Quotes about happening
page 23

“What you are about to read is not an aberration: it can happen in your local university too. The Big U, simply, was a few years ahead of the rest.”

Neal Stephenson book The Big U

"The Go Big Red Fan" (prologue)
The Big U (1984)

Universe, Reading

“I hate analyzing stuff. I do the bare minimum. When it comes to interpretation, I just play it and go from there. I think emotion is everything. When you get the notes, you've just scratched the surface. The best things happen spontaneously, on stage. I'm doing three concerts here; I guarantee that none of them will be the same. We're not machines.”

Sarah Chang (1980) violinist

JS online 1999 http://www2.jsonline.com/enter/performingarts/strini/jun99/chang03060299.asp

Hate, Thinking

“Something happened when I got pregnant, and I'm not able to listen to that kind of music as much. I feel like I'm going nuts when I listen to it. I used to listen to Dead Kennedys, Circle Jerks, PiL, Butthole Surfers. But today, I can't. I love Alanis Morissette, Emmylou Harris' latest album, and all sorts of jazz and blues. If I want to hear something heavy duty, I'll put on the Foo Fighters or a good rocking Rolling Stones song. But that's as intense as I've got.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

David Wild, Rolling Stone "X-Files Undercover" http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/x-files-undercover-19960516 (May 16, 1996) 1990s

Love, Music, Jerk, Feeling

“It's not like people don't know that horrible things are happening. But at the same time, because so many horrible things are happening, it can feel exhausting and insurmountable. … That can make you feel like there's nothing we can do--that the people in charge are all powerful. But at the same time, people don't forget the experience of struggle--and that there are victories along the way, amid the defeats. … There are some victories even amid the setbacks.”

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (1950) American academic and author

The fight against racism doesn't stop here (2013)

People, Way, Feeling, Time

“Today, the Panzer-like Bush machine controls all three branches of our federal government, the first time that has happened since Calvin Coolidge was in the White House. And that makes it just about impossible to mount any kind of Congressional investigation of a firmly-entrenched president like George Bush. The time has come to get deeply into football. It is the only thing we have left that ain't fixed.”

Hunter S. Thompson book Hey Rube

"The pain of losing" Hey Rube, HST's ESPN column (9 November 2004) http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=thompson/041109 2000s

Time, Football, Housing

“What people do isn't determined by where they live. It happens to be their damned fault. They decided to watch TV instead of thinking when they were in high school. They decided to blow-off courses and drink beer instead of reading and trying to learn something. They decided to chicken out and be intolerant bastards instead of being openminded and, finally, they decided to go along with their buddies and do things that were terribly wrong when there was no reason they had to. Anyone who hurts someone else decides to hurt them, goes out of their way to do it…. The fact that it's hard to be a good person doesn't excuse going along and being an asshole. If they can't overcome their own fear of being unusual, it's not my fault, because any idiot ought to be able to see that if he just acts reasonably and makes a point of not hurting others, he'll be happier.”

Neal Stephenson book The Big U

Sarah
The Big U (1984)

People, Fear, School, Way

“The days of ‘Let’s haul this kid in front of the judge, scare him and send him home with a warning’ are long since gone,” says attorney Jay Leiderman. “ Prosecutorial discretion is a great thing if it’s exercised, but it doesn’t happen in any meaningful way these days, because prosecutions are so politicized.”

Jay Leiderman (1971) lawyer

As stated in, Prosecutorial Discretion: Let's Haul That Kid In Front of the Judge to Scare Him- Not. http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/is-former-sacramento-media-employee/content?oid=13239765
Variant: The days of ‘Let’s haul this kid in front of the judge, scare him and send him home with a warning’ are long since gone,” says attorney Jay Leiderman. “ Prosecutorial discretion is a great thing if it’s exercised, but it doesn’t happen in any meaningful way these days, because prosecutions are so politicized.

Way, Exercises, Home

“[re Princess Diana's death] I wondered at the time, what had happened to the moral fibre of the island race - the stiff upper lip, if you like - to make them behave like professional mourners howling for hire. The Prime Minister was proud. I was ashamed.”

George MacDonald Fraser (1925–2008) English-born author of Scottish descent

Dumbing Down, Down, Down... p. 251-252.
The Light's On At Signpost (2002)

Death, Time, Princess

“My husband watched it live online and I was awakened with coffee and the good news. He's my biggest fan and he was really rooting for this to happen.”

Vera Farmiga (1973) American actress

On her Primetime Emmy Award nomination, as quoted in " Vera Farmiga talks about her Emmy nomination, the next season of 'Bates Motel,' and 'The Conjuring 2' http://www.ew.com/article/2013/07/18/vera-farmiga-emmy-bates-motel-conjuring" by Clark Collis at Entertainment Weekly (July 18, 2013)

Coffee

“"Why!" said Huxter, suddenly, "that's not a man at all. It's just empty clothes. Look! You can see down his collar and the linings of his clothes. I could put my arm—"He extended his hand; it seemed to meet something in mid-air, and he drew it back with a sharp exclamation. "I wish you'd keep your fingers out of my eye," said the aerial voice, in a tone of savage expostulation. "The fact is, I'm all here: head, hands, legs, and all the rest of it, but it happens I'm invisible. It's a confounded nuisance, but I am. That's no reason why I should be poked to pieces by every stupid bumpkin in Iping, is it?"”

H. G. Wells book The Invisible Man

Source: The Invisible Man (1897), Chapter 7: The Unveiling of the Stranger

Stupidity, Clothes

“We who live abroad are accustomed to believe that almost all Eretz Yisrael is now uninhabited desert and whoever wishes can buy land there as he pleases. But this is not true. It is very difficult to find in the land [ha'aretz] cultivated fields that are not used for planting. Only those sand fields or stone mountains that would require the investment of hard labor and great expense to make them good for planting remain uncultivated and that's because the Arabs do not like working too much in the present for a distant future. Therefore, it is very difficult to find good land for cattle. And not only peasants, but also rich landowners, are not selling good land so easily…We who live abroad are accustomed to believing that the Arabs are all wild desert people who, like donkeys, neither see nor understand what is happening around them. But this is a grave mistake. The Arab, like all the Semites, is sharp minded and shrewd. All the townships of Syria and Eretz Yisrael are full of Arab merchants who know how to exploit the masses and keep track of everyone with whom they deal – the same as in Europe. The Arabs, especially the urban elite, see and understand what we are doing and what we wish to do on the land, but they keep quiet and pretend not to notice anything. For now, they do not consider our actions as presenting a future danger to them. … But, if the time comes that our people's life in Eretz Yisrael will develop to a point where we are taking their place, either slightly or significantly, the natives are not going to just step aside so easily.”

