Quotes about crack
page 3

“From that point, my universe went on crumbling; new cracks appeared all the time. I could see that the pleasant securities of childhood, all of those warm little human emotions, all of those trivial aims and purposes that we allow to rule our lives, were an illusion. We were like sheep munching grass, unaware that the butcher's lorry is already on its way. I got used to living with a deep, underlying feeling of uncertainty that no one around me seemed to share. It was rather like living on death row.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Alien Dawn (1998), pp. 12-13

Death, Way, Feeling, Grass

“Peace has an economic foundation to which too little attention has been given. No student can doubt that it was to a large extent the economic condition of Europe that drove those overburdened countries headlong into the World War. They were engaged in maintaining competitive armaments. If one country laid the keel of one warship, some other country considered it necessary to lay the keel of two warships. If one country enrolled a regiment, some other country enrolled three regiments. Whole peoples were armed and drilled and trained to the detriment of their industrial life, and charged and taxed and assessed until the burden could no longer be borne. Nations cracked under the load and sought relief from the intolerable pressure by pillaging each other. It was to avoid a repetition of such a catastrophe that our Government proposed and brought to a successful conclusion the Washing- ton Conference for the Limitation of Naval Armaments. We have been altogether desirous of an extension of this principle and for that purpose have sent our delegates to a preliminary conference of nations now sitting at Geneva. Out of that conference we expect some practical results. We believe that other nations ought to join with us in laying aside their suspicions and hatreds sufficiently to agree among themselves upon methods of mutual relief from the necessity of the maintenance of great land and sea forces. This can not be done if we constantly have in mind the resort to war for the redress of wrongs and the enforcement of rights. Europe has the League of Nations. That ought to be able to provide those countries with certain political guaranties which our country does not require. Besides this there is the World Court, which can certainly be used for the determination of all justifiable disputes. We should not underestimate the difficulties of European nations, nor fail to extend to them the highest degree of patience and the most sympathetic consideration. But we can not fail to assert our conviction that they are in great need of further limitation of armaments and our determination to lend them every assistance in the solution of their problems. We have entered the conference with the utmost good faith on our part and in the sincere belief that it represents the utmost good faith on their part. We want to see the problems that are there presented stripped of all technicalities and met and solved in a way that will secure practical results. We stand ready to give our support to every effort that is made in that direction.”

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

1920s, Ways to Peace (1926)

Life, War, People, World

“Halfway up the slope, guarded by a group of tall, slim, cypress-trees, nestled a small strawberry-pink villa, like some exotic fruit lying in the greenery. The cypress-trees undulated gently in the breeze, as if they were busily painting the sky a still brighter blue for our arrival.
The villa was small and square, standing in its tiny garden with an air of pink-faced determination. Its shutters had been faded by the sun to a delicate creamy-green, cracked and bubbled in places. The garden, surrounded by tall fuschia hedges, had the flower beds worked in complicated geometrical patterns, marked with smooth white stones. The white cobbled paths, scarcely as wide as a rake's head, wound laboriously round beds hardly larger than a big straw hat, beds in the shape of stars, half-moons, triangles, and circles all overgrown with a shaggy tangle of flowers run wild. Roses dropped petals that seemed as big and smooth as saucers, flame-red, moon-white, glossy, and unwrinkled; marigolds like broods of shaggy suns stood watching their parent's progress through the sky. In the low growth the pansies pushed their velvety, innocent faces through the leaves, and the violets drooped sorrowfully under their heart-shaped leaves. The bougainvillaea that sprawled luxuriously over the tiny iron balcony was hung, as though for a carnival, with its lantern-shaped magenta flowers. In the darkness of the fuschia-hedge a thousand ballerina-like blooms quivered expectantly. The warm air was thick with the scent of a hundred dying flowers, and full of the gentle, soothing whisper and murmur of insects.”

Gerald Durrell book My Family and Other Animals

My Family and Other Animals (1956)

Star, Flowers, Lying, Parent

“Charles was a stubborn Swede, you know, and he himself never felt the need to explain his feelings about where he stood and about past statements. But I feel free now to elaborate on his actual attitudes. He never wanted to be regarded as a hero or leader, and he never had political ambitions. His prewar isolationist speeches were given in all sincerity for what he thought was the good of the country and the world… He was accused of being anti-Semetic, but in the 45 years I lived with him I never heard him make a remark against the Jews, not a crack or joke, and neither did any of our children.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

On her husband, Charles Lindbergh, in The New York Times (20 April 1980) http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/27/specials/lindbergh-jews.html

Children, World, Feeling, Past

“You guessed? You must have been pretty sure, considering you could have killed me."
"I was ninety percent sure."
"I see," Clary said.
There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put his hand to his cheek, more in surprise than pain. "What the hell was that for?”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

"The other ten percent."
Clary and Jace, pg. 83-4
The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Pain, Hell

“the streams buck like rams in a tent
whips crack and from the hills come the crookedly combed
shadows of the shepherds.
black eggs and fools' bells fall from the trees.
thunder drums and kettledrums beat upon the ears of the donkeys.
wings brush against flowers.
fountains spring up in the eyes of the wild boar.”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

Dada poetry lines from his poem 'Der Vogel Selbdritt', Jean / Hans Arp - first published in 1920; as quoted in Gesammelte Gedichte I (transl. Herbert Read), p. 41
1910-20s

Fools, Spring, Flowers, Tree

“When i see a poor, and proud aristokrat, purtiklar about punktillio, he alwus puts me in mind ov a drunken man, trieing tew walk a crack.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

“I let him strain for a couple of seconds. Then like taking candy from a baby, I flipped his arm over and cracked his knuckles on the top of the table. It was strictly no contest and he knew it. But he had to try again. Same results.”

