREGORY SHOW #5" (13 may 2016) http://www.earwolf.com/episode/sam-harris/
2010s

Idea , Personality

“The subject of a gestalt demonstration knows that his perception has shifted because he can make it shift back and forth repeatedly while he holds the same book or piece of paper in his hands. Aware that nothing in his environment has changed, he directs his attention increasingly not to the figure (duck or rabbit) but to the lines of the paper he is looking at. Ultimately he may even learn to see those lines without seeing either of the figures, and he may then say (what he could not legitimately have said earlier) that it is these lines that he really sees but that he sees them alternately as a duck and as a rabbit. …As in all similar psychological experiments, the effectiveness of the demonstration depends upon its being analyzable in this way. Unless there were an external standard with respect to which a switch of vision could be demonstrated, no conclusion about alternate perceptual possibilities could be drawn.”

Thomas Kuhn book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Source: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), X. Revolutions as Changes of World View, p. 114 (3rd edn.)

Books , Way , Learning , Change

“As regards George Bush, I've met him thirteen times. We know each other from way back. He was in charge of the CIA and knew Zaire's problems backwards. He received me at his home in Maine with his mother, wife and children and grandchildren. I met him again recently at the funeral of Emperor Hirohito. He is an intelligent, open and sensitive man, with strong convictions.”

Mobutu Sésé Seko (1930–1997) President of Zaïre

Mobutu, on his friendship with George H. W. Bush. Meredith, p. 308

Children , Way , Home , Intelligence

“Although I've never been an atheist, there are periods when I struggled with the whole thing. As someone who uses words, you need to able to justify your belief with language, I'd have arguments and the atheist always won because he'd go back to logic. Belief in God is illogical, it's absurd. There's no debate. I feel it intuitively, it comes from the heart, a magical place. But I still I fluctuate from day to day. Sometimes I feel very close to the notion of God, other times I don't. I used to see that as a failure. Now I see it as a strength, especially compared to the more fanatical notions of what God is. I think doubt is an essential part of belief.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Mojo (January, 2005)
God and religion

God , Feeling , Failure , Thinking

“But she just stood there, scared that I might snap
I looked in her eyes and there were years of disappointment starin' right back
And I was scared too, scared of what she would say
But I was embarassed like I, like I sat through three Madea plays
Before she walked away, Misery stopped
And she said 'look at your music career, you're in the same spot'
'Nah,' I said, 'don't even try me
Because you used to stand beside me
But I moved so far ahead you're ninety feet behind me”

Danny! (1983) American rapper

"Misery"
Albums, And I Love H.E.R. (2008)

Music , Disappointment

“Remember that no piece of honestly conducted research is ever wasted, even if it seems so at the time. Put it away in a drawer, and ten, twenty or thirty years down the road, it will come back and help you in ways you never anticipated.”

Anthony James Leggett (1938) British physicist

Speech at the Nobel Banquet http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2003/leggett-speech-e.html, December 10, 2003.

Way , Time , Help

“I was TORTURED by teachers! You hear me, TORTURED!” I yelled, jerking the whole podium off the floor. “Hell, I flunked the third grade twice because—BECAUSE—” I was crying so hard that I had to wipe the tears out of my eyes with the back of my hand, but this wasn’t going to stop me. I was all guts up front now. I was in that smooth-feeling, all-true place that I got into when I’d go to my room and start writing each morning before daybreak…with all my heart and soul.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Jerk , Feeling , Soul , Hell

“In an interstellar burst
I am back to save the universe”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

Lyrics, OK Computer (1997)

Universe

“Looking back now, it's easy to see that I had no models for the socially accepted conventional female role, which was certainly a blessing.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981), p. 44

“I once called Carter a chicken fried McGovern and I take that back because I've come to respect McGovern.”

Bob Dole (1923) American politician

At the Republican debate in Iowa in 1980
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20160304194527/http://newsok.com/memorable-barbs-may-incite-laughter/article/2878749 Memorable barbs may incite laughter

“FOG: Fog covers this region. / Can you still hear my voice? / I don't understand trees. / They try to grab our hair. / A branch has fallen on you. I know that. / Could you look behind me: / is there a load / on my back, as well?”

Mirkka Rekola (1931–2014) Finnish writer

Understanding , Tree

“It was an evening which, by some mysterious combination of failing light and the smell of an unrecognised plant, brings back to some men the sense of childhood and of future hope and to others the sense of something which has been lost and almost forgotten.”

Graham Greene book The Honorary Consul

The Honorary Consul (1973)

Men , Hope , Sense , Light

“I have never had any desire to play a maid, a liquor store owner kicking a black person out of my store, a rude and harried waitress, a worldly-wise acupuncturist, an early-rising, loose black cotton pants wearing elderly woman practicing tai chi in the park, a manicurist, a prostitute, a student in an English as a Second Language course, a purveyor of exotic mushrooms and ginseng, an exchange student, a newscaster covering gang warfare in Chinatown, a woman drowning my newborn baby in a bowl, a daughter crying with my mom over our constant battle between East and West yet finally coming together over a particularly intense game of mahjong…a young girl being raped and killed by GIs in the Killing Fields, a woman balancing a basket of any kind on my head…committing suicide because my white lover did not come back to Japan after the war, or having him come back for me and fooling him successfully for years and years thinking I am a woman when really I'm a dude, as if my race castrates me so much this deception is completely feasible…”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, PIGEONHOLING PEOPLE