Ahad Ha'am (1856–1927) Hebrew essayist and thinker

Source: Wrestling with Zion, pp. 14-15.

Life, People, Mountain, Understanding

“You said the war would pay for itself in fruit baskets. You said that our soldiers would march in the streets of Havana and people would shower them with bananas and cigars. That didn’t happen. Would you like to look into the camera and apologize to the American people?”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

One of his questions to President Theodore Roosevelt in his series Better Know A President on The Colbert Report http://www.nofactzone.net/?p=1788 (17 May 2006)

War, People

“The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they mean something somewhere else. Somewhere else retribution will come on the real offender. Here it often seems to fall on the wrong person.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Innocence of Father Brown

The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) The Sins of Prince Saradine
The Father Brown Mystery Series (1910 - 1927)

Personality

“Well, method is, it seems to me, a natural growth out of a need, and from a need the modern artist has found new ways of expressing the world about him. I happen to find ways that are different from the usual techniques, which seems a little strange at the moment, but I don't think there's anything very different about it. I paint on the floor and this isn't unusual – the Orientals did that.”

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) American artist

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, pp. 142-143

World, Way, Nature, Thinking

“If you think back, my comments were very open to interpretation. And you happen to be easily misled. As for the queen, who is difficult to lead anywhere… I have always been and intend to be entirely straightforward.”

Suzanne Collins The Underland Chronicles

Ripred, p. 247
The Underland Chronicles, Gregor and the Marks of Secret (2006)

Thinking

“Everyone with any experience of life is aware of the extent to which the characters of people he has known have been given their particular forms by the sufferings through which they have passed. But it is not simply what has happened to them that has defined them; their responses to what has happened to them have been of even greater importance, and these responses have been shaped by their interpretations of what they suffered.”

H. Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) American theologian

Source: The Responsible Self: An Essay in Christian Moral Philosophy (1963), pp. 60-61

Life, People, Suffering

“The absent no longer entered our thoughts. One spoke of them who knows what happened to them? but their fate was not on our minds. We were incapable of thinking. Our senses were numbed, everything was fading into a fog. We no longer clung to anything. The instincts of self-preservation, of self-defense, of pride, had all deserted us. In one terrifying moment of lucidity, I thought of us as damned souls wandering through the void, souls condemned to wander through space until the end of time, seeking redemption, seeking oblivion, without any hope of finding either.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Night (1960)

Fate, Hope, Soul, Thinking

“Nobody supports what happened last Saturday in London. But what about stopping it happening? As long as we are in Ireland, people will be letting off bombs in London. I can see that we are a colonial power holding down a colony. For the rest of the time violence will recur again and again as long as we are in Ireland. People in Northern Ireland see themselves as subject peoples. If they were just criminals or psychopaths they could be crushed. But they have a motive force which they think is good.”

Ken Livingstone (1945) Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008

Referring to the IRA's Chelsea Barracks bomb of 10 October 1981, in a speech to the Cambridge University Tory Reform Group (12 October 1981), quoted in The Times (13 October 1981).

People, Motivation, Support, Thinking

“In Deutsch's view, to say that a social system is in equilibrium implies that: 1) it will return to a particular state when disturbed; 2) the disturbance is coming from outside the system; 3) the greater the disturbance the greater the force with which the system will return to its original state; 4) the speed of the system's reaction to disturbance is somehow less relevant — a sort of friction, or blemish having no place in the "ideal" equilibrium; 5) no catastrophe can happen within the system.”

Walter F. Buckley (1922–2006) American sociologist

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 56.

Speed

“In the next five years, molecular Darwinism—the idea that Darwinian processes can produce complex molecular structures at the subcellular level—will be dead. When that happens, evolutionary biology will experience a crisis of confidence because evolutionary biology hinges on the evolution of the right molecules. I therefore foresee a Taliban-style collapse of Darwinism in the next ten years. Intelligent design will of course profit greatly from this.”

William A. Dembski (1960) American intelligent design advocate

" Measure of Design: A Conversation About the Past, Present & Future of Darwinism & Design http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=17-06-060-i#ixzz2elFILC9O|The" Touchstone, volume 17, issue 6, pages 60-65, at page 64 (July/August 2004). 2000s

Confidence, Intelligence, Idea, Dead

“Now the Soviet Union has been faced with one disaster after another that they will not admit to the world that these have happened nor to themselves. They will not face up to their growing internal collapse realistically. And if it were not for us propping them up, they would collapse.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Decadence and the New Age (March 10, 1989)

World

“Burt: Do you care even about the Holocaust or do you think it never happened?Harry: Not only do I know that we lost six million, but the scary thing is that records are made to be broken.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Deconstructing Harry (1997)

Thinking

“The dynamics of the city. His mother had been scared of cities. It had been part of his education. She had told him cities are dangerous places. They're full of tough, scary guys. He was a tough boy himself but he had walked around as a teenager ready and willing to believe her. And he had seen that she was right. People on city streets were fearful and furtive and defensive. They kept their distance and crossed to the opposite sidewalk to avoid coming near him. They made it so obvious he became convinced the scary guys were always right behind him, at his shoulder. Then he suddenly realized no, I'm the scary guy. They're scared of me. It was a revelation. He saw himself reflected in store windows and understood how it could happen. He had stopped growing at fifteen when he was already six feet five and two hundred and twenty pounds. A giant. Like most teenagers in those days he was dressed like a bum. The caution his mother had drummed into him was showing up in his face as a blank-eyed, impassive stare. They're scared of me. It amused him and he smiled and then people stayed even farther away. From that point onward he knew cities were just the same as every other place, and for every city person he needed to be scared of there were nine hundred and ninety-nine others a lot more scared of him. He used the knowledge like a tactic, and the calm confidence it put in his walk and his gaze redoubled the effect he had on people. The dynamics of the city.”

