Quotes about folk
page 5

“Thank you all very much for your hospitality. We've just had a wide-ranging discussions on the matter at hand. Like the good folks standing with me, the American people were appalled and outraged at last Tuesday's attacks. And so were Muslims all across the world. Both Americans and Muslim friends and citizens, tax-paying citizens, and Muslims in nations were just appalled and could not believe what we saw on our T. V. screens. These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith, and it's important for my fellow Americans to understand that. The English translation is not as eloquent as the original Arabic, but let me quote from the Koran, itself. 'In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil. For that they rejected the signs of Allah and held them up to ridicule.”

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

2000s, 2001, Islam is Peace (September 2001)

People, World, Faith, Quotes

“Lor bless ye, yes! These critters ain't like white folks, you know; they gets over things, only manage right. Now, they say," said Haley, assuming a candid and confidential air, "that this kind o' trade is hardening to the feelings; but I never found it so. Fact is, I never could do things up the way some fellers manage the business. I've seen 'em as would pull a woman's child out of her arms, and set him up to sell, and she screechin' like mad all the time; — very bad policy — damages the article — makes 'em quite unfit for service sometimes. I knew a real handsome gal once, in Orleans, as was entirely ruined by this sort o' handling. The fellow that was trading for her didn't want her baby; and she was one of your real high sort, when her blood was up. I tell you, she squeezed up her child in her arms, and talked, and went on real awful. It kinder makes my blood run cold to think of 't; and when they carried off the child, and locked her up, she jest went ravin' mad, and died in a week. Clear waste, sir, of a thousand dollars, just for want of management, — there's where 't is. It's always best to do the humane thing, sir; that's been my experience.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

And the trader leaned back in his chair, and folded his arm, with an air of virtuous decision, apparently considering himself a second Wilberforce.
Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Ch. 1 In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity

Way, Feeling, Business, Thinking

“We can't go back, Mat. The Wheel has turned, for better or worse. And it will keep turning, as lights die and forests dim, storms call and skies break. Turn it will. The Wheel is not hope, and the Wheel does not care, the Wheel simply is. But so long as it turns, folk may hope, folk may care. For with light that fades, another will eventually grow, and each storm that rages must eventually die. As long as the Wheel turns. As long is it turns….”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Thom Merrilin, quoting an ancient song
(27 October 2009)

Hope, Light, Rage

“I've missed you too! A lot of people have been wondering where I have been, and it's not very exciting news, and it's not very good news, it's just that I've been very ill. I've been very sick for a while and still trying to get better, slowly but surely…. Anyway, I was so overwhelmed —
Overwhelmed,
by all the
nice things you
folks said to me!
It was so nice to read everything that everyone was saying, and very, very sweet. I appreciate all the — oh, it made me cry, and — and it was just so nice, and I wanted to say a big 'Thank you!' to everyone for being so supportive and so nice to me…. I will be back in full swing, as much as I can, when I can, and in the mean time, I miss you all very, very much.”

Ysabella Brave (1979) American singer

"Quick Update from Ysabella Brave" (6 May, 2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCVdO__jDgw

People, Support, Time, Reading

“You might have noticed that I never complain about politicians. I leave that to others. And there's no shortage of volunteers; everyone complains about politicians. Everyone says they suck. But where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky; they don't pass through a membrane from a separate reality. They come from American homes, American families, American schools, American churches, and American businesses. And they're elected by American voters. This is what our system produces, folks. This is the best we can do. Let's face it, we have very little to work with. Garbage in, garbage out.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Books, Napalm and Silly Putty (2001)

People, School, Family, Home

“Many of my friends are under the impression that I write these humorous nothings in idle moments when the wearied brain is unable to perform the serious labours of the economist. My own experience is exactly the other way. The writing of solid, instructive stuff fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward Island. But to write something out of one's own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far between. Personally, I would sooner have written "Alice in Wonderland" than the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica.”

Stephen Leacock book Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

Preface
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912)

Way, Reading, Personality

“… "folk art" signifies the poetical, musical, and pictorial activities of those strata of the population which are uneducated and not urbanized or industrialized. It is of the essence of this art that those who keep it in being are not only passively receptive, but normally are creative participants in the artistic activities, and yet do not stand out as individuals or claim any personal authorship of the productions. "Popular art" on the other hand is to be understood as artistic or quasi-artistic production for the demand of a half-educated public, generally urban and inclined to mass-behavior. In folk art, producers and consumers are hardly distinguished, and the boundary between them is always fluid; in the case of popular art, we find on the contrary an artistically uncreative, completely passive public, and professional production of artistic goods strictly in response to the demand for them. It is indeed a striking fact that folk art, especially folk-poetry, emerges from the ranks of those who enjoy it, whereas popular songs—the street-ballads and popular "hits"—derive from professionals belonging to and spiritually dependent upon the upper classes.”