War , Fools , Girl , Game

“Punk: I'm not gonna have you sit here and belittle me. Say I've lost sight? I've lost sight of things, John? The reason I say I'm gonna take that and walk out is because I don't fit a certain mold. Because I am the underdog, and that's exactly what you've lost sight of. Earlier in this ring, you mentioned great wrestlers like Eddie Guerrero and you said they used to look at you and say that the kid couldn't hang. And now you stand here and look at me as the kid that can't hang. John, I was hanging off of your gangster car, WrestleMania 22, as it rolled down in Chicago, Illinois, and I stood there in a suit looking as ridiculous as [points to Vince McMahon] that man looks right now in his suit, holding a phony Tommy gun, and I said to myself someday, I'm not gonna be standing out there watching you in the ring; I was gonna be in the ring watching you go down to CM Punk. And now here we are in your hometown of Boston. And now next week, we'll be back there in my hometown—Chicago, Illinois. And this… this is the part where I talk 'em into the building. See, you are the one that's lost sight, and I apologize for raising my voice because I'm not that guy. But when you stand here and tell me that I've lost sight, when you, the 10-time Champion who stands for hustle, loyalty and respect; who, from Boston, Massachusetts, lives and breathes these red colors, the same colors as your beloved Red Sox, who also portray themselves as the underdog, I'm sure just like the Bruins portray themselves as the underdog. Just like the Patriots think they're the underdog! Hey, how about those Celtics? Are they the underdogs too? Here's what you've lost sight of, John, and I'm really happy that your father and your wife are sitting in the front row so they can hear it!
John Cena: That's the last time I'm gonna tell you, man, ease up.
Punk: What you've lost sight of is what you are, and what you are is what you hate. You're the 10-time WWE Champion! You're the man! You, like the Red Sox, like Boston, are no longer the underdog! You're a dynasty. You are what you hate. You have become the New York Yankees! [John immediately punches Punk, who scoots out of the ring, grabs the contract, and goes up the ramp. Points respectively to Vince and John] You're Steinbrenner, and you might as well be Jeter! Mr. 3000, I'm the underdog! [John's music plays for fourteen seconds] Turn it off! Turn the music off because I have something to say, and I'm positive that everybody here wants to hear it, and everybody sitting at home has their DVRs fired up because they wanna hear it! I'm glad you just punched me in the face, John. I'm glad it went down this way because it hit me like a bolt of lightning—exactly why I no longer wanna be here, why I wanna leave. It's because I'm tired of this. I'm tired of you. I'm just tired. So ladies and gentlemen of the WWE Universe, Vince, John, Sunday night, say goodbye to the WWE Title, say goodbye to John Cena, and say goodbye to CM Punk! [Rips up the contract] I'll go be the best in the world somewhere else.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

July 11, 2011
WWE Raw

Hate , World , Music , Cars

“I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road,
As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swampland;
Disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,
By pulling off flesh from the living planet;
As if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

"Moss-Gathering," ll. 9-13
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)

Life , Nature

“The cinema may have a specific beauty of its own, but it does not permit that constant re-reading, that meditative brooding, those turning-back to passages heavily charged with meaning, which form the special pleasure of the novel-reader.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

The Art of Writing

Pleasure , Beauty , Reading

“I may say this is a deluded generation, veiled with ignorance, that tho popery and slavery be riding in upon them, do not perceive it; tho I am sure there was no man born marked of God above another, for none comes into the world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him.”

Richard Rumbold

" Speech on the Scaffold http://www.bartleby.com/268/3/15.html", 1685

God , World

“The thing that nobody really said about Rebecca Adlington is that she looks pretty weird. She looks like someone who's looking at themselves in the back of a spoon.”

Frankie Boyle (1972) Scottish comedian

Mock the Week

“It's a funny thing this celebrity. If you don't wave back you're a miserable bugger, if you do wave back you're a big-headed bugger. I don't know.”

Fred Dibnah (1938–2004) English steeplejack and television personality, with a keen interest in mechanical engineering

Unsourced

“As I understand it, George Peppard later became a nice guy, a gentleman, but when we worked together back then, he was pretentious, egotistical, a brat, and an asshole—and that’s just for starters! He pretended he was seven years younger than he was; he even claimed to be a bachelor and denied he was married—in front of me (I knew better), he denied their existence. The role of Jonas Cord in The Carpetbaggers really went to his big head. He acquired delusions of grandeur—thought he was God’s gift to women and the movies! His attitude towards me was very bizarre—he acted as though we’d never met! Or that I had a husband!”

Carroll Baker (1931) American actress

On co-star George Peppard, interview http://www.westernclippings.com/interview/carrollbaker_interview.shtml with Mike Fitzgerald, Western Clippings

Women , God , Guy , Understanding

“He had come back a man, and faithless like a man. He knew that he had longed for her; that true friends share everything, except the past before they met. If only she would weep, even that, and let him comfort her; but she would not humble herself before a man. if only he would run to her side and cling to her; but his manhood was hard-won, no mortal should make him a child again.”

Mary Renault book Fire from Heaven

Source: Fire from Heaven (1969), p. 187

Past

“Fred taught me a step because I said I can't let this experience be over without my learning something. He taught me the most wonderful Fred Astaire-like step, with an umbrella. It was a complete throwaway; it was almost invisible. It was in the way he walked. As he moved along, he bounced the umbrella on the floor to the beat and then he grabbed it. It was effortless and invisible. As a matter of fact, a few years later I was photographing Gene Kelly and told him that Fred Astaire had taught me this trick with an umbrella. And Kelly said, "Oh I'll teach you one," and he did, and the two tricks with the umbrella in some way define the difference between Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, and, in my view, demonstrate who is the greater of the two artists. With Gene Kelly, he threw the umbrella way up into the air, and then he moved to catch it, very slowly, grabbing it behind his back. It was a big, grandstand play, about nothing.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Richard Avedon in Silverman, Stephen M. Dancing on the Ceiling. Knopf, 1996. ISBN 0679414126.