Jimmy Hoffa (1913–1982) American labor leader

Source: Hoffa The Real Story (1975), Chapter 5, The Spoiled Brat, p. 98 (Arm wrestling Robert Kennedy, February 19, 1957, Chevy Chase, Maryland)

Baby

“on genders of nouns: Why refer to Lady Crack Pipe or Good Sir Dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

Sex

“And I hope that everybody who loves this city will put aside party differences to try in the making of Greater London greater still. Let's get cracking tomorrow and let's have a drink tonight.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

2000s, 2008, First Speech As London Mayor (May 3, 2008)

Love, Hope, Drink

“People like Hillary Clinton, who put those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, so that our daughters — and sons — can dream a little bigger and aim a little higher. People like Joe Biden, who's never forgotten where he came from and never stopped fighting for folks who work long hours and face long odds and need someone on their side again.”

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

2000s, Democratic National Convention speech (2008)

People, Dreams, Fight, Daughters

“Give us another 3 or 4 months of production, not more hampered than it is at present, and we shall have something over, with which we can make ourselves disagreeable in many ways, and many places. We could perhaps take a stronger line with Japan then, even though we still got no help from the U. S. A. …People ask me how we are going to win this war. I suppose it is a very natural question, but I don't think the time has come to answer it. We must just go on fighting as hard as we can, in the belief that some time—perhaps sooner than we think—the other side will crack.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to his sister (14 July 1940), quoted in Keith Feiling, Neville Chamberlain (London: Macmillan, 1946), p. 449.
Post-Prime Ministerial

War, People, Way, Question

“If I ventured in the slipstream,
Between the viaducts of your dream,
Where immobile steel rims crack,
And the ditch in the back roads stop,
Could you find me?
Would you kiss my eyes?
To lay me down,
In silence easy,
To be born again.
To be born again.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Astral Weeks
Song lyrics, Astral Weeks (1969)

Dreams, Kiss, Silence

“God not only told them what to do and how to live before the Flood, He also told them what to eat. He gave them a perfect diet. God said, I want you to eat the herbs. Kids, eat your vegetables, the fruit, and the seeds (Genesis 1:29). We don't do that much. We eat the hamburger, french fries, and Coke. God said eat the fruit, vegetables, and seeds. When you eat the fruit, you should eat the seed. When you eat a peach, eat the seed. You say that thing's hard. Well, crack it open with a hammer. The seed is inside the hull, okay. […] Now be sure to get organically grown seeds, not the ones grown on steroids and pesticides. But the seeds contain a bitter substance called cyanide. That'll give you a pucker that'll last about an hour and a half. […] But these seeds contain a vitamin called vitamin B-17 which is half cyanide. You say, oh, that's poison. Oh, it's not either! […] So the cyanide found in the seeds is mixed with benzaldehyde. Both are poison, but together they're harmless. Until they bump into a cancer cell!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Garden of Eden

God, Perfection

“My mother smokes that crack like a cigar / She had a good time at it / She jacks my brother for dope money / She does this by threatening him with a Smith and Wesson”

Wesley Willis (1963–2003) American singer-songwriter

My Mother Smokes Crack Rocks
Lyrics, Solo
Variant: "I smoke my crack pipe everyday / I have a good time at it / I jack my mother for dope money / I do it by threatening her life with a semi-automatic" - I Smoke Weed

Money, Time

“Music has to do with sounds, so we need to find them somewhere and it is preferred to find musical ones. You have two sources for sounds: noises, which always tell you something — a door cracking, a dog barking, the thunder, the storm; and then you have instruments. An instrument tells you, 'la-la-la-la.' Music has to find a passage between noises and instruments. It has to escape. It has to find a compromise and an evasion at the same time; something that would not be dramatic because that has no interest to us, but something that would be more interesting than sounds like Do-Re-Mi-Fa…”

Pierre Schaeffer (1910–1995) French musicologist

Electronic Musician magazine, December 1986
Interviews

Dogs, Music, Time

“What do we know? What do we really know? He licks his dried cracked lips. We know this apodictic rock beneath our feet. That dogmatic sun above our heads. The world of dreams, the agony of love and the foreknowledge of death. That is all we know. And all we need to know? Challenge that statement. I challenge that statement. With what? I don't know.”