Arnold Hauser (1892–1978) Hungarian art historian

Arnold Hauser (1985). The philosophy of art history. p. 279

Education, Art, Music, Behavior

“Could someone please tell me how this will affect me? Come on, this is Harvard, folks. I came all the way out here to learn this.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

On same-sex marriage.
Harvard interview (February 2004)

Way, Learning

“What's the use in our caring about hard words after this,—'atheists,' heretics, infidels, and the like? They're, after all, only the cinders picked up out of those heaps of ashes round the stumps of the old stakes where they used to burn men, women, and children for not thinking just like other folks.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes book Elsie Venner

Elsie Venner (1859)

Women, Men, Children, Thinking

“It seems hopeless, hopeless. Those who eat meat [at public expense] are a mean, selfish lot, and so the country is doomed. Our only hope lies in the grass-roots folk who eat our traditional food.”

Yoshida Shoin (1830–1859) Japanese politician

Vol. VI.
Yoshida Shoin Zenshu

Food, Hope, Grass, Selfishness

“Don't be too quick
To break bad habits: better stick,
Like the Mission folk, to your arsenic.”

Bret Harte (1836–1902) American author and poet

East and West Poems, Part I, The Wonderful Spring of San Joaquin.

“The New World Order (NWO) folks have already said they will make food the weapon in the next war. I think they will offer food IF you have a microchip and submit to their system. Those who refuse will have their head cut off”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Revelation 13:16; 20:4
Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 129

War, World, Food, Thinking

“The expression on his features was one of a pained disapproval, similar to that of a gentleman of the cloth when observing the young folks behaving like young folks.”

Lin Carter book The Wizard of Zao

Source: The Wizard of Zao (1978), Chapter 5 (p. 69)

Pain, Clothes

“Ten percent of all the boys in schools are now threatened or injured with a weapon at school. One out of ten. The number of students caught with a firearm increased 29 percent in one year. "Natural selection"? If the strongest survive, well then if that guy's bigger than me, I better bring a gun to even the odds. This evolution theory is not just dumb, folks, it's dangerous. It removes all morality. There's no such thing as right and wrong. Might becomes right. Textbooks say you're an animal and share a common heritage with earthworms. Could it possibly be that what we are teaching kids is causing this problem in our schools?”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

School, Guy, Boy, Nature

“Some folks like to get away
Take a holiday from the neighborhood.
Hop a flight to Miami Beach
Or to Hollywood
But I'm talking a Greyhound
On the Hudson River Line.
I'm in a New York state of mind.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

New York State of Mind.
Song lyrics, Turnstiles (1976)

Holiday

“I give you my revised list of the two commandments: "Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie", and "thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than the one you pray to". Two is all you need; Moses could have carried them down the hill in his fuckin' pocket, and I wouldn't mind those folks in Alabama posting them on the courthouse wall, as long as they provided one additional commandment: "Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself".”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

"The Ten Commandments"
Complaints and Grievances (2001)

Faith, Religion

“Hey folks, tonight I wanna talk about global warming. Now, The World is Hot and Flat Society is growing increasingly hysterical and that indeed is causing me to sweat a little. In the last month or so, I've heard suggestions that those skeptical of Al Gore's spiritual crisis are deniers and one good way to serve the planet would be to have one less kid and I've also read that mankind is 'a virus' and human beings are 'the AIDS of the earth.' Global warming is officially becoming creepy and I can't tell yet if it's facisitc or fetishistic but it's kinda like piercing or tattoos, I don't even wanna get one, because I see how hooked people are and it spooks me. I just find it odd that we've come to a point in history where if I don't concede that if Manhattan will be completely submerged in 2057 I'm thought to be a delusional contrarian by some of my more zealous fellow citizens. I'm sorry Angst Squad, but if we commissioned a public works project (let's call it 'The Manhattan Project') and tried our hardest to submerge Manhattan in the next 50 years, we couldn't pull it off, mainly because it wouldn't be environmentally sound and you guys would hang it up in the permitting process. Simply put, I can't worry about the earth right now because I'm too worried about the world. Why can't I take terrorism as seriously as Al Gore takes global warming? There are times that you think that liberals only fear car bombs if they have leaky exhaust systems. And why am I constantly beaten over the head with 'the delicate balance of nature'? Am I the only one who watches Animal Planet? Every time I turn it on, I see some demented harp seal chucking peguins down his gullet like they were maitre d'Tic-Tacs. To me, nature always appears more unbalanced than Gary Busey with a clogged eustachian tube. Listen, the weather is just like Hilary's explanation for her war vote: we just don't know, do we? We're here to miss our next Tuesday's weather much less the year 2057. Relax, we'll replace oil when we need to. American ingenuity will kick in and the next great fortune will be made. It's not pretty, but it is historically accurate. We need to run out of oil first. That's why I drive an SUV: so we run out of it more quickly. I consider myself at the vanguard of the environmental movement and I think the individuals who insist on driving hybrids are just prolonging our dillemma and I think that's just selfish. Come on, don't you care about our Mother Earth? Don'tcha?”