Way , Learning

“When under attack, no country is obligated to collect permission slips from allies to strike back.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

"The Axis of Petulance" in The Washington Post (1 March 2002)
2000s, 2002

Country

“First of all, no one can accuse me, Ayad Jamal Aldin, of secatarianism, because I support a secular regime that fully separates religion and the state. […] I believe that my freedom as a Shia and as a religious person will never be complete unless I preserve the freedom of the Sunni, the Christian, the Jew, the Sabai and the Yazidi. We will not be able to preserve the freedom of the mosque unless we preserve the freedom of entertainment clubs. […] The curricula - both the modern ones, in some Arab and Islamic countries, and the books of jurisprudence and heritage - have many flaws that must be fixed once and for all. There are rulings about Ahl al-Dhimma - even if, Allah be praised, no current regime can enforce these rulings. However, just for the sake of amusement and diversion, I recommend that the viewers read the books of jurisprudence, and see how Ahl al-Dhimma are treated. I especially recommend this to people with a lust for Arab and Islamic history, who claim that our history is a source of pride, and that others were treated with kindness and love - especially Christians and Jews. Among these rulings, a Dhimmi must wear a belt, so he would be identifiable. Moreover, it is recommended that he be forced to the narrowest paths, and there are even jurisprudents who say that it is recommended to slap a Christian on the back of his neck so he would feel humiliated and degraded. This is how we harass him and then invite him to join Islam. I can swear that the Prophet Muhammad is innocent of such inhuman jurisprudence. I challenge anyone among the people with a lust for history to talk candidly to the West, to the advocates of human rights, and tell them that our heritage has such evils and flaws. We are a nation of blackout and darkness. We cannot live in the light of day. […] We do not hold ourselves accountable. This is why America came to demand that the Arabs be accountable. We must have more self-confidence and be accountable before others hold us accountable. We must discipline ourselves before the Americans and English discipline us. We must maintain human rights, which we have neglected for 1,300 or 1,400 years, to this day - until the arrival of the Americans, the Christians, the English, the Zionists, the Crusaders - call them what you will. They came to teach you, the followers of Muhammad, how to respect human rights.”

Iyad Jamal Al-Din (1961) Iraqi politician

Sayyed Ayad Jamal Aldin: Sayyed Ayad Jamal Aldin: The Arabs Want Tyrannical Regimes, in Line with Their Backward Culture, LBC TV, July 31, 2005 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_ZKffu6Wsg,

Love , People , Books , Religion

“I cannot tell my story without reaching a long way back.”

Hermann Hesse book Demian

Source: Demian (1919), p. 9. Prologue

Way

“We put a monkey up in space / and I know exactly how he felt / looking at a lattice work of stars / missing his brothers back home too much for a postcard”

Blake Schwarzenbach (1967) American singer

"Disgrace"
Perfecting Loneliness (2002)

Home , Star

“The Prime Minister constantly asserts that the nuclear weapon has kept the peace in Europe for the last 40 years… Let us go back to the middle 1950s or to the end of the 1940s, and let us suppose that nuclear power had never been invented… I assert that in those circumstances there would still not have been a Russian invasion of western Europe. What has prevented that from happening was not the nuclear hypothesis… but the fact that the Soviet Union knew the consequences of such a move, consequences which would have followed whether or not there were 300,000 American troops stationed in Europe. The Soviet Union knew that such an action on its part would have led to a third world war—a long war, bitterly fought, a war which in the end the Soviet Union would have been likely to lose on the same basis and in the same way as the corresponding war was lost by Napoleon, by the Emperor Wilhelm and by Adolf Hitler…
For of course a logically irresistible conclusion followed from the creed that our safety depended upon the nuclear capability of the United States and its willingness to commit that capability in certain events. If that was so—and we assured ourselves for 40 years that it was—the guiding principle of the foreign policy of the United Kingdom had to be that, in no circumstances, must it depart from the basic insights of the United States and that any demand placed in the name of defence upon the United Kingdom by the United States was a demand that could not be resisted. Such was the rigorous logic of the nuclear deterrent…
It was in obedience to it… that the Prime Minister said, in the context of the use of American bases in Britain to launch an aggressive attack on Libya, that it was "inconceivable" that we could have refused a demand placed upon this country by the United States. The Prime Minister supplied the reason why: she said it was because we depend for our liberty and freedom upon the United States. Once let the nuclear hypothesis be questioned or destroyed, once allow it to break down, and from that moment the American imperative in this country's policies disappears with it.
A few days ago I was reminded, when reading a new biography of Richard Cobden, that he once addressed a terrible sentence of four words to this House of Commons. He said to hon. Members: "You have been Englishmen." The strength of those words lies in the perfect tense, with the implication that they were so no longer but had within themselves the power to be so again. I believe that we now have the opportunity, with the dissolution of the nightmare of the nuclear theory, for this country once again to have a defence policy that accords with the needs of this country as an island nation, and to have a foreign policy which rests upon a true, undistorted view of the outside world. Above all, we have the opportunity to have a foreign policy that is not dictated from outside to this country, but willed by its people. That day is coming. It may be delayed, but it will come.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech on Foreign Affairs in the House of Commons http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1987/apr/07/foreign-affairs (7 April 1987).
1980s

War , People , World , Peace

“I am not keeping back facts. Every fact that I know is in your possession. You can draw your own deductions from them.”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Hercule Poirot
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

Drawing

“Back then (in 1985) the issue of the day was nuclear testing, now we are faced with problems such as climate change, overfishing, deforestation, shipments of radioactive materials through Pacific waters and nuclear proliferation. We need to remain vigilant so that we won't become victims again.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Address to Greenpeace, Suva, 10 July 2005.