Edward Abbey book The Monkey Wrench Gang

page 312
The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975)

Love, Death, World, Dreams

“I intend to make this day forward the first day of the rest of my life. We can change our lives. You say, 'Well, what's wrong with your life, Michael?' Well, it's not that there's anything wrong with my life, but it's not what I want it to be. I don't feel that I'm inspiring people in the way I want to inspire them. You see, you can inspire through hate; you can inspire through love, hope, humor – the positives. I look at the history of the world, and I look at the world today, and I realize that if we don't inspire each other through positive attributes – love, hope and humor – we're gonna descend into the barbarism of the Left and the barbarism of ISIS. You like me to be hard, you like me to be tough, you like me to give you the breaking news, you like me to be cynical, you like me to analytical, you like me to give you stuff that you don't hear anywhere else – I get that. But there's a limit to that. There's a lot of area beyond all that.I think of Christmas. Christianity is the religion of peace. Christianity is the true religion of peace. 'Turn the other cheek.' 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' These are messages that come from Christianity. What can you do in an age of deceit and lies and terror? You can go to church again. However un-needing you think you really are, you know in your heart that there's something missing in you. You know that you crave something greater. Because the human being is not a dog. We are unique creatures. And we need something different than the bear, the dog, the snake and the eagle. What is that thing that we need? It's that 'thing' called God.The media has promulgated the idea, and promoted the idea, that we only need food and fornication. And so when people are empty that's what they seek. And when they are really empty, what happens? They become drug addicts. They start with marijuana, they end up with heroin, crack, you name it. As God has been driven out of America, drugs have entered America. What does an empty soul look to do? An empty soul looks to fill itself. Just as an empty vessel needs to be filled with a liquid to be complete, an empty human being needs to fill itself to be complete. And how does it fill itself? I know, again, many of you will laugh because you're cynical; it's through those things I'm talking about – inspiration. Do you think a musician can play one day without inspiration from somewhere? The greatest artists in the history of the world were not drug-addicts. They were usually God-addicts. Look at the greatest art in history, you'll find most of them were super religious people, who literally saw God in their living room, and they took the power of God and that was transmitted through the paintbrush, or through that piece of marble. How could a man like Rodin take a piece of inert stone, and inside that stone see the essence of the human form, and sculpt from that block of inert stone, a marble, the portrait of a human being that looks so real – a hundred years later I go and look at them in the museum, and literally inside that carved eye I can see the person; how is that possible? How? It's a different show than I've ever done in my 21 years, because each day to me – I must tell you – I see as my last day, my last day on Earth.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2015

Love, Life, God, Hate

“Most motor-cars are conglomerations (this is a long word for bundles) of steel and wire and rubber and plastic, and electricity and oil and petrol and water, and the toffee papers you pushed down the crack in the back seat last Sunday. Smoke comes out of the back of them and horn-squawks out of the front, and they have white lights like big eyes in front, and red lights behind. And that is about that — just motor-cars, tin boxes on wheels for running about in.
But some motorcars — mine, for instance, and perhaps yours — are different. If you get to like them and understand them, if you are kind to them and don't scratch their paint and bang their doors, if you fill them up and pump them up when they need it, of you keep them clean and polish and out the rain and snow as much as possible, you will find, you MAY find, that they become almost like persons — MORE than just ordinary persons — MAGICAL PERSONS!!!”

Ian Fleming book Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang

Source: Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang (1964), Ch. 1

Cars, Understanding, Light, Water

“What about the rumours David Cameron smoked drugs as a schoolboy? What worries me most is that he dressed up as a schoolboy to do it, the pervert. Though perhaps, let’s not condemn him regardless. Who among us didn’t smoke just a little bit of weed at school, just to take the edge off those irksome crack come-downs? Actually, as it turns out, it’s about as good an anti-drugs campaign as you’re going to get, don’t take drugs you might end up leader of the Tories with a face like a little painted egg.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Brit Awards (2007)

School, Painting

“The landlady had white hair. Around her neck was a high net collar fitting tightly like a corset. She was in her seventies, a tall woman who increased her height by rising on tiptoe and peering at me over her glasses…She smiled with a smile that seemed to hurt her face, cracking it open with old lines that broke up the dry flesh around her mouth and cheeks…She was lonely, and so lost and still proud. One afternoon she took me to her apartment on the top floor. It was like walking into a well-dusted tomb…For two hours she talked of Bert, and Lord! how she loved that man, even in death, but he was not dead at all; he was in that apartment, watching over her, protecting her, daring me to hurt her…The tea was old. The sugar was old and lumpish. The tea cups were dusty, and somehow the tea tasted old and the little dried up cookies tasted of death. When I got up to leave, Bert followed me through the door and down the hall, daring me to think cynically of him.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Love, Death, Smile, Thinking

“Our job is never easy because drug criminals are ingenious. They work everyday to plot a new and better way to steal our children's lives, just as they've done by developing this new drug, crack. For every door that we close, they open a new door to death. They prosper on our unwillingness to act. So, we must be smarter and stronger and tougher than they are. It's up to us to change attitudes and just simply dry up their markets.”

Nancy Reagan (1921–2016) actress and first lady of the United States

Just Say No (1986)

Death, Children, Way, Change

“A despot doesn't fear eloquent writers preaching freedom — he fears a drunken poet who may crack a joke that will take hold.”

E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer

Salt Water Farm http://books.google.com/books?id=njRHAAAAYAAJ&q=%22A+despot+doesn't+fear+eloquent+writers+preaching+freedom+he+fears+a+drunken+poet+who+may+crack+a+joke+that+will+take+hold%22&pg=PA52#v=onepage One Man's Meat (1942)

Fear, Freedom

“What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal”

T.S. Eliot book The Waste Land

Source: The Waste Land (1922), Line 367 et seq.

Mountain, Maternity

“I am fused, just in case I blow out. I am glued, just in case I crack out.”