Dennis Miller (1953) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actor

6/17 The Half Hour News Hour
The Buck Starts Here

War, People, World, Fear

“Hi, how are you today? I'm Tony, I'm going to be your server. I've got some very exciting specials to tell you folks about right here. We've got our deep-pan re-re-fried chocolate ice cream pizza, which comes with a complementary pacemaker. If you're watching your weight you might want to try our No Hope Protein Salad, absolutely delicious. Philippe, our maitre d', will dig out some photographs of you looking kind of tubby, you know, on the Internet, and then we all kind of point and laugh at you and just sort of rub a single chickpea on your lip until you cry. Would you like some water?”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

During a skit before a commercial break on BBC America Comedy Live Presents Dylan Moran (2005).
Other

Hope, Water, Cry

“The distance between folk society and literate society is ever decreasing, and Teresa Brewer will yet shake hands with Mrs. Texas Gladden. But until that happens—until my own culture, and Teresa Brewer's, develops a folk tradition of its own—If I want to learn something about real folk music, I'll stick with Mrs. Gladden.”

Sam Hinton (1917–2009) folk singer, artist, marine biologist

"Last Words", Journal of American Folklore 71, (Jan–Mar 1958), p. 75

Music, Learning

“The folk are peculiar in many ways," said Erwig. "They preen themselves upon the gentility of their habits, yet they refuse to whitewash their hair, and they are slack in their religious observances. For instance, they make obeisance to Divine Wiulio with the right hand, not on the buttock, but on the abdomen, which we here consider a slipshod practice. What are your own views?"
"The rite should be conducted as you describe," said Cugel. "No other method carries weight.”

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Erwig refilled Cugel's glass. "I consider this an important endorsement of our views!"
Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), Cugel's Saga (1983), Chapter 5, section 2, "The Bagful of Dreams"

Way

“He gets up each morning and he goes downtown
Where everyone's his boss,
And he's lost in an angry land.
He's a little man.
But then he comes uptown
Each evening to my tenement.
Uptown where folks don't have to pay much rent.
And when he's there with me.
He can see that he's everything.
The man is tall, he don't crawl. He's a king.”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

Don't Say Nothin' Bad (About My Baby) (1963), co-written with Gerry Goffin, recorded by The Cookies
Song lyrics, Singles

“So hopelessly incapable was I of understanding better folk that I did not even know how to keep a servile tongue in my head. In a flash there appeared before my mind the difference between the two worlds in which we lived, this woman and I; although I was staying under her roof we were such poles apart from one another that it was only with half justification possible to classify us together as human beings; we were both vertebrates, certainly, even mammals, but there all resemblance ended; any human society of which both of us were members was merely an empty phrase.</b”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

World, Understanding, Appearance

“So many minority youths had volunteered…that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like”

Tom DeLay (1947) American Republican politician

myself
On why he and Dan Quayle did not fight in the Vietnam War at the 1988 Republican National Convention. Tim Fleck, January 7, 1999, "Which Bug Gets the Gas?" Houston Press.
1990s

Youth

“We know that today in America, too many folks are still stopped on the street because of the color of their skin, or they're made to feel unwelcome because of where they come from, or they're bullied because of who they love. As you go forth, when you encounter folks who still hold the old prejudices because they've only been around folks like themselves, when you meet folks who think they know all the answers because they've never heard any other viewpoints, it's up to you to help them see things differently.”

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

Quoted on Yahoo News!, "First lady tells Kansas students to fight bias" (16 May 2014) http://news.yahoo.com/first-lady-tells-kansas-students-fight-bias-021747701.html 2010s

Love, Color, Feeling, Thinking

“I am afraid, dear Edwin and Angelina, you expect too much from love. You think there is enough of your little hearts to feed this fierce, devouring passion for all your long lives. Ah, young folk! don't rely too much upon that unsteady flicker. It will dwindle and dwindle as the months roll on, and there is no replenishing the fuel. You will watch it die out in anger and disappointment. To each it will seem that it is the other who is growing colder. Edwin sees with bitterness that Angelina no longer runs to the gate to meet him, all smiles and blushes; and when he has a cough now she doesn't begin to cry and, putting her arms round his neck, say that she cannot live without him. The most she will probably do is to suggest a lozenge, and even that in a tone implying that it is the noise more than anything else she is anxious to get rid of.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Love, Smile, Disappointment, Thinking

“The classical argument for why a supposedly decent and moral creature like Homo sapiens can mistreat and even extirpate other species rests upon an extreme position in a continuum. The Cartesian tradition, formulated explicitly in the seventeenth century, but developed in "folk" and other versions throughout human history no doubt, holds that other animals are little more than unfeeling machines, with only humans enjoying "consciousness," however defined.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"Can We Truly Know Sloth and Rapacity?" pp. 389
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

History, Animals

“Our country is in serious trouble. We don't have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don't have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time. When did we beat Japan at anything? They send their cars over by the millions, and what do we do? When was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in Tokyo? It doesn't exist, folks. They beat us all the time. When do we beat Mexico at the border? They're laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they're killing us economically. The U. S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems.”

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

2010s, 2015, Presidential Bid Announcement (June 16, 2015)

Stupidity, Cars, Problem, Time

“Yorkshire folk are not fools.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

Devolution and Growth Across Britain (19 June 2015)

Fools

“What magic is this” asked one young German thickly.
”Not magic. Science. Preferable to magic.”
“Oh really?” said Sagitta in a freezing tone, and William blushed.
“You yourself have said there are very few people with the talent of magic. Science is open to all.”
“When knowledge ends, only faith remains,” said Armand.
“So we should abandon the pursuit of knowledge lest we diminish faith? That’s stupid,” said William belligerently.
“The simple folk of village and cottage are happier if they’re not confused with things beyond their understanding,” declared Sagitta.
“Sagitta, how do we know it’s beyond their understanding?”