Problem , Water , Change

“Bob Hope: Put your head back through there, or I'll start handing out baseballs to the audience.”

Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor

The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)

Hope

“I'm not looking back, but I want to look around me now.
-- Time Stand Still (1987)”

Neil Peart (1952–2020) Canadian-American drummer , lyricist, and author

Rush Lyrics

Time

“Hitherto he has found in Western music, in Bach above all, everything he needs. Now he encounters something that is not in Bach, though there are intimations of it: a joyous yielding of the reasoning, comprehending mind to the dance of the fingers. He hunts through record shops, and in one of them finds an LP of a sitar player named Ustad Vilayat Khan, with his brother — a younger brother, to judge from the picture — on a veena, and an unnamed tabla player. He does not have a gramophone of this own, but he is able to listen to the first ten minutes in the shop. It is all there: the hovering exploration of tone-sequences, the quivering emotion, the ecstatic rushes. He cannot believe his good fortune. A new continent and all for a mere nine shillings! He takes the record back to his room, packs it away between sleeves of cardboard till the day he will able to listen to it again.”

J.M. Coetzee (1940) South African writer

Youth (2002)

Music , Dance

“Back of my forehead I feel tonight
A whole sky full of stars. Under
a western moon.
Life is indeed lovely!”

Juan Ramón Jimenéz (1881–1958) Spanish poet

"Western Moon" in Canción (1935).

Love , Life , Feeling , Star

“All I can say is that I am well. I have the enemy closely hemmed in all round. My position is naturally strong and fortified against an attack from outside. I have been so strongly reinforced that Johnston will have to come with a mighty host to drive me away. I do not look upon the fall of Vicksburg as in the least doubtful. If, however, I could have carried the place on the 22nd of last month, I could by this time have made a campaign that would have made the State of Mississippi almost safe for a solitary horseman to ride over. As it is, the enemy have a large army in it, and the season has so far advanced that water will be difficult to find for an army marching, besides the dust and heat that must be encountered. The fall of Vicksburg now will only result in the opening of the Mississippi River and demoralization of the enemy. I intended more from it. I did my best, however, and looking back can see no blunder committed.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

Letter http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/us-grants-letter-to-his-1.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/ to Jesse Root Grant (15 June 1863), Vicksburg
1860s

Nature , Strong , Water , Time

“From Aristophanes to Aristotle, the attack on the demagogues always falls back on the one central question: in whose interest does the the leader lead?”

Moses I. Finley (1912–1986) American historian

Source: Democracy Ancient And Modern (Second Edition) (1985), Chapter 2, Athenian Demagogues, p. 43

Question

“Goin' back to Saturn where the rings all glow,
Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow,
On Saturn, people live to be two hundred and five,
Goin' back to Saturn where the people smile,
Don't need cars 'cause we've learned to fly,
On Saturn, just to live to us is our natural high.”

Stevie Wonder (1950) American musician

Saturn
Song lyrics, Songs In The Key of Life (1976)

People , Smile , Cars , Nature

“Snatch them baldheaded, slap their teeth out. Little starved faces four feet from the screen, you’d speak to them in a loud, commanding voice, get not even a twitch. Use of the preemptive splint, not everyone knows about it. The world reminds us of its power, again and again and again. Going along minding your own business, and suddenly an act of God, right there in front of you. Great falls of snow and bursting birds. Getting guilty, letting it all slide. Sown here and there like little…petunias, one planted in Old Lyme, one in Fairbanks, one in Tempe. Alleged that he slept with her while she was asleep, I can see it, under certain circumstances. You may wink, but not at another person. You may wink only at pigeons. You may pound in your tent pegs, pitch your tent, gather wood for the fire, form the hush puppies. They seek to return? Back to the nest? The warm arms? The ineffable smells? Not on your tintype. Well, I think that’s a little harsh. Think that’s a little harsh do you? Yes, harsh. Harsh. Well that’s a sketch, that is, that’s a tin-plated sketch— They write and telephone. Short of cash? Give us a call, all inquiries handled with the utmost confidentiality. They call constantly, they’re calling still, saying williwaw, williwaw”

Donald Barthelme book Sixty Stories

“Aria”.
Sixty Stories (1981)

God , World , Business , Bird

“Welcome back, my filthy pigeons.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

citation needed
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014), "Welcome Back" variations

“Orpheus melted the heart of Persephone, but I never had yours
I followed you back to the end of the path, but I never found the door”

Zooey Deschanel (1980) American actress, musician, and singer-songwriter

"Don't Look Back" - Video at Vimeo http://vimeo.com/18915786
Volume Two (2010)

Heart

“I'd like to say something about this last, about this last point of this terrible, terrible business. I mean Treblinka. I was given orders. I went to see Globocnik in Treblinka. That was the second time. The installations were now in operation, and I had to report to Müller. I expected to see a wooden house on the right side of the road and a few more wooden houses on the left; that's what I remembered. Instead, again with the same Sturmbannführer Höfle, I came to a railroad station with a sign saying Treblinka, looking exactly like a German railroad station — anywhere in Germany — a replica, with signboards, etc. There I hung back as far as I could. I didn't push closer to see it all. I saw a footbridge enclosed in barbed wire and over that footbridge a file of naked Jews was being driven into a house, a big… no, not a house, a big, one-room structure, to be gassed. As I was told, they were gassed with …what's it called? … Potassium cyanide… or cyanic acid. In acid form it's called cyanic acid. I didn't look to see what happened. I reported to Müller and as usual he listened in silence, without a word of comment. Just his facial expression said: "There's nothing I can do about it."”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

I am convinced, Herr Hauptmann, [Eichmann is referring to his interrogator, Avner Less] I know it sounds odd coming from me, but I'm convinced that if it had been up to Müller it wouldn't have happened.
Source: Eichmann Interrogated (1983), p. 84.