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

"Blow Out"
Lyrics, Pablo Honey (1993)

“People are inexterminable — like flies and bed-bugs. There will always be some that survive in cracks and crevices — that’s us.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"London Observer (29 March 1959)
1950s

People

“The fun thing is something people always miss out on with us. It's been brilliant making this album, but even as far back as Faith or Pornography we were still having a good crack. People would see me and Simon laughing and drinking ourselves unconscious together and they couldn't understand how we could be like that and still be in this angst-ridden band. But it's easy to be like that -- it's what being little, being a child, is all about. When you're grown up, you can't do it cos' you think about it too much. (Melody Maker, March 7, 1992)”

Robert Smith (musician) (1959) English singer, songwriter and musician

People, Faith, Drink, Understanding

“—On the dedication page of the rebellion, we see the words “To Clementine”. A fine sentiment, miscellaneous organ music next, and, turning several pages, massed orange flags at the head of the column. This will not be easy, but neither will it be hard. Good will is everywhere, and the lighthearted song of the gondoliers is heard in the distance.
—Yes, success is everything. Morally important as well as useful in a practical way.
—What have the rebels captured thus far? One zoo, not our best zoo, and a cemetery. The rebels have entered the cages of the tamer animals and are playing with them, gently.
—Things can get better, and in my opinion will.
—Their Graves Registration procedures are scrupulous—accurate and fair.
—There’s more to it than playing guitars and clapping along. Although that frequently gets people in the mood.
—Their methods are direct, not subtle. Dissolution, leaching, sandblasting, cracking and melting of fireproof doors, condemnation, water damage, slide presentations, clamps and buckles.
—And skepticism, although absolutely necessary, leads to not very much.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“The Crisis”, opening
Great Days (1979)

People, Music, Way, Mood

“Well, I have a very simple method of painting. It's to paint directly on the canvas without any funny business, as it were, and I use almost pure turpentine to start with, adding oil as I go along until the medium becomes pure oil. I use as little oil as I can possibly help, and that's my method. It's very simple... Yes, linseed oil. I used to use poppy oil, but I have heard that poppy oil is given to cracking pigment too, so I use it no longer... I find linseed oil and white lead the most satisfactory mediums.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

1941 - 1967
Source: 'Oral history interview with Edward Hopper' (1959, June 17), conducted by John Morse; 'Archives of American Art', Smithsonian Institution

Business, Help, Painting

“I don't think a man should EVER hit a woman….. until the 5th time she cracks him in the face.”

Christopher Titus (1964) actor, writer, podcaster

Norman Rockwell is Bleeding (2004)

Thinking, Time

“The terminally cute sea otter is a marine weasel into rough sex. The male otter's arms (legs, whatever) are effective for grooming their fine pelts or cracking shells on the rocks they place on their bellies, but they are too short for getting a good grip on a mate. So the male gets firm purchase by biting down on the female's nose before going for a little splendor in the kelp. Afterward you can often spot the females hauled up on rocks along the shore, their fur matted and their noses bloody. It's not hard to imagine that a female with a heavily scarred nose might get a reputation as an easy otter.”

David Helvarg (1951) American journalist

Los Angeles Times, January 26, 2005.

Sex, Imagination, Sea

“You think they are crusaders sent
From some infernal clime,
To pluck the eyes of sentiment
And dock the tail of Rhyme,
To crack the voice of Melody
And break the legs of Time.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

The Music Grinders; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Thinking, Time

“A mob of black demonstrators, led by the "Rev." Al Sharpton, occupied and closed the Statue of Liberty recently, demanding that New York be renamed Martin Luther King City 'to reclaim it for our people.'
Hmmm. I hate to agree with the Rev. Al, but maybe a name change is in order. Welfaria? Zooville? Rapetown? Dirtburg? Lazyopolis?
But Al, the Statue of Liberty? Next time, hold that demonstration at a food stamp bureau or a crack house.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Disputed, Newsletters, Ron Paul Political Report

Hate, People, Food, Change

“Along crags and sunless cracks I go,
Up rib of rock, down spine of stone,
I dare not slumber where the right winds whistle,
Lest her creeping-soul clutch this heart of thistle.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, From Her to Eternity (1984), Well of Misery

Soul, Heart

“And make up your mind about what bloody race you belong to. One minute it’s all about being a farmer’s boy in Northamptonshire and the next you’re on about the old days in Calcutta and what the British have done to Mother India and the snake-charmers and the bloody temple-bells. Ah, wake up, for God’s sake. You’re English right enough but you’re forgetting how to speak the bloody language, what with traipsing about with Punjabis and Sikhs and God knows what. You talk Hindustani in your sleep, man. Sort it out, for God’s sake. If you want to put a loincloth on, get cracking, but don’t expect the privileges --’ (the word came out in a wet blurr; the needle stuck for a couple of grooves) ‘the privileges, the privileges…”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Time for a Tiger (1956)

God, Boy, Sleep, Forgetting

“If there's one thing we haven't cracked yet in human civilsation, we've never been able to make a good wig. I wouldn't want a wig on me.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

The Moaning of Life, General Quotes

“Fresh pitsand, however, in spite of all its excellence in concrete structures, is not equally useful in stucco, the richness of which, when the lime and straw are mixed with such sand, will cause it to crack as it dries on account of the great strength of the mixture. But river sand, though useless in "signinum" on account of its thinness, becomes perfectly solid in stucco when thoroughly worked by means of polishing instruments.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter IV, Sec. 3

“... "there's allays two 'pinions; there's the 'pinion a man has of himsen, and there's the 'pinion other folks have on him. There'd be two 'pinions about a cracked bell, if the bell could hear itself."”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Source: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861), Chapter 6 (at page 48)

“He felt as if someone far away below in the darkness was chipping away at the pillars of his mind, and the steady crack…crack…crack of it was the only sound in the universe.”