Melinda M. Snodgrass (1951) American writer

“Because if it weren’t they wouldn’t be common,” cried Solms-Braunfels, and there was another shout of laughter from the table.
Source: Queen's Gambit Declined (1989), Chapter 8 (p. 89)

People, Stupidity, Faith, Understanding

“Immigration security, we need to protect American jobs. We need to protect American safety. We're going to build a wall folks, don't worry, we're going to build a wall. That wall will go up so fast, your heads will spin. And you'll say, "you know, know he meant it!" And you know what else I mean? Mexico is going to pay for the wall.”

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

On immigration at a rally in Akron, Ohio (22 August 2016)
2010s, 2016, August

“Tommy started to play the guitar and sing. He and I had trekked more than once downtown to the Folk Center to hear a barefoot hillbilly woman in a long, faded skirt intone Elizabethan songs and pluck at a dulcimer or to listen, frightened and transported, to a big black Lesbian with a crew cut moan her way through the blues. The People — those brawny, smiling farmers, those plump, wholesome teens bursting out of bib overalls, those toothless ex-cons, those white-eyed dust bowel victims — the People, half-glimpsed in old photos, films and WPA murals, were about to reemerge, we trusted, into history and our lives.”

Edmund White book A Boy's Own Story

Source: A Boy's Own Story (1982), Chapter Five (p. 120).

People, Smile, Way, Photo

“I have a message for the judge, and I say this with all my heart: If this judge believes that somebody must be put in jail because a person is willing to stand on the biblical definition of marriage, and is willing to stand because they believe that the constitution does not allow the courts to make up law according to their own whims— if the judge believes that, then I would ask this of him: Let Kim go, but if you have to put someone in jail, I volunteer to go. Let me go. Lock me up if you think that's how freedom is best served. Because folks, I am willing to spend the next eight years in the White House leading this country, but I want you to know, I'm willing to spend the next eight years in jail, but I'm not willing to spend one day under the tyranny of people who believe they can take our freedom and conscience away!”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Rally in support of Kim Davis, a county clerk arrested for defying a court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, , quoted in * 2015-09-08
'Lock Me Up': Mike Huckabee Volunteers To Go To Jail On Kim Davis' Behalf
Kyle Mantyla
Right Wing Watch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/lock-me-mike-huckabee-volunteers-go-jail-kim-davis-behalf

Marriage, People, Law, Thinking

“Last year in Florida, at Sea World Florida, an animal trainer was killed by a killer whale… HUH. Turns out, there's a reason why they didn't name them "ocean ponies." Some things are exactly as they seem, folks. Killer whales kill, pilot whales wear dark sunglasses. I'm not sure how the sperm whale got his name… but I'm not getting in the pool.”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

A Little Unprofessional

World, Animals, Sea

“The soft seduction of consumer global capitalism reduce the nations of the West to a rootless mass of Americanised consumers, without identity, without pride and without a future. Children identify with the grotesque and vulgar instead of noble heroes and beautiful princesses in castles. Teenagers ape the antics of degenerate pop-stars whose example leads hundreds of thousands into the living death of drug addiction, not to mention the tragedy of the image conscious girls (mainly) who feel compelled to starve themselves to get "the look" and of course the spiralling number of abortions. Adults perform meaningless jobs, in conditions of mind-destroying boredom, to earn enough money to buy the latest needlessly created want to be pushed on television as the thing without which their neighbours will regard them as worthless failures. Old folk die unnoticed and lie rotting for weeks, even months, in barred and bolted flats in inhuman tower blocks, unofficial prisons which become tombs for those who no longer have any economic value. Do not be fooled by the glossy packaging of the consumer society. Where state socialism was a creed of terror and stagnation, capitalism is one of apathy and death.”

Nick Griffin (1959) British politician

Nick Griffin, The Deadly Twins.

Death, Money, Children, Lie

“My good Mama, I am always the same.... always the same happy life, always fresh for seeing, vigorous for running, and diligent for one end... The Mont Blanc is our alarm clock in the morning, our vis-a-vis are the folk on the other side of the lake of Geneva, (8 leagues). I could not say that we get along badly, though we do dispense with the ceremony of saluting each other and saying bon jour when we look out at the window, for we don't meddle in our neighbors' affairs. Our sight carries fifty leagues about us, and we are equally everywhere, although only occupying the space of our two feet. I am delighted with having received my stretchers in order to commence my view of the Alps. I burn with the desire of fulfilling the difficult task of giving upon canvas an idea of the immensity which surrounds me in order to distribute its benefits to those less fortunate than myself... I ask without scruple, because it seems to me that I have something to give. I have so much confidence in myself, mon Dieu, when I examine myself.”

Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) French painter (1812-1867)

Quote of Th. Rousseau, in a letter to his mother, late Summer 1834, from the Alps, Switzerland; as cited in Barbizon days, Millet-Corot-Rousseau-Barye by Charles Sprague Smith, A. Wessels Company, New York, July 1902, pp. 152-53
1830 - 1850

Life, Happiness, Confidence, Idea

“Bye bye. Look, see? He's smiling. See, he's having a good time. Oh, I love the old days, you know? You know what I hate? There's a guy, totally disruptive, throwing punches, we're not allowed to punch back anymore. I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks. You know, I love our police, and I really respect our police, and they're not getting enough. They're not. Honestly, I hate to see that. Here's a guy, throwing punches, nasty as hell, screaming at everything else when we're talking, and he's walking out, and we're not allowed -- you know, the guards are very gentle with him, he's walking out, like, big high fives, smiling, laughing -- I'd like to punch him in the face, I'll tell you.”

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

At a rally in Las Vegas http://www.weeklystandard.com/protester-would-be-carried-out-on-a-stretcher-in-the-old-days-trump-reminisces/article/2001211 (22 February 2016) 2010s, 2016, February

Love, Hate, Smile, Guy

“I used to be a folk singer, but I was… dreadful. I had a voice like a goose farting in the fog.”

Billy Connolly (1942) British comedian

An Audience With Billy - 1985

“There's this old line the wise folks in Washington have that "it's not the crime, but the cover-up."But only fools believe that. It's always about the crime. The whole point of the cover-up is that a full revelation of the underlying crime is not survivable.”

Josh Marshall Talking Points Memo

Talking Points Memo (2007-03-26) http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013271.php

Fools

“Folks never understand the folks they hate.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

No. 2.
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series II (1866)

Hate, Understanding

“Why do I feel so exercised about what we think of the people of the Middle Ages?…I guess it's because so many of their voices are ringing vibrantly in my ears – Chaucer's, Boccaccio's, Henry Knighton's, Thomas Walsingham's, Froissart's, Jean Creton's… writers and contemporary historians of the period who seem to me just as individual, just as alive as we are today. We need to get to know these folk better in order to know who we are ourselves.”

Terry Jones (1942–2020) Welsh comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director and author

The Observer http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1143405,00.html, February 8, 2004.

People, Age, Feeling, Exercises

“Music’s playin’ up and down the block
Mostly Christian, Blues, Country, Folk, and Southern Rock
It’s our little piece of paradise way out here in the woods
There is always somethin’ goin’ on down in the trailerhood.”

Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor

Trailerhood.
Song lyrics, Bullets in the Gun (2010)

Music, Way, Country

“The ruling powers tell us poor lower-class folks that we have an obligation, a social responsibility to society, to abide by the law, but they don’t have any social responsibility to us to help us meet our needs. It’s pure bourgeoisie class-based morality, a morality that serves the ruling class, not the masses of the oppressed.”

Kevin Rashid Johnson (1971) American prisoner and social activist

Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin Rashid Johnson (2010)

Law, Help

“It is more dangerous to be a great prophet or poet than to promote twenty companies for swindling simple folk out of their savings.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Preface
1910s, Misalliance (1910)

“If [Apple's watch] bounces, folks will begin to lose faith. … watch the iWatch execution. That'll tell you whether this is a rebirth or the beginning of the end.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

Apple's Tim Cook faces make-or-break week http://marketwatch.com/story/apples-cook-set-to-lead-post-jobs-era-offensive-2014-09-03 in MarketWatch (4 September 2014)

Faith

“Yeah, I was a Democrat for about four or five years— active Democrat— and I thought I could reform the party; maybe I wasn't going about it right, maybe somebody can and somebody will, y'know? But I don't see it. It's just a top-down structure, it's a soft-money conduit, and, y'know, and like Nancy Pelosi, she's gonna lose the election again, and it's just like, what's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing—wrong, wrong thing—over and over again. Republicans, they have a real big demographic problem, because they're the party of old white people, and they're not reaching out to folks.”

Krist Novoselic (1965) Croatian-American rock musician

20:00–20:38 "Nirvana's Krist Novoselic on Punk, Politics, & Why He Dumped the Dems" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4TPRH2uK9w

Money, People, Problem

“The worst of all of this is the lie that condoms really protect against AIDS. The condom failure rate can be as high as 20 percent. Would you get on a plane — or put your children on a plane — if one of five passengers would be killed on the flight? Well, the statistic holds for condoms, folks.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

[The Way Things Ought to Be, Pocket Books, October 1992, 134, 978-0671751456, 92028659, 26397008, 1724938M]

Children, Lie, Failure

“Jack Benny: We're a little late, so good night, folks.”

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)

Night

“Indian art has been the product of Indian culture as the Greek art has been the product of Greek culture or the Roman art has been the product of Roman culture. Indian culture, however, has been the product of two streams of thoughts and practices, one, the Folk, belonging to the oral traditions operating at the folk level, in the villages, and, the other, classical, belonging to the sophisticated literary traditions, the former is sometimes called 'Lower Tradition' and the latter 'Higher Tradition.”