Lee Child book Running Blind

Source: Running Blind (2000), Ch. 1.

People, Education, Fear, Smile

“They should just call it The Bad News. The bloodiest, most disgusting things that happened today packed into a half an hour, right before you go to bed. You thought you were scared before…”

Richard Jeni (1957–2007) American comedian

Platypus Man

“Accidents will happen
We only hit and run
He used to be your victim
Now you're not the only one.Accidents will happen
We only hit and run
I don't want to hear it
'Cause I know what I've done.”

Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter

Accidents Will Happen
Song lyrics, Armed Forces (1979)

“You used to be alright
What happened?”

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

15 Step
Lyrics, In Rainbows (2007)

“…The greater the love, the greater the tragedy when it's over. Those two elements always go together. … The best we can hope for in life is that it doesn't happen for a long, long time.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Adrienne Willis, Chapter 14, p. 152
2000s, Nights in Rodanthe (2002)

Love, Life, Hope, Time

“I've always been careful never to predict anything that had not already happened.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Interview: Tom Wolfe, TVOntario, August 1970
1970s

“That's what happened in our career. He never let me fall. In 1983, when I wanted to leave everything behind, it was Kamal Haasan who cajoled me back to the material world.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

In "I'd do anything Rajni asks me to: Kamal Haasan (14 December 2011)"

World

“I tour a bit in America and a lot in Europe, Holland especially, where they have this forward-looking music scene because they got through the barriers 15 years ago. They gobble up the things I do. I go to the Far East - I like working with the orchestra in Singapore - but my favourite places tend to be the ones where it's more than turning up and doing a big concert. Next month I go to the Sydney Festival, where I've persuaded them to do the Lou Harrison concerto. As penance, though I don't mind it, I have to play the Gershwin concerto in the first half. And I hope to return year after year to South Africa, where I've been with the National Symphony Orchestra into Soweto. Education work is being done there for the first time. Previously they had never bothered to find new audiences, and now they are staring into an abyss which we may face too. Events there are a fast-forward version of what could happen here.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

The Times, 15/12/1998
Musician's life

Education, Hope, Music, Time

“Those who expect from a people like the Hindus a species of composition of precisely the same character as the historical works of Greece and Rome commit the very gregarious error of overlooking the peculiarities which distinguish the natives of India from all other races, and which strongly discriminate their intellectual productions of every kind from those of the West. Their philosophy, their poetry, their architecture, are marked with traits of originality; and the same may be expected to pervade their history, which, like the arts enumerated, took a character from its intimate association with the religion of the people. It must be recollected, moreover,… that the chronicles of all the polished nations of Europe, were, at a much more recent date, as crude, as wild, and as barren, as those of the early Rajputs.” … “My own animadversions upon the defective condition of the annals of Rajwarra have more than once been checked by a very just remark: ‘When our princes were in exile, driven from hold to hold, and compelled to dwell in the clefts of the mountains, often doubtful whether they would not be forced to abandon the very meal preparing for them, was that a time to think of historical records?’ ”… “If we consider the political changes and convulsions which have happened in Hindustan since Mahmood’s invasion, and the intolerant bigotry of many of his successors, we shall be able to account for the paucity of its national works on history, without being driven to the improbable conclusion, that the Hindus were ignorant of an art which has been cultivated in other countries from almost the earliest ages. Is it to be imagined that a nation so highly civilized as the Hindus, amongst whom the exact sciences flourished in perfection, by whom the fine arts, architecture, sculpture, poetry, music, were not only cultivated, but taught and defined by the nicest and most elaborate rules, were totally unacquainted with the simple art of recording the events of their history, the character of their princes and the acts of their reigns?”

James Tod (1782–1835) 1782-1835, English officer of the British East India Company and an Oriental scholar

[The fact appears to be that] “After eight centuries of galling subjection to conquerors totally ignorant of the classical language of the Hindus; after every capital city had been repeatedly stormed and sacked by barbarous, bigoted, and exasperated foes; it is too much to expect that the literature of the country should not have sustained, in common with other interests, irretrievable losses.”
James Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, Routledge and Kegan Paul (London,l829,1957), 2 vols., I quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3

People, Age, Religion, Art

“All these things have happened in our history, and we need to talk about them. What kind of country are we that our history is so tragic?”

Yuan Tengfei (1972) history teacher in Beijing, China

Reported in Didi Kirsten Tatlow, "A System Afraid of Its Own History", The New York Times (September 16, 2010).

History, Country

“My view is that you don't just talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies, as well. And the diplomacy involves talking to your enemies. You don't reward your enemies necessarily, by talking to them if you're tough and you know what you're doing. You don't appease them. Talking to an enemy is not, in my view, appeasement. I made 15 trips to Syria in 1990-1991 at a time when Syria was on the list of countries who are state sponsors of terrorism. And the 16th trip, guess what? Lo and behold, Syria changed 25 years of policy and agreed for the first time in history to come sit at the table with Israel, which is what Israel wanted at the time. And, thereby, implicitly recognized Israel's right to exist. Now, all I'm saying is that would never have happened if we hadn't been sufficiently dedicated that we were going to keep at it.”

James Baker (1930) Former U.S. Secretary of State

On the October 5, 2006 edition of the Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,218260,00.html. 2000s

History, Change, Time, Country

“Human beings are lazy and it very often happens that one wearies of a new-born emotion for no valid reason unless there is some restraint to stimulate and stabilize it.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship

“Today, we are seeing hundreds of years of scientific discovery being challenged by people who simply disregard facts that don’t happen to agree with their agendas. Some call it "pseudo-science," others call it "faith-based science," but when you notice where this negligence tends to take place, you might as well call it "political science."”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://www.mikebloomberg.com/en/news/mayor_michael_bloombergs_address_to_graduates_of_johns_hopkins_university_school_of_medicine
Faith Based Science