Tim Powers book The Drawing of the Dark

Source: The Drawing of the Dark (1979), Chapter 9 (p. 129)

Universe

“Hip-Hop's last hope like Obi-Wan Kenobi
Through your television I'm shining light like a train
Comin out like earthworms when it rains, bringing it
like the C. I. A. be bringing in crack cocaine bailing out of planes
with the George Bush connections, I push Reflection
like I'm selling izm, like a dealer building the system
Supply and the demand it's all just capitalism
Niggaz don't sell crack cause they like to see blacks smoke
Niggaz sell crack cause they broke”

Talib Kweli (1975) American rapper

The Manifesto, Lyricist Lounge, Vol. 1 (1998)
Albums, Singles and compilations

Hope, Light, Training

“The earth cracks and
is shriveled up;
the wind moans piteously;
the sky goes out
if you should fail.”

William Carlos Williams book Al Que Quiere!

"Chicory and Daisies"
Al Que Quiere! (1917)

“In actual fact, the female function is to explore, discover, invent, solve problems crack jokes, make music - all with love. In other words, create a magic world.”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. 6.

Love, World, Music, Problem

“Once she kidnapped me and drug me to the Methodist Church. I goes in, pious as Widow Bogart, and sits still and never cracks a smile while the preacher is favoring us with his misinformation on evolution. But afterwards, when the old stalwarts were pumphandling everybody at the door and calling 'em 'Brother' and 'Sister,' they let me sail right by with nary a clinch.”

Sinclair Lewis book Main Street

Main Street (1920)

Smile, Sister

“With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I hear it; I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful, 'cause that's what really happens.”

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977) American civil rights activist (October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977)

As quoted in This Little Light of Mine, ch. 8, by Hay Mills (1993).

People

“Living with a god is not what it's cracked up to be. They think their women should be grateful just to have them around.”

Orson Scott Card Enchantment

Enchantment (1999)

Women, God, Thinking

“What is the secret of the opposition and slander that is being raised up against me and against all who, like me, are Bible students? It is malice, hatred, envy, strife, on the part of those who are still hugging the nonsense of the Dark Ages and neglecting true Bible study. They see that their influence is waning. But they have not yet awakened to the true situation. They think that I am responsible for their smaller congregations and small collections. But not so. The real difficulty for them is that the people are becoming more intelligent and can no longer be driven with the crack of a merely man-made whip of fear.”

Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916) Founder of the Bible Student Movement

The Watch Tower (October 15, 1914), p. 287.

People, Secret, Age, Fear

“There's a very specific formula for creating a monster. It starts with chronic, unrelenting abuse. There's got to be societal notification and then passing on. The child eventually believes that what's being done is societally sanctioned. And after a while, empathy – which we have to learn, we're not born with it – cracks and dies. He feels only his own pain. There's your predatory sociopath." That's why Vachss posed for a recent publicity photo cradling his pit bull puppy. "You know what pit bulls are capable of, right?" he asks, referring to the animal's notorious killer reputation. "But they're also capable of being the most wonderful, sweet pets in the world, depending on how you raise them. That's all our children."”

Andrew Vachss (1942) American writer and lawyer

Unleashing the Criminal Mind," San Francisco Examiner, July 12, 1990.

Pain, Children, World, Feeling

“If they [the Department of Justice] are investigating Hillary Clinton, it doesn’t take a genius, let alone a stable genius, to see why. It’s not because there is some new evidence that has come to light. It’s because they’re being badgered by the White House to do it. I think that these cracks that we’re seeing in the independence of the Justice Department ought to concern every American.”

Adam Schiff (1960) American politician

Open Letter to the Committee Hearing Re: FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers

Justice, Thinking, Light, Housing

“When I saw him, he was at the door, but it did not matter,
he was already sliding along the wall of the night, losing himself
in some crack of the ruins. That it should have been he who said, “The kingfishers!
who cares
for their feathers
now?” His last words had been, “The pool is slime.””

Charles Olson (1910–1970) American writer

Part I, 2
The Kingfishers (1950)

Night

“You look like a faded picture / I see the cracks forming on your skin
For smoking all my stash / For burning all my cash.. It's all over town that the sun's / Going down on the days / Of your easy life”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Force of Nature
Heathen Chemistry (2002)

Life, Sun

“Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean look at it, Q: look at all those cul-de-sacs, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.”