Swaraj Prakash Gupta (1931–2007) Indian archaeologist and art historian

Elements of Indian Art (2002)

Art

“I perceived that I was on a little round grain of rock and metal, filmed with water and with air, whirling in sunlight and darkness. And on the skin of that little grain all the swarms of men, generation by generation, had lived in labour and blindness, with intermittent joy and intermittent lucidity of spirit. And all their history, with its folk-wanderings, its empires, its philosophies, its proud sciences, its social revolutions, its increasing hunger for community, was but a flicker in one day of the lives of the stars.”

Olaf Stapledon book Star Maker

Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter I: The Earth; 1. The Starting Point (p. 11)

Men, Hunger, History, Star

“I don't believe in folks making a sort of mystery of themselves. I believe in being neighbourly, I do.”

Flora Thompson (1876–1947) English author and poet

Source: Dashpers http://www.dashper.net.nz/dashpers.htm (unfinished, unpublished novel), Chapter One - The House

“Sadly I roam,
Still longing for de old plantation,
And for de old folks at home.”

Stephen Foster (1826–1864) American songwriter

Old Folks at Home

Home

“Folk codes of pride and togetherness, pride in both senses, honor, and togetherness. Ring-fenced emotion permitted only at three o’clock for ninety minutes in the sanctuary of the stadium. Can we march that pride out of the gates and into the streets? Can we harness it? Direct it? Use it for something less stymied by white lines and whistles, that could pour from the terraces and into the oak-and-leather chambers, the steel-and-glass towers?”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Sense

“And as every one of their dear sex is the rival of the rest of her kind, timidity passes for folly in their charitable judgements; and gentleness for dullness; and silence -- which is but timid denial of the unwelcome assertion of ruling folks, and tacit protestantism -- above all, finds no mercy at the hands of the female Inquisition.”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

The narrator, LXII
Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

Sex, Silence

“Cyprian was a boy who carried with him through early life the wondering look of a dreamer, the eyes of one who sees things that are not visible to ordinary mortals, and invests the commonplace things of this world with qualities unsuspected by plainer folk – the eyes of a poet or a house agent.”

Saki book Beasts and Super-Beasts

"The Dreamer"
Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914)

Life, World, Boy, Housing

“Folks, it's time to evolve. That's why we're troubled. You know why our institutions are failing us, the church, the state, everything's failing? It's because, um – they're no longer relevant. We're supposed to keep evolving. Evolution did not end with us growing opposable thumbs. You do know that, right? There's another 90 percent of our brains that we have to illuminate.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Filling Up the Hump (1993)

Time

“Why should not I call my works 'symphonies', 'arrangements', 'harmonies', and 'nocturnes'?... The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell. My picture of 'Harmony in Grey and Gold' is an illustration of my meaning – as snow scene with a single black figure and lighted tavern. I care nothing for the past, present, or future of the black figure, placed there because the black was wanted at that spot. All that I know is that my combination of grey and gold is the basis of the picture, Now this is precisely what my friends cannot grasp.”

James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) American-born, British-based artist

Quote in a letter to 'The World', London 22 Mai, 1878; as cited in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 186
1870 - 1903

Light, Past, Future

“Hey, you're gonna have to keep it simple for us folks! Keep the words simple so we can understand what you're talking about.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

AronRa vs Ray Comfort (September 17th, 2012), Radio Paul's Radio Rants

Understanding

“Nothing like other folks' sin for distraction.”

Toni Morrison book Paradise

Paradise (1997)

“I thought, well. when I step off it's just going to be a little step — a step from there down to there — but then I thought about all those 400,000 people who had given me the opportunity to make that step and thought it's going to be a big something for all those folks and, indeed for a lot of others that weren't even involved in the project, so it was kind of a simple correlation.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

On what inspired him to say his famous words, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."
60 Minutes interview (2005)

People

“There is a mystery about the Jews … and within this mystery lies the reason for the folk pride of the house of Abraham. This pride exists despite the disabilities that come from many centuries of ostracism.”

Herman Wouk (1915–2019) Pulitzer Prize-winning American author whose novels include The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War and War and …

This is My God: The Jewish Way of Life (1959)

Housing

“We welcome folks in Cactus Center if they've got an honest lay;
If their game ain't too durn crooked, we never stop the play;
But a get-rich-quicker blew in, with a game we did n't like,
So we did n't waste the minutes in invitin' him to hike.”

Arthur Chapman (poet) (1873–1935) American poet and newspaper columnist

Discipline in Cactus Center http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#Discipline, st. 1. Cactus Center http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#ccbk (1921)

Game

“Nothing else Chavez wrote during his life had such haunting power for me as that public prayer for a life of suffering; no utterance sounded so Mexican. Other cultures in the world assume the reality of suffering as something to be overcome. Mexico assumes the inevitability of suffering. That knowledge informs the folk music of Mexico, the bitter humor of Mexican proverb. To be a man is to suffer for others—you’re going to suffer anyway.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013)

Life, World, Music, Knowledge

““Am I drunk?" he asked Crewcut. "You're not drunk, Boss," Crewcut replied. "How could a superior individual like you be drunk? People around here who get drunk are the dregs of society, illiterates, uncouth people. Highbrow folks, those of the 'spring snow,' cannot get drunk. You're a highbrow, therefore you cannot be drunk.””