Business , Silence , Time , Housing

“Lee watched the thin hands, the beautiful violet eyes, the flush of excitement on the boy's face. An imaginary hand projected with such force it seemed Allerton must feel the touch of ectoplasmic fingers caressing his ear, phantom thumbs smoothing his eyebrows, pushing the hair back from his face. Now Lee's hands were running down his ribs, the stomach. Lee felt the aching pain of desire in his lungs.”

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer

Source: Queer: A Novel (1985), Chapter Two

Pain , Beauty , Feeling , Boy

“Take a little rewind back to 1999,
It's not the same place don't look front, better look behind”

Slim Burna (1988) Nigerian singer and record producer

"(All Day)" (track 2)
I'm On Fire (2013)

“Politics is not my life. I have a career in radio and another career in film. I have a wife who is the sweetest person in the world and two kids who are growing up into terrific, well-rounded people. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in politics. When I'm finished with my term as governor, I'm going back to the life that's waiting for me in the private sector.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)

Life , People , World , Waiting

“If for example I had some idea, which as it turned out would be quite wrong, was going off of the tangent, Watson would tell me in no uncertain terms this was nonsense, and vice-versa. If he would have some idea I didn't like, and I would say so, this would shake his thinking about, and draw him back again. And in fact it is one of the requirements for collaborations of this sort, is you must be perfectly candid, one might almost say rude, to the person you're working with. It's useless working with somebody who is either much too junior than yourself or much too senior because then politeness creeps in. And this is the end of all real collaboration in science”

Francis Crick (1916–2004) British molecular biologist, biophysicist, neuroscientist; co-discoverer of the structure of DNA

giggles
The Prizewinners (11 December 1962, BBC)

Idea , Thinking , Science , Drawing

“I think the reason why we're so disconnected and depressing is that…we don't talk to God anymore - or rather, he doesn't talk to us. Remember back in the day? He used to just come out of nowhere. 'Abraham?! Guess who?!…that's right, it's God, you're a genius…' He would then tell them to do something and then BAM! it would get done. Who's he talking to now?!…I don't know! I think he's talking to those homeless guys that talk to themselves. You know, the ones that walk down the street arguing with themselves going 'I can't!…I can't!!!!!' …what if at the other end of that conversation was 'You're the new leader!' 'I can't!…I can't!!!!!' They're not crazy homeless people…they're reluctant prophets!…better tip them an extra buck the next time you see 'em.”

Marc Maron (1963) Comedian

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/a313mc/shorties-watchin--shorties-talking-to-god
Miscellaneous

God , People , Guy , Thinking

“Back at the Philadelphia Worldcon (which seems a million years ago), I announced the famous five-year gap: I was going to skip five years forward in the story, to allow some of the younger characters to grow older and the dragons to grow larger, and for various other reasons. I started out writing on that basis in 2001, and it worked very well for some of my myriad characters but not at all for others, because you can't just have nothing happen for five years. If things do happen you have to write flashbacks, a lot of internal retrospection, and that's not a good way to present it. I struggled with that essentially wrong direction for about a year before finally throwing it out, realizing there had to be another interim book. That became A Feast for Crows, where the action is pretty much continuous from the preceding book. Even so, that only accounts for one year. Why the four after that? I don't know, except that this was a very tough book to write -- and it remains so, because I've only finished half. Going in, I thought I could do something about the length of the second book in the series, A Clash of Kings, roughly 1,200 pages in manuscript. But I passed that and there was a lot more to write. Then I passed the length of the third book, A Storm of Swords, which was something like 1,500 pages in manuscript and gave my publishers all around the world lots of production problems. I didn't really want to make any cuts because I had this huge story to tell. We started thinking about dividing it in two and doing it as A Feast for Crows, Parts One and Two, but the more I thought about that the more I really did not like it. Part One would have had no resolution whatsoever for 18 viewpoint characters and their 18 stories. Of course this is all part of a huge megaseries so there is not a complete resolution yet in any of the volumes, but I try to give a certain sense of completion at the end of each volume -- that a movement of the symphony has wrapped up, so to speak.”

George Raymond Richard Martin (1948) American writer, screenwriter and television producer

Interview with Locus magazine (November 2005)

Books , World , Way , Problem

“At one point the driver said, "For God's sakes, you're rocking the boat back there." Actually we were; the car was swaying as Dean and I both swayed to the rhythm and the IT of our final excited joy in talking and living to the blank tranced end of all innumerable riotous angelic particulars that had been lurking in our souls all our lives.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Part Three, Ch. 5
On the Road (1957)

God , Angels , Cars , Soul

“That these ideas were prevalent in Virginia is further revealed by the Declaration of Rights, which was prepared by George Mason and presented to the general assembly on May 27, 1776. This document asserted popular sovereignty and inherent natural rights, but confined the doctrine of equality to the assertion that "All men are created equally free and independent." It can scarcely be imagined that Jefferson was unacquainted with what had been done in his own Commonwealth of Virginia when he took up the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence. But these thoughts can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was writing in 1710. He said, "Every man must be acknowledged equal to every man." Again, "The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity and promote the happiness of all and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, and so forth…". And again, "For as they have a power every man in his natural state, so upon combination they can and do bequeath this power to others and settle it according as their united discretion shall determine." And still again, "Democracy is Christ's government in church and state."”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Here was the doctrine of equality, popular sovereignty, and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights clearly asserted by Wise at the opening of the eighteenth century, just as we have the principle of the consent of the governed stated by Hooker as early as 1638.
1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

Life , Men , Democracy , Imagination

“Reducing taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into our country.”