John Green book Paper Towns

Margo Roth Spiegelman, pp. 57-58
Paper Towns (2008)

Life, People, Beauty, Drink

“When they were busy molding the upper floor, it was discovered that the cellar had begun to crack. When the foreman joiner and the foreman mason were summoned, they announced that these cracks must have been caused by the earthquakes that had occurred that summer. Bjartur said that no one had noticed any earthquakes that particular summer, not on the upper surface of the earth at least. "There were earthquakes in Korea," said the foreman joiner.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1935), Book Two, Part II: Years of Prosperity

Business, Summer

“It seems that the evolutionist must conclude, along with the writer Vladimir Nabokov, that ‘our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness’. Brains that think otherwise – brains that deny they are brains and believe instead that they are eternal souls - are brains that hold false beliefs about themselves.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life: How Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Think You Know (2010), p. 150

Soul, Thinking, Light, Falseness

“From the director to the international cast, all of them are from deaf families for generations, while the film industry usually entrusts these roles to audacious interpreters that end up being bad imitators of the Sign language: as if an Italian actor was asked to act in Japanese by cracking down the tongue.”

Emilio Insolera (1979) Actor and film producer

As quoted in Cinema. Quando il super eroe è sordo https://www.avvenire.it/agora/pagine/sordo(September 10, 2017), Avvenire)

Family

“I guess I just prefer to see the dark side of things. The glass is always half empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth.”

Janeane Garofalo (1964) comedian, actress, political activist, writer

standup performance accessible through .WAV files available on the Internet[citation needed]
Standup routines

“Find a cosy table
Inside a restaurant,
Somewhere formidable
Where you’ll be très contents.
Let your lady fair know
That she is all you see,
Prime her with a Pernod
Or three.
Watch her crack a lobster
And strip it to the buff,
Rough as when a mobster
Gets tough.
Keep the wine cascading
And you’ll ensure
Une petite spécialité called l’amour….”

Anthony Burgess book Earthly Powers

Earthly Powers.
Poetry

Wine

“Yesterday we came across a cemetery that had been completely destroyed by shellfire. The graves had been blown up, and the coffins lay about in the most uncomfortable positions. The shells had unceremoniously exposed their distinguished occupants to the light of day, and bones, hair, and bits of clothing could be seen through cracks in the burst-open coffins.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

letter to his first wife Minna, from the front, 1915; as quoted in Max Beckmann, Stephan Lackner, Bonfini Press Corporation, Naefels, Switzerland, 1983, p. 14
1900s - 1920s

Light, Clothes

“The NTC should start cracking the whip and fix the system immediately. It cannot be business as usual anymore. Let’s do away with the mentality of just accepting the present situation and start doing something about it. he problem is that government agencies that are supposed to monitor these telcos and help consumers don’t seem to feel the urgency of the situation.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Philippine Daily Inquirer http://technology.inquirer.net/43213/ntc-urged-to-crack-whip-on-telcos 2015

Feeling, Business, Problem, Help

“That’s how we’ve always moved this country forward, by all of us coming together on behalf of our children, folks who volunteer to coach that team, to teach that Sunday school class, because they know it takes a village. Heroes of every color and creed who wear the uniform and risk their lives to keep passing down those blessings of liberty, police officers and the protesters in Dallas who all desperately want to keep our children safe. People who lined up in Orlando to donate blood because it could have been their son, their daughter in that club. Leaders like Tim Kaine who show our kids what decency and devotion look like. Leaders like Hillary Clinton who has the guts and the grace to keep coming back and putting those cracks in that highest and hardest glass ceiling until she finally breaks through, lifting all of us along with her.”

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

2010s, 2016 Democratic National Convention (2016)

Children, People, School, Color

“Some people got high rises on their backs.
I'm not broke but you can see the cracks.
You can make me perfect again.
All because of you
I am.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

"All Because of You"
Lyrics, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004)

People, Perfection

“Arcadia? The realm of the infinite? It's a poet's corner… It's not a cult or a religion – it's an awareness of your surroundings; you're not going to force yourself on anyone and, equally, no one's going to force themselves on you. And it's about community and pleasure. It came from a whisper through the trees. It came from a crack in the pavement. It can also come when you open a bag of crisps, or when you kick a football against a goalpost. Even if I was winding you up, it would still be true, because Arcadia and the Arcadian Dream is so deep, is so true to our hearts… It can be as powerful as your imagination can allow it to be. But, it can also be as dark and twisted as your soul… Arcadia encompasses the infinite, and that's why it comforts me.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

2002
Arcadia

Pleasure, Religion, Dreams, Soul

“LEADERSHIP A form of self-preservation exhibited by people with autodestructive imaginations in order to ensure that when it comes to the crunch it’ll be someone else’s bones which go crack and not their own.”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar

context (14) “Storm Centre”
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