Mo Yan book The Republic of Wine

Source: The Republic of Wine (1992), Chapter I, Section 1

People, Spring

“So, Kent Hovind gets out of prison and every atheist wants a piece of him. I understand that; I hate liars, I hate anyone who deceives even little old ladies and especially other people's children. So, of course I'd love to have the opportunity to get into it with Mister (not Doctor) Kent Hovind, as would every other atheist activist with a passion for science and a concern for truth. Understand though that this charlatan is every kind of fraud. He just wants to reestablish his racket. His schtick is to pretend to be more important than he is; we all know that his thesis was just as bogus as the PHD that he bought from a mail order catalog for about $100, he also claims to have taught high school science for about 15 years, hoping that folks will think that he has some verifiable connection to a high school somewhere (an actual school), but what I suspect is really the case is he may have preached to homeschooled kids at his house (which he used as a church sometimes). I can understand Atheist Podcast wanting to have this guy on to take him to task, but remember, he is a conman, a professional fraud. In his mind, he gains merit and financial supporters as a result of being "oppressed in the face of adversity", so go ahead and have him on, but only as a sideshow freak, someone to gawk at; show him the contempt he deserves. Don't treat him like an opponent, as if he had something to bring to the table.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Debating Dr Dunno https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKw8K7o-vwY (August 4, 2015)

Love, Hate, Children, People

“France isn't France anymore. We're not going. And so many people are saying that. Look at what's going on with Germany. Look at what's happening with Germany. Look at the crime; look at the problems. We have enough problems in our country right now. We don't need additional problems, folks. We don't need additional problems. And for all we know, this could be the great Trojan Horse. This could be. We don't know who these people are. … We have to get smart, folks. We don't need the problems — and we've already got those problems, just so you understand. Because they're coming into the country, they're being put where nobody even knows where they are. It's like, if I were the enemy, I would say, I can't believe they're that stupid. They're taking my people and they're putting them all over the place, because you have great military right here.”

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

2010s, 2016, August, Speech at rally in Wilmington, North Carolina (August 9, 2016)

People, Stupidity, Understanding, Problem

“It was a rather beggarly set of authorities that reinstated the charges against Christ's tenant two days later at that dreary place, Þingvellir by Öxará. Even the Danish proxy's booth was a shambles, as if the royal power no longer gave any thought to protecting its image of authoritarian splendor against Iceland's storms of wind and rain, which were so inseparable from its folk, crooked and frostbitten pieces of timberwood in the shape of humans. Iceland's weather was a mill that left nothing unpulverized but for the country's basalt peaks. It uprooted and demolished all human works, wiping away not only their color but also their form... The high court was convened in the dilapidated cottage that had once been called a courthouse. Its roof had been torn off, giving wind and rain free range throughout the hall. Mire that had run from the turf walls onto the rotten floorplanks hadn't been mucked out. Inward along the floorboards hobbled Jón Hreggviðsson from Rein, gray-haired, groaning, and puffing.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part III: Fire in Copenhagen

Color, Christ, Weather, Country

“[Lloyd George] talked of Gladstone, and how he [Lloyd George] had attacked him in his very early days in the House of Commons on the Clergy Discipline Bill…. When [Lloyd George] went down to Wales afterwards, & the more proper folk reproached him for his attack on Gladstone, he said: 'I give you the same reply that Cromwell gave, "If I meet the King in battle, I will fire my pistol at him".' [Lloyd George] says that he thinks Gladstone as a Churchman had a fundamental dislike for Dissenters…. 'I admire him, but I never liked him', is [Lloyd George]'s qualifying comment always.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Frances Stevenson's diary entry (16 November 1934), A. J. P. Taylor (ed.), Lloyd George: A Diary (London: Hutchinson, 1971), p. 291
Post-Prime Ministerial

Thinking, Housing

“The Soviet Union does not allow any church of any kind to interfere with education, and religion is not taught in public schools. It seems to me that this is the greatest gift of the Russian Revolution to the modern world. Most educated modern men no longer believe in religious dogma. If questioned they will usually resort to double-talk before admitting the fact. But who today actually believes that this world is ruled and directed by a benevolent person of great power who, on humble appeal, will change the course of events at our request? Who believes in miracles? Many folk follow religious ceremonies and services and allow their children to learn fairy tales and so-called religious truth, which in time the children come to recognize as conventional lies told by their parents and teachers for the children's good. One can hardly exaggerate the moral disaster of the custom. We have to thank the Soviet Union for the courage to stop it.”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

The Autobiography of W.E. Burghardt Du Bois (1968), Ch. IV : The Soviet Union; he later states in Ch. XVI : My Character: "I think the greatest gift of the Soviet Union to modern civilization was the dethronement of the clergy and the refusal to let religion be taught in the public schools."

Men, Children, Truth, World

“The whole trouble with a folk song is that once you have played it through there is nothing much you can do except play it over again and play it rather louder. Most Russian music, indeed, consists in ringing changes on this device, skilfully disguised though the fact may be.”

Constant Lambert (1905–1951) British composer and conductor

"The Conflict Between Nationalism and Form", p. 146.
Music, Ho! (1934)

Music, Change

“[S]o-called gay folks would just as soon kill you as look at you.”

Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) American evangelical pastor, televangelist, and conservative political commentator

Rally in Miami (1977), quoted in [2007-05-19, The Legacy of Falwell's Bully Pulpit, Hans Johnson, William Eskridge, The Washington Post, 0190-8286, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/18/AR2007051801392.html]

“This has been going if it's not going to happen anymore, folks. We're going to bring businesses back. We're going to have businesses that used to be in New Hampshire, that are now in Mexico, come back to New Hampshire and you can tell them to go f--- themselves…because they let you down, and they left. We want the businesses that stay. I know a lot of businesses up here and I knew a lot of businesses up here. These are great people, they could've left and they wanna stay. They willing to stay, they're fighting to stay. It's hard. With a highest tax nation in the entire world. It's hard for them to stay and they stay. Those are the people we have to cherish and love. These are the people that are great.”

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

At a rally in New Hampshire. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/18/priorities-usa-action/priorities-usa-donald-trump-women-ad/ (4 February 2016) 2010s, 2016, February

Love, People, World, Business

“For average working folks, America was becoming a puzzle. Who was buying all these two-hundred-dollar copper saucepans, anyway? And how was everyone paying for these BMWs? Were people shrewd or just stupefyingly irresponsible?”

Daniel Suarez Daemon

Source: Daemon (2006), Chapter 2: Rogue Process

People

“I note that the Python folks still think they like JPython. I wonder how long that will last?”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[199808050009.RAA22631@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

Thinking

“One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Tales of a Wayside Inn

Pt. I, The Landlord's Tale: Paul Revere's Ride, st. 2.
Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863-1874)

Sea, Country

“One of the main reasons American liberals adore Europe is that Europe still worships its intellectuals. In America, intellectuals are mostly for entertainment. But across the pond, these folks get to do real damage. Why, just this spring a small Italian village had its barbershop cited by the local magistrate because its shaving brushes did not conform to the standard set by the European Union. I am not making this up.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

June 13, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20010105/www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldbergprint061301.html 2000s, 2001

Spring

“Your pa had seven years at sea, mostly in foreign parts.
You’ve heard him talk. He’s got a way about him, a way with words. He can make the temple bells tinkle for you, and you can just hear them big old elephants shuff-shuffling along, the priests callin’ folks to prayer and the like.
Your pa learned a sight of things most folks never even hear of. I’ve seen scholars back off an’ look at your pa, amazed.
You take these Injuns, now. You look at the way they live and you’ll say they don’t amount to much, but what are they thinkin’? What do they know? What memories do they have? They want different things, boy, and they consider different things important. Many a thing we’d give anything to know, they just take for granted.
Some of these Injuns, maybe all of them, they’re in tune with something. I don’t know what. But some of them have lost touch with it, and others are losin’ touch. Goin’ the white folks’ way might seem the likely thing to do, but maybe they lose as much as they gain.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Lonesome Gods (1983), Ch. 11

Way, Boy, Learning, Memory

“And the National Bank at a profit sells road maps for the soul
To the old folks home and the college”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Tombstone Blues

Home, Soul

“I own the whole world, and folks haven’t been keeping up too well on the payments.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son (1987), Chapter 15.

World

“We are all in the habit of censuring the great, as if we were popular playwrights, when in fact ordinary folk are quite as devious and as willful and as desperate to survive (if not prevail) as are thee great; particularly philosophers.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 11

“Swanee!
How I love you, how I love you,
My dear ol' Swanee!
I'd give the world to be
Among the folks in
D-I-X-I-E”

Irving Caesar (1895–1996) American composer and lyricist

"Swanee" (1919).

Love, World

“An important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men. And I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are all men." They said, "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications." And I said, "Well, gosh, can't we find some women that are also qualified?" And so we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Second Presidential Debate, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, , quoted in
2012

Women, Men, People, Effort

“I'm a '60s troubadour, a folk-rock relic, a wordsmith from bygone days, a fictitious head of state from a place nobody knows. I'm in the bottomless pit of cultural oblivion.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Source: Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p. 147

“In reality, no one had meant anything by talking to the parish pauper, none of them cared at all, no one even thought of carrying him downstairs to let him see the wedding like other folk; he was not allowed to see the wedding that he himself had brought about with his poetic talent—such is the lot of poets.</b”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

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

Reality, Wedding

“Told, during the days of segregation in the US, that he couldn't be served as he was trying to take breakfast at a restaurant "for colored folk", he insisted: "But we are colored, my dear. We are pink."”

Pierre Monteux (1875–1964) French conductor

From Monteux, Fifi (1962). Everyone is Someone. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy. OCLC 602036672, pp. 13–15

Color

“Let's remember one thing, folks, while we go forward. Not one Republican voted for this bailout. Remember way back in the fall, not one Republican voted for the TARP bailout, and this was why.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

The New McCarthyism
The Rush Limbaugh Show
2009-03-18
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2009/03/18/the_new_mccarthyism, quoted in * Limbaugh falsely claimed 'not one Republican voted for the TARP bailout'
Media Matters for America
2009-03-18
http://mediamatters.org/research/200903180032

Way