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

2010s, 2016, July, (21 July 2016)

Country

“The disturbing element of the accident was the millions of people and their expectations. Their wishes, their prayers and their feelings. And the extent to which people had gone. And you have nothing, absolutely nothing to repay them. You just sit in your bed and you just enjoy the benefit of how the others have prayed. And lots of them who really went through physical penance, when you've actually sat back and enjoyed it.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

People , Feeling

“Eventually, I'd like one monitor at the North Pole, one at the South, and two at the equator, big monitors switching images back and forth.”

Ira Schneider (1939) American artist

Ira Schneider (1969), Arts Magazine, Vol. 44, p. 22

“Meanwhile back at mama's.
The porch light's on, come in if you wanna.
Supper's on the stove and beer's in the fridge.
Red sun sinkin' out low on the ridge.
Games on the tube and daddy smokes cigarettes.
Whiskey keeps his whistle wet.
Funny the things you thought you'd never miss.
In a world gone crazy as this.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Meanwhile Back at Mama's
Song lyrics, Sundown Heaven Town (2014)

World , Game , Beer , Light

“Historical Slumming: The act of visiting locations such as diners, smokestack industrial sites, rural village -- locations where time appears to have been frozen many years back -- so as to experience relief when one returns back to “the present.””

Douglas Coupland (1961) Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and graphic designer

Definitions

Appearance , Time

“Gary Barlow has done a huge amount for the country, he’s raised money for charity, he’s done very well for Children in Need so I’m not sure, the OBE was in respect of that work and what he’s done but clearly what this scheme was was wrong and it’s right that they’re going to pay back the money.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On Good Morning Britain speaking about his view of tax avoidance schemes and if Gary Barlow should give back his OBE following claims that the singer took part in one - Prime Minister David Cameron speaks to Good Morning Britain, ITV (12 May 2014) http://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-releases/prime-minister-david-cameron-speaks-good-morning-britain
2010s, 2014

Money , Children , Country

“The universe has backed you into another corner—you can kill or die. There are no other choices. Doesn’t that make you angry? Doesn’t it make you want revenge? Or are you going to truckle to Dame Fate one more time, to be crushed and for all I know resurrected to run the maze of torment again and yet again? Stand up on your hind legs for once!”

Michael Swanwick book The Iron Dragon's Daughter

Source: The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), Chapter 22 (p. 407)

Fate , Revenge , Universe , Time

“Back in the early 1960s, when I was eight or nine. Some neighborhood boys and I saw a disc-shaped, windowless object that hovered, silent, then simply vanished. My parents said, "That's very nice" and ignored it, but I knew what I'd seen, and it was life-changing.”

Steven M. Greer (1955) American ufologist

Greer describing a close encounter he had with a UFO.
Undated
Source: [Bassior, Jean-Noel, UFOs: What the Government Really Knows, Hustler, November 2005, http://nbgoku.googlepages.com/Hustlergreer.pdf, pp. 52, 2007-05-13, http://www.disclosureproject.org/bassiorinterview.htm, 2007-05-13]

Life , Boy , Parent , Change

“God, say some philosophers, manifests himself in the sublunary world in particular beauties, truths and acts of benevolence; properly, the values should be conjoined to shadow their identity in the godhead, but this happens so infrequently that one must suppose divinity condones a kind of diabolic fracture or else, and perhaps my book is already giving some hint of this, he demonstrates his ineffable freedom through contriving at times a wanton inconsistency. If this is so, we need not wonder at Messalina’s failure to match her beauty with a love of truth and goodness. She was a chronic liar and she was thoroughly bad. But her beauty, we are told, was a miracle. The symmetry of her body obeyed all the golden rules of the mystical architects, her skin was without even the most minuscule flaw and it glowed as though gold had been inlaid behind translucent ivory, her breasts were full and yet pertly disdained earth’s pull, the nipples nearly always erect, and visibly so beneath her byssinos, as in a state of perpetual sexual excitation, the areolas delicately pigmented to a kind of russet. The sight of her weaving bare white arms was enough, it is said, to make a man grit his teeth with desire to be encircled by them; the smooth plain of her back, tapering to slenderness only to expand lusciously to the opulence of her perfect buttocks, demanded unending caresses.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Kingdom of the Wicked (1985)

Love , God , Truth , Books

“You know that anything -- Stas will take little Bobby to Africa -- I'll take them around the world + to the moon + back -- anything to help you + them now and always.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

Undated letter to Ethel Kennedy following RFK's assassination, as quoted in "FBI seizes letter from Jackie Kennedy to RFK's widow" http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/14/texas.kennedy.letter/index.html (14 September 2009)

World , Help

“I have been reading about the problems of youth. You know, with all the criticism that was levelled at von Schirach and his Hitler Jugend, it is forgotten that he did a fantastic thing with Germany's young. He kept them busy, he kept them out of trouble. In those years we did not have to concern ourselves with the worry of youths taking drugs, getting involved in crime, and sexual permissiveness. We did not have burning of national flags and draft cards. We had a healthy youth with healthy minds, all pulling together to build a nation. That is what we need today. We need to get them back on the right track.”

Rudolf Hess (1894–1987) German Nazi leader

When his Prison Director replied with: "But surely, you were doing all this for a different purpose. You were building a super-race for war, for conquests. Today youth is rebelling because we made a mess of the world." Hess retorted: "Maybe, but they won't make a better world with drugs."
Prisoner #7: Rudolph Hess (1974)

Youth , Business , Problem , Reading

“Ooo there's a thin line between dreams and memories
I'll be losin' my mind 'til she comes back to me.”

Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor

Dream Walkin.
Song lyrics, Dream Walkin' (1997)

Dreams , Memory

“He moved closer to the wall up there, past mounds of bodies, no line any more, just men moving forward at different speeds, stopping to fire, stopping to die, drifting back like leaves blown from the fire ahead.”

Michael Shaara book The Killer Angels

Lewis Armistead, Part IV, CH 4: Armistead, p. 347
The Killer Angels (1974)

Men , Past , Speed

“Say, take Rachel Corrie, local young woman, she was extremely courageous. She's a martyr for peace and justice. We happened to kill her too, even if we don't like to admit it. She was killed by U. S. sent equipment, which is Caterpillar…
[Q: you draw that line right back to you and me sitting here? ] Absolutely, we're responsible for it. I mean, we didn't drive the bulldozer, but why is it there? What's it doing? Who provides the military, economic, and diplomatic support for destroying the occupied territories?”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 2000s, 2005, Interview by Steve Scher on KUOW, 2004

Peace , Justice , Courage , Support

“It’s an honor to represent military families on the show. These families sacrifice so much and are so committed and graceful with how they handle situations. To send your loved one away, not knowing if they’re going to come back or not. To still hold your pride and still keep it together, these women and these families are just very brave. I’m very fortunate and very excited to be a part of something that speaks to many of our citizens.”

Alyssa Diaz (1985) American film and television actress

Interview with Army Wives’ Alyssa Diaz http://talknerdywithus.com/2013/06/05/interview-with-army-wives-alyssa-diaz/ (June 5, 2013)

Love , Women , Family , Parting

“For those that don't have our back, we're taking name, we will make points to respond to that acccordingly.”

Nikki Haley (1972) US ambassador to the United Nations

January 28, 2017

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-28/new-us-un-envoy-warns-allies-back-us-or-well-take-names/8219532

“Evelyn slapped Raymond on the back with a laugh. 'You must be starved old friend. Come into my apartments, and we'll suffer through a deep breakfast of pure sunlight.”

Adi Da Samraj (1939–2008) American writer

The Mummery Book

Books , Suffering

“You all should feel angry tonight, very angry, because yet again the legal system in this country has let you down. A court has ruled that a man who committed a ghastly crime against a little girl should walk free and unsupervised. The details are distasteful, but you should know. Hans Lester Watt abducted and raped a three-year-old girl. The 42-year-old was drunk when he took the toddler, and assulted her so badly, she needed medical attention. He said it was revenge, to get back at the innocent little girl's grandmother, whom he claimed had insulted his dead mother. Watt was jailed for 11 years. When due for release last year, the Queensland Attorney-General, understandably, applied to have him classified as a dangerous sexual offender. That meant his jail term could be extended, or at least he'd be released with a supervision order. Remember, this was a three-year-old girl. The court refused the request. The judge found the circumstances were "unique" — that Watt was not an unacceptable risk. Well, I agree it was unique — thank God the rape of a three-year-old doesn't happen often in this country. A psychiatrist said the chances of Watt re-offending were low if he did not drink alcohol, moderate if he did drink, and said the best chance of rehabilitation was if he lived in a dry Aboriginal community. The Attorney-General appealed the judge's decision. Well, yesterday, the Supreme Court turned him down, upheld the earlier ruling that let the child rapist walk free — unsupervised. My mantra for years has been "Who's looking after the children?" In my opinion, the Queensland Supreme Court certainly is not — this decision was a travesty.”

Derryn Hinch (1944) New Zealand–Australian media personality

Today Tonight, 24 April 2013.

God , Children , Alcohol , Feeling

“Sex cannot be understood because nature cannot be understood. Science is a method of logical analysis of nature’s operations. It has lessened human anxiety about the cosmos by demonstrating the materiality of nature’s forces, and their frequent predictability. But science is always playing catch-up ball. Nature breaks its own rules whenever it wants. Science cannot avert a single thunderbolt. Western science is a product of the Apollonian mind: its hope is that by naming and classification, by the cold light of intellect, archaic night can be pushed back and defeated.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 5

Hope , Sex , Nature , Light

“Our Investigation has required EIGHT full time undercover investigative reporters embedded throughout the country from the bottom to the top of many political entities. Because we have hundreds of hours of footage, we needed to connect the dots and the scenes into a storyline that links it all together. It will be more impactful and more powerful instead of just putting it all out there at once or as soon as I got the video money shots individually. Long story short, everything you've heard about back room deals and smoke filled rooms are verified. We have smoking gun evidence and it is incredibly damning.”

James O'Keefe (1984) American conservative filmmaker

Reddit AMA https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/57jd2p/hi_im_james_okeefe_ask_me_anything/ (October 14, 2016)

Money , Time , Country

“Yahtzee was born in Warwickshire, England, on the day of the great storm of 1983. Twenty years later, when England had become too small to accommodate the five hundred kilometre-wide tumour growing out of the back of his neck, he moved to Brisbane, Australia, where a chance encounter with an enraged surfer caused the tumour to become detached. It has now gone on to star in a number of Japanese fetish videos, while Yahtzee occupies a treehouse on the edge of the city, struggling to learn how to live with corks around his hat. The enraged surfer tries to keep in touch, but Yahtzee never answers his phone.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

About page http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/about.htm
Fully Ramblomatic