People, Faith, Science

“I would summarize the Keynesian view in terms of four points:1. Economies sometimes produce much less than they could, and employ many fewer workers than they should, because there just isn’t enough spending. Such episodes can happen for a variety of reasons; the question is how to respond.
2. There are normally forces that tend to push the economy back toward full employment. But they work slowly; a hands-off policy toward depressed economies means accepting a long, unnecessary period of pain.
3. It is often possible to drastically shorten this period of pain and greatly reduce the human and financial losses by “printing money”, using the central bank’s power of currency creation to push interest rates down.
4. Sometimes, however, monetary policy loses its effectiveness, especially when rates are close to zero. In that case temporary deficit spending can provide a useful boost. And conversely, fiscal austerity in a depressed economy imposes large economic losses.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Keynesianism Explained http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/15/keynesianism-explained (September 15, 2015) The Conscience of a Liberal blog

Money, Pain, Question, Loss

“What would happen is that people like Geroge and Alyx would grow old and die chasing a dream. Although there were probably worse things to do with one’s life.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Chindi (2002), Chapter 12 (p. 165)

Life, People, Dreams

“If children have interests then education happens.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

As quoted in Ted Talk "The child-driven education" http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html by Sugata Mitra (2012) 2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

Children, Education

“Happy the man with a book-length grievance — and rare. Each of these books contains one possible magazine article surrounded by more padding than an offensive lineman: every little indignity that ever happened to them, and every two-bit feud, magnified to a Horrible Example to justify a larger printing.”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

"Unnecessary Roughness" (1971), p. 150
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)

Books, Happiness

“The answers from Genesis tell us that there was no death, bloodshed, disease, or suffering before sin. All these things are a consequence of sin. That's why Christians can't believe in millions of years for the fossil record - it's a horrible record of death, disease, and suffering, which couldn't have happened in the Garden before Adam fell.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Did Adam have a Bellybutton?: And other tough questions about the Bible (2000)

Death, Disease, Suffering

“For people like us it is necessary to be a bit stronger, more self-critical, more observant than the usual run. Whether we happen to come already enhanced with these qualities, as some have claimed, or whether our situation invests them in us, we have traditionally - and we do have a long and proud tradition - been a little finer, a little firmer, more sensitive and flexible than others… There will be times when only your own spine can support you, moments when only your own wit can inspire you, days when nothing but exacting self-control can raise you from bed, nights when nothing but your word can impel you into society. But of all these disciplines, there is nothing you must hold to more sternly than to be kind and sympathetic. The easiest armor to put on is always cruelty. That armor will, indeed, see you through everything. Vicious condescension toward those without your strength can make you feel momentarily superior. But that easy armor must be forgone. Don't ever curdle that creamy brow with lines of easy disdain, or curl those lips with a popular sneer. Of all the models available, the one of gentleman in our late war is most succinct: Face what you have to face with humor, dignity, and style; protect yourself with knightly grace; have contempt for your own weakness and never encourage it in others; but never, Ralph, never for an instant permit yourself to feel anything other than pity and deepest sympathy for unfortunate comrades who have, after all, fallen in the same battle.”

Robert Patrick (playwright) (1937) Playwright, poet, lyricist, short story writer, novelist

One of Those People
Untold Decades: Seven Comedies of Gay Romance (1988)

War, People, Feeling, Support

“Think well about this, dear brothers and sisters, and you will see that we should have been in a state of terrible chaos, in a fratricidal war, in a country which would no longer be Yugoslavia, but be only a group of petty little states fighting among themselves and destroying each other. But our people do not want that to happen.”

Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman

Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994), p. 263.
Other

War, People, Thinking, Sister

“It is time to reassess what has happened in the 20th century, and to look at it with a longer lens.”

Mixmaster Morris (1965) English ambient DJ

Modulations: A history of electronic music

Time

“Host: In a nutshell, is what happened Islamic or un-Islamic?
Qaradhawi: The truth is that what happened is a reaction to these barbaric acts (in Abu Ghureib prison)…I say that the general atmosphere affects behavior… Even though Islam states that prisoners should be treated decently, there are those who allow killing a prisoner in certain circumstances.”

Yusuf Qaradawi (1926) Egyptian imam

Sheikh Dr. Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi about the Murder of American Citizen, Nick Berg http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/82.htm May 2004. Murder of Nick Berg

Truth, Behavior

“But sometimes things happen that no one hopes for. Events that cause everything you've worked towards, the life you've carefully constructed piece by piece, to come tumbling down all around you. No one is to blame, but you're left with a wound you can't heal on your own and can't believe you'll ever learn to accept, so you struggle to escape the pain. Only time can heal wounds as deep as that - a lot of time - and all you can really do is place yourself in its hands and try to consider the passing of each day a victory. You tough it out moment by moment, hour by hour, and after some weeks or months you begin to see signs of recovery. Slowly the wound heals into a scar.”

Ryū Murakami book Audition

Source: Audition (1997), Chapter Three

Life, Pain, Hope, Learning

“Religion’s preferred punishment is almost always death, regardless of the crime. But the death penalty is a statistical failure just like all their proposed solutions to other problems always are. Here in the US, the states that still have the death penalty also have the highest murder rates; its a negative correlation. The problem there is one of society, the conditions imposed and the types of responses that are culturally coaxed. When murder happens, and that person is caught and tried, we should remove them as a threat, and whether they are imprisoned, institutionalized, or what have you should be determined by the particulars in each case.”

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

Patheos, How is secular humanist governance better than theocracy? http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2013/09/07/how-is-secular-humanist-governance-better-than-theocracy/ (September 7, 2013)