People, Imagination

“The fall of the patriciate by no means divested the Roman commonwealth of its aristocratic character. We have already indicated that the plebeian party carried within it that character from the first as well as, and in some sense still more decidedly than, the patriciate; for, while in the old body of burgesses an absolute equality of rights prevailed, the new constitution set out from a distinction between the senatorial houses who were privileged in point of burgess rights and of burgess usufructs, and the mass of the other citizens. Immediately, therefore, on the abolition of the patriciate and the formal establishment of civic equality, a new aristocracy and a corresponding opposition were formed; and we have already shown how the former engrafted itself as it were on the fallen patriciate, and how, accordingly, the first movements of the new party of progress were mixed up with the last movements of the old opposition between the orders. The formation of these new parties began in the fifth century, but they assumed their definite shape only in the century which followed. The development of this internal change is, as it were, drowned amidst the noise of the great wars and victories, and not merely so, but the process of formation is in this case more withdrawn from view than any other in Roman history. Like a crust of ice gathering imperceptibly over the surface of a stream and imperceptibly confining it more and more, this new Roman aristocracy silently arose; and not less imperceptibly, like the current concealing itself beneath and slowly extending, there arose in opposition to it the new party of progress. It is very difficult to sum up in a general historical view the several, individually insignificant, traces of these two antagonistic movements, which do not for the present yield their historical product in any distinct actual catastrophe. But the freedom hitherto enjoyed in the commonwealth was undermined, and the foundation for future revolutions was laid, during this epoch; and the delineation of these as well as of the development of Rome in general would remain imperfect, if we should fail to give some idea of the strength of that encrusting ice, of the growth of the current beneath, and of the fearful moaning and cracking that foretold the mighty breaking up which was at hand. The Roman nobility attached itself, in form, to earlier institutions belonging to the times of the patriciate. Persons who once had filled the highest ordinary magistracies of the state not only, as a matter of course, practically enjoyed all along a higher honour, but also had at an early period certain honorary privileges associated with their position. The most ancient of these was doubtless the permission given to the descendants of such magistrates to place the wax images of these illustrious ancestors after their death in the family hall, along the wall where the pedigree was painted, and to have these images carried, on occasion of the death of members of the family, in the funeral procession.. the honouring of images was regarded in the Italo-Hellenic view as unrepublican, and on that account the Roman state-police did not at all tolerate the exhibition of effigies of the living, and strictly superintended that of effigies of the dead. With this privilege were associated various external insignia, reserved by law or custom for such magistrates and their descendants:--the golden finger-ring of the men, the silver-mounted trappings of the youths, the purple border on the toga and the golden amulet-case of the boys--trifling matters, but still important in a community where civic equality even in external appearance was so strictly adhered to, and where, even during the second Punic war, a burgess was arrested and kept for years in prison because he had appeared in public, in a manner not sanctioned by law, with a garland of roses upon his head.(6) These distinctions may perhaps have already existed partially in the time of the patrician government, and, so long as families of higher and humbler rank were distinguished within the patriciate, may have served as external insignia for the former; but they certainly only acquired political importance in consequence of the change of constitution in 387, by which the plebeian families that attained the consulate were placed on a footing of equal privilege with the patrician families, all of whom were now probably entitled to carry images of their ancestors. Moreover, it was now settled that the offices of state to which these hereditary privileges were attached should include neither the lower nor the extraordinary magistracies nor the tribunate of the plebs, but merely the consulship, the praetorship which stood on the same level with it,(7) and the curule aedileship, which bore a part in the administration of public justice and consequently in the exercise of the sovereign powers of the state.(8) Although this plebeian nobility, in the strict sense of the term, could only be formed after the curule offices were opened to plebeians, yet it exhibited in a short time, if not at the very first, a certain compactness of organization--doubtless because such a nobility had long been prefigured in the old senatorial plebeian families. The result of the Licinian laws in reality therefore amounted nearly to what we should now call the creation of a batch of peers. Now that the plebeian families ennobled by their curule ancestors were united into one body with the patrician families and acquired a distinctive position and distinguished power in the commonwealth, the Romans had again arrived at the point whence they had started; there was once more not merely a governing aristocracy and a hereditary nobility--both of which in fact had never disappeared--but there was a governing hereditary nobility, and the feud between the gentes in possession of the government and the commons rising in revolt against the gentes could not but begin afresh. And matters very soon reached that stage. The nobility was not content with its honorary privileges which were matters of comparative indifference, but strove after separate and sole political power, and sought to convert the most important institutions of the state--the senate and the equestrian order--from organs of the commonwealth into organs of the plebeio-patrician aristocracy.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

The History of Rome - Volume 2

Death, Men, War, Youth

“They said it was a sitting-room, but I don’t know why they’d decided to confine its purpose just to sitting. Obviously, sitting was one of the things you could do in a room this size; but you could also stage operas, hold cycling races, and have an absolutely cracking game of frisbee, all at the same time, without having to move any of the furniture.
It could rain in a room this big.”

Hugh Laurie book The Gun Seller

The Gun Seller (1996)

Game, Time

“My foundation trys to help people that fall through the cracks, [people] that can't get help from big organizations.... We try to fill in where [other] people don't help out.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Source: CNN's Showbiz Tonight (October 27, 2005)

People, Help

“I'm so glad Courtney Love is here; I left my crack in my other purse.”

Sarah Silverman (1970) American comedian and actress

To Courtney Love on her Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson (14 August 2005)

Love

“Don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is and even if it's cracked up a little bit, maybe I'll just plow right on through that and maybe prematurely plow through it, but don't let me miss an open door. And if there is an open door in '12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plow through that door.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

On her considering a future run for the office of President of the United States, November 10, 2008 http://alaskareport.com/news1108/x61753_palin_2012.htm 2014

Family

“It has always been my dream in life to help as many people as possible. That dream and many more have come true for me and my family, and I find my greatest rewards come from sharing what I have received with others. Emilio and I established this foundation to expand our charitale work in an effort ot help those less fortunate. Our focus with the foundation has always been to help the many inidividuals whose challenges have fallen through the cracks of the traditional charitable organizations.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

announcment of February 9, 2007, fundraising gala benefit, including a dinner and concert at the Estefans' residence on Star Island, near Miami, Florida, for the Brain Institute at Miami Children's Hospital (cbs4.com January 16, 2007)
2007, 2008

Life, People, Family, Dreams

“We come crawling through these cracks, orphans, lobotomies; if you ask me what I want, I'll tell you. I want everything. Whole rotten world come down and break. Let me spread my legs.”