Star , Learning , Chance

“I've come out here tonight to challenge you… challenge you, the WWE Universe, into seeing things my way and to learn how to just say "no." See, because the people who cheer for Jeff Hardy are just slaves to the vices associated with his (with quote fingers) "living in the moment." I feel bad for you, I really do. You walk around almost blind and you wear your prescriptions proudly on your sleeves like they were badges of honor. What was it the doctor told you? 'Just take one… every four hours,' right? Aside from myself, there's not a person in this arena who hasn't abused prescription medication or taken a recreational drug. And I know, trust me, it's hard being straight-edge, it's hard to live a straight-edge lifestyle. It's extremely difficult to be me, but what concerns me now is that none of you realize how much more difficult it is to live the life… that you all live. I'm positive nobody in here takes into account the long-term consequences of alcohol on your liver. (Smattering of cheers from audience) See, and you cheer that. That's nothing to cheer. You drink because it's fun, right? (Audience cheers a little louder) Eventually, it's not gonna be fun anymore when it spirals out of control and its no longer… it's no longer fun. Sooner or later, you're just drinking to feel normal. And then there's the smokers. You know, I don't know what's more disgusting–is watching a smoker pollute his/her lungs with over 4,000 foreign chemicals, or having to listen to the smoker convince themselves that they can quit whenever they want to. It's… it's hard to quit, I know, it takes a very strong person to quit, but an even stronger person never would've started smoking in the first place. (Audience boos and chants "Hardy") I didn't want to come out here and be the bearer of bad news, but let's face facts: chances are pretty slim that any of you here will ever get the monkey off your back. You'll never be able to pry the cigarette from your lips, or find the self-control to pour your drink from your glass, or the self-respect to take the pill out of your mouth. See, it starts, and it can't happen without learning how to say "no" to temptation, and that's why I'm out here. I'm out here to challenge you before it's too late. Please, learn how to say "no" to temptation, learn how to say "no" to your vices, learn how to control yourself.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

July 24, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Life , People , Alcohol , Way

“The new historiography on Logical Empiricism sets in with the rediscovery of Ernst Mach (1838-1916) as a precursor of Gestalt theory, evolutionary epistemology, (possibly radical) constructivism and the modern historically oriented philosophy of science. But already in Mach’s reception of the Vienna Circle one can see not only a certain pluralism of views but also a polarization of the various positions (Mach’s influence on Carnap’s Aufbau / Logical Construction, the critical distancing to “psychologism” in the manifesto, the alternative to the principle of economy in Karl Menger, etc.) Nevertheless, this research program, which was interpreted differently by the Vienna Circle, actually represented a sort of prototype for Logical Empiricism in the interwar years – irrespective of whether one backs the bold claim as to the existence of a “typical Austrian philosophy” (as opposed to German idealism).”

Friedrich Stadler (1951) Austrian historian

Source: "What is the Vienna Circle?" 2006, p. xiii

Science

“Does the Secretary of State agree that it is time for a serious review of Britain's defence expenditure, which now totals more than £23 billion a year? Should not we cancel the nuclear missile programme and consign all nuclear missiles back to base as part of a programme of worldwide disarmament? Should not we try to cut conventional expenditure to at least the European average, which would save £6 billion a year? Should not we also ensure that skilled workers who are at present manufacturing weapons of mass destruction and other forms of armaments are put to making socially useful products, including materials for the health service and housing industry—and recognise that world peace is best achieved by people working for peace rather than by arming themselves for war?”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Question http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1993/mar/09/strategic-review in the House of Commons (9 March 1993).
1990s

War , People , Health , World

“I want you as the dream,
Not the reality.
That clumsy good-bye kiss could fool me.
But looking back over my shoulder
at you happy without me.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Sensual World (1989)

Dreams , Fools , Kiss , Reality

“The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe. It is the cause and the end of all things; everything rises out of it and is absorbed back into it.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter I-V, Chapter IV, Part I.

God , People , World , Universe

“Those rebels who rise up to try to wrest back power from despotic forces will endure not only the violence of the state, but the hatred and vigilante violence meted out by the self-deluded victims of exploitation. The systems of propaganda will relentlessly demonize those who resist.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

"The Illusion of Freedom" (2015)

“Everything you tell me in your last letter, which is to say that to spend more time with me they will give up going to Paris, fills me with the greatest pleasure... I find myself much better, and I hope to be back where I was before... I am happy to be better to receive my most beloved travelers. This improvement I owe to Molina.”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

letter to Javier (his only son), from Madrid, Summer of 1827; as quoted by Robert Hughes, in: Goya. Borzoi Book - Alfred Knopf, New York, 2003, p. 401 – note 15
1820s

Pleasure , Hope , Travel , Time

“God is a murderer, imagine that. I told you I had the best story in the Bible, didn't I? I have always known that He was. Sooner or later He murders us all, doesn't He, and we go back to the dust from which we came. So I'm no longer scared to defy him. All He can do is kill me.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

God , Imagination

“No dream is ever chased alone. As I look back, I have many people to thank for teaching me and believing in me. My junior coaches in Bangalore and at various junior national camps inculcated in me a powerful love of the game which has always stayed with me”

Rahul Dravid (1973) Indian cricketer

In press conference announcing retirement from Test cricket, quoted in " After 16 yrs, Rahul Wall Dravid retires from intl cricket" in Indian Express (Indianexpress.com) http://www.indianexpress.com/news/after-16-yrs-rahul-wall-dravid-retires-from-intl-cricket/921750/0

Love , People , Dreams , Game

“I have watched these Republicans be more harsh towards Donald Trump than they’ve ever been in standing up to Barack Obama and his radical agenda, they did nothing, nothing – all these phony votes to repeal and replace ObamaCare, show votes so they can go back and keep their power and get reelected.”

Sean Hannity (1961) American television host, conservative political commentator

Quotes about back page 53

Quotes about back
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