Death, Religion, Penalty, Failure

“We know that the enemies of our civilization and of Arab-Muslim civilization have emerged from what is actually a root cause. The root cause is the political slum of client states from Saudi Arabia through Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere, that has been allowed to dominate the region under U. S. patronage, and uses people and resources as if they were a gas station with a few flyblown attendants. To the extent that this policy, this mentality, has now changed in the administration, to the extent that their review of that is sincere and the conclusions that they draw from it are sincere, I think that should be welcomed. It's a big improvement to be intervening in Iraq against Saddam Hussein instead of in his favor. I think it makes a nice change. It's a regime change for us too. Now I'll state what I think is gonna happen. I've been in London and Washington a lot lately and all I can tell you is that the spokesmen for Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush walk around with a look of extraordinary confidence on their faces, as if they know something that when disclosed, will dissolve the doubts, the informational doubts at any rate, of people who wonder if there is enough evidence. [Mark Danner: It's amazing they've been able to keep it to themselves for so long. ] I simply say, I have two reasons for confidence. I know perfectly well that there are many people who would not be persuaded by this evidence even if it was dumped on their own doorstep, because the same people, many of the same people, didn't believe that it was worth fighting in Afghanistan even though the connection between the Taliban and Al Qaeda was as clear as could possibly be. So I know that. There's a strong faction of the so-called peace movement that is immune to evidence and also incapable of self criticism, of imagining what these countries would be like if the advice of the peaceniks has been followed. I also made some inquiries of my own, and I think I know what some of these disclosures will be. But, as a matter of fact I think we know enough. And what will happen will be this: The President will give an order, there will then occur in Iraq a show of military force like nothing probably the world has ever seen. It will be rapid and accurate and overwhelming enough to deal with an army or a country many times the size of Iraq, even if that country possessed what Iraq does not, armed forces in the command structure willing to obey and be the last to die for the supreme leader. And that will be greeted by the majority of Iraqi people and Kurdish people as a moment of emancipation, which will be a pleasure to see, and then the hard work of the reconstitution of Iraqi society and the repayment of our debt — some part of our debt to them — can begin. And I say, bring it on.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"How Should We Use Our Power: A Debate on Iraq" http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/03/03-01hitchensdanner-qa.html with Mark Danner at UC Berkeley (2003-01-28}: On the 2003 invasion of Iraq 2000s, 2003

People, Pleasure, World, Peace

“It just happens to be very important to me to win with the hand I was dealt.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Brothers in Arms (1989)

“The primary challenge of this cosmological transformation of consciousness is the awareness that each being in the universe is an origin of the universe. "The center of the cosmos" refers to that place where the great birth of the universe happened at the beginning of time, but it also refers to the upwelling of the universe as river, as star, as raven, as you, the universe surging into existence anew. The consciousness that learns it is at the origin point of the universe is itself an origin of the universe. The awareness that bubbles up each moment that we identify as ourselves is rooted in the originating activity of the universe. We are all of us arising together at the center of the cosmos.”

Brian Swimme (1950) American cosmologist

The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos (1996)

Star, Birth, Learning, Universe

“I had wanted to go after her, to explain my part in what had happened. But I knew it would do no good, so why lose face? When a fairy tale blows up and the dream dust settles and you find yourself standing there, knowing that the last line will never be written, why not omit any exercises in futility?”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 8 (p. 187)

Dreams, Exercises, Parting

“Remember Marxism? It used to be a sour sort of fun to tease Marxists about the contradictions in some of their pet ideas. The revolution of the proletariat was inevitable, good Marxists believed, but if so, why were they so eager to enlist us in their cause? If it was going to happen anyway, it was going to happen with or without our help. But of course the inevitability that Marxists believe in is one that depends on the growth of the movement and all its political action. There were Marxists working very hard to bring about the revolution, and it was comforting to them to believe that their success was guaranteed in the long run. And some of them, the only ones that were really dangerous, believed so firmly in the rightness of their cause that they believed it was permissible to lie and deceive in order to further it. They even taught this to their children, from infancy. These are the "red-diaper babies," children of hardline members of the Communist Party of America, and some of them can still be found infecting the atmosphere of political action in left-wing circles, to the extreme frustration and annoyance of honest socialists and others on the left.Today we have a similar phenomenon brewing on the religious right: the inevitability of the End Days, or the Rapture, the coming Armageddon that will separate the blessed from the damned in the final day of Judgment. Cults and prophets proclaiming the imminent end of the world have been with us for several millennia, and it has been another sour sort of fun to ridicule them the morning after, when they discover that their calculations were a little off. But, just as with the Marxists, there are some among them who are working hard to "hasten the inevitable," not merely anticipating the End Days with joy in their hearts, but taking political action to bring about the conditions they think are the prerequisites for that occasion. And these people are not funny at all. They are dangerous, for the same reason that red-diaper babies are dangerous: they put their allegiance to their creed ahead of their commitment to democracy, to peace, to (earthly) justice — and to truth. If push comes to shove, some of the are prepared to lie and even to kill…”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Children, People, Truth, Lie

“Well, it's been the monopolizing of great wealth, which tends to happen in basically unjust societies and undemocratic societies. We have plenty of would-be democrats, would-be liberals, and would-be progressives. But how do you organize? The Democratic Party is a machine to get votes for its people, none of who should probably be elected to the high offices of state. That's all. The Republican Party is fundamentally crooked and might well be outlawed one of these days. Le Pen, you know, in France, who is an out-and-out fascist, the French have managed in some clever way to contain him. I mean, he's always running for president; his votes never seem to show up. I don't know how they do it, but we've got to do that with the Republican base, the religious right. We don't want them running the country. Nobody does. Certainly not the founding fathers. And I think we have to ride herd on them and make sure they do not seize the state.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

On fascism http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=342 2000s, What I've Learned (2008), Gore Vidal's America (2009)

People, Way, Thinking, Country

“I was the last to know what was happening to me. Or at least I was the last to know that I knew.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Treason (1988)

“What's happening is that 8% of the world's people use 35% of the world's petroleum, and are ready to blow everybody off the map to keep it that way. This is nothing more than a manifestation of junkie psychology on a mass scale. We're addicted, they got it, we're happy to pay for it, but if they won't sell it we'll break into their house and take it, because by god it will go into our right arm. that's the plan.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

History Ends in Green (1983)

God, People, World, Way

“I imagine, there must be only a very, very few men in the world that I should like to marry; and of those few, it is ten to one I may never be acquainted with one; or if I should, it is twenty to one he may not happen to be single, or to take a fancy to me.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XVI : The Warning of Experience; Helen to Mrs. Maxwell

Men, World, Imagination

“The fear of death in the one place was not as strong as another kind of fear, the fear of a world gone crazy, a place where anything could happen, where nothing could be trusted, where nothing was certain. A terrible place.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 4.

Death, World, Fear, Strong

“Yesterday, a funny thing happened to me on my way to the Conclave.”