Kathy Acker (1947–1997) American novelist, playwright, essayist, and poet

Pussy, King of the Pirates (1996)

World

“I tried the door. It opened, darkness inside, and I switched on the light. She lay there in the Murphy bed. Her face was the face of an old rose pressed and dried in a book, yellowish, with only the eyes to prove there was life in it. The room stank. The blinds were down, the door opened with difficulty until I kicked away the rug against the crack.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Life, Books, Light

“Convinced republican that I am, and foe of the prince who talks to plants and wants to be crowned "head of all faiths" as well as the etiolated Church of England, I find myself pierced by a pang of sympathy. Not much of a life, is it, growing old and stale with no real job except waiting for the news of Mummy's death? Some British people claim actually to "love" their rather dumpy Hanoverian ruling house. This love takes the macabre form of demanding a regular human sacrifice whereby unexceptional people are condemned to lead wholly artificial and strained existences, and then punished or humiliated when they crack up.”

Charles, Prince of Wales (1948) son of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Christopher Hitchens, Beware the In-Laws: Does Kate Middleton really want to marry into a family like this?, Slate, April. 18, 2011
About

Love, Life, Death, People

“You know how in many parts of our troubled world they are yelling 'revolution! revolution!' In Tennessee they are yelling 'evolution… we want our thumbs!' The thing is they see people with thumbs on T. V. all day, boy that's got to drive them hog-wild huh? [mimics monkey] Trailers are shaking. They're nice people they're just, what would you call 'em - rural? Backwoods, country? They're real nice, after a show one of these guys came up to me and said 'hey, you're great, you cracked me up, I was about to spit!'… Sorry? He said 'no I loved it, I'd like you to meet my wife and sister.' And there was one girl standing there… not a thumb between 'em. Goddamnit now what are the odds of that? Okay the girl had a little nub growin' in, but girls evolve quicker than guys.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Sane Man (1989)

Love, People, World, Guy

“There are two styles of walls "opus reticulatum," now used by everybody and the ancient style called "opus incertum." Of these, the reticulatum looks better, but its construction makes it likely to crack… On the other hand, in the opus incertum, the rubble lying in courses and imbricated, makes a wall which though not beautiful, is stronger.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter VIII "Methods of Building Walls" Sec. 1

Beauty, Lying

“If going beyond the experiences of past seers and sages is so shocking, each new seer or sage in turn has done that shocking thing'Buddha, Shankara, Chaitanya, etc. all did that wicked act…. Truly, this shocked reverence for the past is a wonderful and fearful thing? After all, the Divine is infinite and the unrolling of the Truth may be an infinite process or at least, if not quite so much, yet with some room for new discovery and new statement, even perhaps new achievement, not a thing in a nutshell cracked and its contents exhausted once for all by the first seer or sage, while the others must religiously crack the same nutshell all over again, each tremblingly fearful not to give the lie to the 'past' seers and sages.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

October 8, 1935
India's Rebirth

Truth, Lie, Fear, Past

“They make you and you have no say in it. It’s w:Godot all the time. A chain around your neck and the whip cracking behind you.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

Time

“My dear friend Yevtushenko has, I claim, an ego that can crack crystal at a distance of twenty feet.”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1932–2017) Russian poet, film director, teacher

John Cheever, in George Plimpton (ed.) Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Fifth Series (New York: Penguin, 1981) p. 121.
Criticism

“Do you know what the good side of crack is? If you're up at the right hour, you can get a VCR for $1.50. You can furnish your whole house for $10.95.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

Bring the Pain (HBO, 1996)

Housing

“Our focus with the [Gloria Estefan] foundation has always been to help the many individuals whose challenges have fallen through the cracks of the traditional charitable organizations.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

cbs4.com (February 9, 2007)
2007, 2008

Help

“The painter paints his brushes black
Through the canvas runs a crack
Portrait of the pain never answers back.”

Phil Ochs (1940–1976) American protest singer and songwriter

"The Flower Lady" http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/flower-lady.html Pleasures of the Harbor (1967)

Pain, Painting

“The first red flag? The crooked wig! That's how you know what level of awareness Whitney is at. Cause let me tell - you know her gay was straightening that wig to the bitter end. Making sure the part was in the right place. But you know what - when the (crack) pipe is shaking? It's hard to keep it on, when the pipe is all shaking.”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

Balls of Steel (2009)

Parting

“I remember that they had this wonderful effect for my demise [on 2020: Texas Gladiators], with my skull being cracked open by an axe. They had photos of this stunning effect made, but then decided to change it because they thought it was just too much.”

Donald O'Brien (actor) (1930–2003) Italian film and TV actor

Euro Trash Cinema magazine interview (March 1996)

Photo, Change

“Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it.”

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

Concession speech http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=572270, Washington D.C., June 7, 2008. Presidential campaign (January 20, 2007 – 2008)

Time