Pope John Paul I (1912–1978) 263rd Pope of the Catholic Church

Address to the crowd in St Peter's Square (27 August 1978), the day after his election, as quoted in In God's Name (1987) by David Yallop, p. 132

Way

“I use the example of the rainbow and of the phenomena connected with it, of which sort are the circle around the sun and the stars, likewise the rod lying at the side of the sun or of a star which appears to the eye in a straight line… called the rod by Seneca, and the circle is called the corona, which often has the colors of the rainbow. But neither Aristotle nor Avicenna, in their Natural Histories, has given us knowledge of things of this sort, nor has Seneca, who composed a special book on them. But Experimental Science makes certain of them. [The experimenter] considers rowers and he finds the same colors in the falling drops dripping from the raised oars when the solar rays penetrate drops of this sort. It is the same with waters falling from the wheels of a mill; and when a man sees the drops of dew in summer of a morning lying on the grass in the meadow or the field, he will see the colors. And in the same way when it rains, if he stands in a shady place and if the rays beyond it pass through dripping moisture, then the colors will appear in the shadow nearby; and very frequently of a night colors appear around the wax candle. Moreover, if a man in summer, when he rises from sleep and while his eyes are yet only partly opened, looks suddenly toward an aperture through which a ray of the sun enters, he will see colors. And if, while seated beyond the sun, he extend his hat before his eyes, he will see colors; and in the same way if he closes his eye, the same thing happens under the shade of the eyebrow; and again, the same phenomenon occurs through a glass vessel filled with water, placed in the rays of the sun. Or similarly if any one holding water in his mouth sprinkles it vigorously into the rays and stands to the side of the rays; and if rays in the proper position pass through an oil lamp hanging in the air, so that the light falls on the surface of the oil, colors will be produced. And so in an infinite number of ways, as well natural as artificial, colors of this sort appear, as the careful experimenter is able to discover.”

Roger Bacon book Opus Majus

6th part Experimental Science, Ch.2 Tr. Richard McKeon, Selections from Medieval Philosophers Vol.2 Roger Bacon to William of Ockham
Opus Majus, c. 1267

Books, Color, Way, History

“In each of our lives, nobody knows what will be happen--nor be able to predict the circumstances or events of what may or may not occur in our futures. In any case, I make a conscious effort to never forget how very fortunate I truly am.”

Chiaki Mukai (1952) astronaut, medical doctor

Source: Space and I, Chiaki Mukai http://www.globaleducationmagazine.com/space-and-i/

Effort, Future, Forgetting

“There is no mask that temptation cannot wear, and the idea that Satan is purely a logician is an illusion held by not a few naive people. Many a shifty old man sees him as an opponent in an academic argument, but if he does the observer is still at the stage of games and trifles. Sometimes, though not often, the black desire to harm wins out over quicker and less bitter delights. When that happens, evil shows itself for what it truly is, not a way of life, but an attack on life itself.”

Georges Bernanos (1888–1948) French writer

Source: L'imposture (The Impostor), 1927, pp.74–75

Life, People, Way, Game

“There must be other leaps in life - as momentous as the "mirror stage" - that Lacan didn't mention. Some are universal; others, culturally particular. To understand that your parents are human (and not an element of the natural world), that they're separate from you, that they were children once, that they were born and came into the world, is another leap. It's as if you hadn't seen who they were earlier - just as, before you were ten months old, you didn't know it was you in the mirror. This happens when you're sixteen or seventeen. Not long after - maybe a year - you find out your parents will die. It's not as if you haven't encountered death already. But, before now, your precocious mind can't accommodate your parents' death except as an academic nicety - to be dismissed gently as too literary and sentimental. After that day, your parents' dying suddenly becomes simple. It grows clear that you're alone and always have been, though certain convergences start to look miraculous - for instance, between your father, mother, and yourself. Though your parents don't die immediately - what you've had is a realisation, not a premonition - you'll carry around this knowledge for their remaining decades or years. You won't think, looking at them, "You're going to die". It'll be an unspoken fact of existence. Nothing about them will surprise you anymore.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

Friend of My Youth (2017)

Life, Death, Children, World

“Everything seemed to happen when you were looking the other way.”

Pat Cadigan book Synners

Source: Synners (1991), Chapter 22 (p. 238)

Way

“Everything happens for a reason. I really believe it. Just then I needed change and I needed to get away from Sweden for a while. I must say that I am grateful that it happened, because otherwise, had I not [moved to New York City] I would have not been married to this amazing man.”

Princess Madeleine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland (1982) Swedish princess

royalcorrespondent.com interview http://royalcorrespondent.com/2013/07/15/we-really-are-a-team-says-princess-madeleine-in-a-new-interview/

Change

“Here's what I've started thinking: All the wonder of God happens right above our arithmetic and formula. The more I climb outside my pat answers, the more invigorating the view, the more my heart enters into worship.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God, Thinking, Heart

“And what will happen in the morning when the world it gets
So crowded that you can't look out the window in the morning?”

Nick Drake (1948–1974) British singer-songwriter

Hazey Jane II
Song lyrics, Bryter Later (1970)

World

“Terrible things have happened. The de Witts are killed.”
“Is this so terrible? They have been your foes from the moment of your birth, and though out of power would have continued to conspire against you.”
“Sagi, if we must needs kill our opponents then civilization is a chimera. Governments are formed so that men may disagree without murder, and I tell you true, I loathe a mob more than anything.”
“They acted out of love for you.”

Melinda M. Snodgrass (1951) American writer

“That does not comfort me.”
Source: Queen's Gambit Declined (1989), Chapter 15 (p. 195)

Love, Men, Birth

“There’s a lot of people sitting around in rooms discussing how to make it happen as opposed to just, like, doing it — asking: ‘Do you have any 45-year-old-woman friends who you think are really talented who could submit an application to us?’ ‘Do you have any black friends who are great writers who haven’t had a shot.”

Samantha Bee (1969) Canadian comedic actress and author

"Smirking in the Boys’ Room" https://www.thecut.com/2016/01/samantha-bee-full-frontal-c-v-r.html, Rebecca Traister, The Cut, Jan 2016

People, Thinking

“There's something to the idea of the autonomous character. Big chunks of our wetware are devoted to simulating other people, trying to figure out if we are likely to fight or fondle them. It's unsurprising that when you ask your brain to model some other person, it rises to the task. But that's exactly what happens to a reader when you hand your book over to him: he simulates your characters in his head, trying to interpret that character's actions through his own lens.”

Cory Doctorow (1971) Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author

"In Praise of Fanfic" in Locus (May 2007) http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2007/05/cory-doctorow-in-praise-of-fanfic.html

People, Books, Idea, Fight

“A genuinely fundamental and hopeful improvement in "systems" cannot happen without a significant shift in human consciousness.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 1 : Growing Up "Outside", p. 17

Hope

“Here's an awesome tour story: I was playing these two shows last fall in Europe, we played at Reykjavík, and the three or four days we were in Reykjavík happened to be the one and only Sugarcubes reunion show… So it was like, tour of a lifetime.”

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

QRO Magazine interview (2007)

“No, not really. I’m a singer. Listen, I never meant to make money. I never wanted it. I’m a singer, man. When I put out a record called "Be-Bop-A-Lula", my only thought was to just make a living singing. But all of a sudden, I was getting $1500 a night. And you take a 19-year old boy and put him in those circumstances … I had a Cadillac and all. It was a bad scene. It shouldn’t have happened on that first record.”

Gene Vincent (1935–1971) American musician

Money, Boy, Singing, Night

“Quality grouse shooting cannot be evaluated by numbers any more than diamonds can be measured by the pound. It is not a process but a reflection – a reflection in the gunner from the dog he shoots over and the gun he carries, and above all a feedback from the grouse. When these things happen well, looking back at end of day is to be as content as it is given a man to feel. It has been my past, it is my life and my hereafter, like these mountains endless in their splendor.”

George Bird Evans (1906–1998) American writer

An Affair with Grouse (1982)

Life, Dogs, Feeling, Mountain

“Folks always seemed to think that as long as they didn’t know about something bad, it wasn’t happening, so whoever told them actually caused it to be true.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 2 “Squirrel and Moose” (p. 33).

Thinking

“Ghostwritten’s secret agenda is to offer up eight different answers to the question, "Why do things happen?" so it has the right to monkey about with time and history. number9dreams’s secret agenda is to offer eight different answers to the question, "In what space does the mind operate?"”

David Mitchell (1969) English novelist

Interview in Stop Smiling magazine (29 June 2007) http://www.stopsmilingonline.com/story_detail.php?id=841

Secret, History, Question, Time

“You know, all of my life, I've heard that a truly successful person, a really, really successful person and even modestly successful cannot run for public office. Just can't happen. And yet that's the kind of mindset that you need to make this country great again.”

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

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

Life, Success, Personality, Country

“The Decision Theory School : Another approach to management theory, undertaken by a growing and scholarly group, might be referred to as the decision theory school. This group concentrates on rational approach to decision-the selection from among possible alternatives of a course of action or of an idea. The approach of this school may be to deal with the decision itself, or to the persons or organizational group making the decision, or to an analysis of the decision process. Some limit themselves fairly much to the economic rationale of the decision, while others regard anything which happens in an enterprise the subject of their analysis, and still others expand decision theory to cover the psychological and sociological aspect and environment of decisions and decision-makers.”

Harold Koontz (1909–1984)

Source: "The Management Theory Jungle," 1961, p. 180

School, Idea, Decision, Personality

“You can’t explain the votes of places like Clay County as a response to disagreements about trade policy. The only way to make sense of what happened is to see the vote as an expression of, well, identity politics — some combination of white resentment at what voters see as favoritism toward nonwhites (even though it isn’t) and anger on the part of the less educated at liberal elites whom they imagine look down on them.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

The New York Times Columns, The Populism Perplex (November 25, 2016)

Education, Way, Imagination, Sense

“Our mother is coming home and we are so grateful and so thankful that this is happening.”

Yolanda King (1955–2007) American actress

On her mother being released from the hospital (23 September 2005) http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=20050923&id=RgtPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=th8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6922,1920770 2000s

Home

“Q - If your children ever ask you, “why do bad things happen to good people?” what will you tell them?”

Dana Gould (1964) Comedian and comedy writer

Children, People

“Dormers may easily lose, in winter, the credit they gained in summer. …If, however, they are properly made and securely closed in cold weather, this will not happen.”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)

Winter, Summer, Weather

“Modigliani's theory was a powerful searchlight on what was happening… It is the best explanation of what has actually been happening in the great swing of American life since the 1950's.”

Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist

Paul Samuelson in: Louis Uchitelle. " Franco Modigliani, 85, Nobel-Winning Economist, Dies http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/26/obituaries/26MODI.html" in New York Times, September 26, 2003. New millennium

Life

“I will recall once more Russia's most recent history.
Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.
Individual savings were depreciated, and old ideals destroyed. Many institutions were disbanded or reformed carelessly. Terrorist intervention and the Khasavyurt capitulation that followed damaged the country's integrity. Oligarchic groups — possessing absolute control over information channels — served exclusively their own corporate interests. Mass poverty began to be seen as the norm. And all this was happening against the backdrop of a dramatic economic downturn, unstable finances, and the paralysis of the social sphere.
Many thought or seemed to think at the time that our young democracy was not a continuation of Russian statehood, but its ultimate collapse, the prolonged agony of the Soviet system.
But they were mistaken.
That was precisely the period when the significant developments took place in Russia. Our society was generating not only the energy of self-preservation, but also the will for a new and free life.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Kremlin RU, http://kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2005/04/25/2031_type70029type82912_87086.shtml (25 April 2005) 2000 - 2005

Life, Democracy, History, Thinking

“All that happens is as usual and familiar as the rose in spring and the crop in summer.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

IV, 44
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IV

Spring, Summer

“What happened is the music listener has become much more of a connoisseur and a king of his own destiny. You can no longer shove an album down their throats and say, 'Here's 15 songs, four of them are good, you know. Spend 20 dollars on this CD.' It's not going to happen. That's what has taken the music industry down.”

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

thestrippodcast.com (September 9, 2006)
2007, 2008

Music

“I asked a women I was with once, simple question, I asked her 'Have you ever eaten pheasant?' See, it's direct, isn't it?! It's enclosed, it contains everything that needs to be said! And she said a wonderful thing. She said "Erm…"—she thought about it—and she said "Er, not really." What does that mean? On any level? I mean, did you suck it and throw it away? Did someone drop it in your drink? What happened? Was it a speeding car, one lick? WHAT, WHAT?!?!”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On women.
Monster (2004)

Women, Cars, Drink, Question

“The picture is still there and what's more, if you go there — you who never was there — if you go there and stand in the place where it was, it will happen again; it will be there for you, waiting for you. So, Denver, you can't never go there. Never. Because even though it's all over — over and done with — it's going to always be there waiting for you.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved (1987), Ch. 3

Waiting

“You ever see tape of the Kehoe brothers from Ohio, those two guys that get out of that white Suburban, it's been on Cops a few times? Those guys, folks, have a shootout with the police, at point… blank… range—nobody gets hurt. I would love to have been at that office the next day when that guy's being interviewed by the police. "And then what happened?" "Well, at that point, I unloaded my semi-automatic 9 millimeter weapon at point blank range." "And then what happened?" "They… left." Nice shooting, Elmer Fudd. There was a kid in Detroit a few years ago, shot 8 bullets, hit 9 people. These cops fired 22 shots, didn't even hit the fuckin' Suburban!”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

They Call Me Tater Salad

Love, People, Guy, Time

“With the main perpetrators of the 2000 coup around anything disastrous can happen. These people are the root of the coup culture and once they are put away this country can move forward.”

Maciu Navakasuasua Fijian political organizer

Source: "Interview, 11 January 2006", Fiji Sun http://www.sun.com.fj, 11 January 2006.

People, Country

“I don't think there's anything guaranteed 100% in life. I want to have discussions for sure and there's lots of talking to be done. I'm not saying I don't want to be Derby manager, I'm saying that I don't think in life anything is 100% guaranteed. Now we'll sit down, have a chat and see what happens. I'm not prepared to discuss it at the moment and I'm not prepared to go into specifics. I've never said I'm leaving but it was always my intention to get to the end of the season and have a discussion.”

Billy Davies (1964) Scottish association football player and manager

May 2007, http://www.sundaysun.co.uk/sport/north-east-football/2007/05/29/derby-county-1-west-brom-0-79310-19213006/
Billy made these remarks shortly after gaining promotion to the Premiership with Derby County

Life, Thinking, Season

“What happened to Ms. Fluke’s free speech? Since when has it been okay to target people who testify before policy makers with vicious, unwarranted and defamatory attacks? You may think that all of your misconduct disappears because you label yourself an entertainer. Well, we are not entertained – we are disgusted. You think that your non-apology apology coming on the heels of advertisers abandoning your show will make them come back? I guess even some of your advertisers do not find you all that entertaining. We hope that your advertisers continue to show the good sense and judgment that you lack by abandoning your show in droves.”

Gloria Allred (1941) American civil rights lawyer

Discussing comments by Rush Limbaugh about Sandra Fluke — Gloria Allred (March 5, 2012): Attorney Gloria Allred's Open Letter to Rush Limbaugh. Posted by Gloria Allred's account to YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukzzUV1FZC0. See also letter text here http://rumorfix.com/2012/03/gloria-allreds-open-letter-to-rush-limbaugh-read-it-here/.

People, Hope, Thinking, Sense

“A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content.”

Theodore Sturgeon (1918–1985) American speculative fiction writer

As quoted in The Issue at Hand: Studies in Contemporary Magazine Science Fiction (1964) by James Blish, p. 14

Problem, Science

“The last end that can happen to any man, never comes too soon, if he falls in support of the law and liberty of his country: for liberty is synonymous to law and government.”

William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (1705–1793) British judge

Rex v. Wilkes (1769), 4 Burr. Part IV., p. 2563.

Law, Support, Country

“Many Christians don't want to hear this, but the reality is that there are lots of other explanations for what happened to Jesus that are more probable than the explanation that he was raised from the dead. None of these explanations is very probable, but they are more probable, just looking at the matter historically, than the explanation of the resurrection. … Historians can only establish what probably happened in the past, and by definition, miracles are the least probable of occurrences.”

Bart D. Ehrman book Jesus, Interrupted

Source: Jesus, Interrupted (2009), Ch. 5: 'Liar, Lunatic, or Lord? Finding the Historical Jesus'

Reality, Past, Dead

“Sometimes you can justify doing something that hurts other people by saying otherwise something worse is going to happen to me. You know, if you were *really* going to starve, you'd be justified in writing proprietary software.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

2000s, Free Software: Freedom and Cooperation (2001)

People, Hurt

“Hurricane [Katrina] hit the Gulf Coast and destroyed much of the Gulf Coast — that was an act of God … Now what happened to New Orleans, that was a complete failure of the federal government. Complete negligence by the feds.”

James Carville (1944) political writer, consultant and United States Marine

in a speech to LSU students at the Manship School of Communications' Holliday Forum on January 27, 2006.

God, Failure

“On the Internet, people do not know each other, they don’t have common leaders, sometimes not even a common political goal. But they come together on certain issues. I think that is a miracle. It never happened in the past. Without the Internet, I would not even be Ai Weiwei today. I would just be an artist somewhere doing my shows.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei: ‘Shame on Me.’, 2011

People, Thinking, Past

“Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians! It's no different! It is the same thing! It is happening all over again! It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians! Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today! More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history! … And it is happening here and now! Same thing, but directed against Christians by the liberal government and media! Send money today or these liberals will be putting Christians like you and me in concentration camps!”

Pat Robertson (1930) American media mogul, executive chairman, and a former Southern Baptist minister

quoted in * 1993-09-15
Molly
Ivins
Molly Ivins
Toss (some of 'em) to the lions
The Tuscaloosa News
6A
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19930915&id=qIIfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hqUEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6445,4278412

Money, History, Suffering

“The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don’t adjust! Revolt against the reality!”

Mordechai Anielewicz (1919–1943) Leader of the Jewish Combat Organization

The last letter from Mordecai Anielewicz , April 23 1943, written to Yitzhak Cukierman. [M.Kann], Na oczach swiata, ("In The Eyes of the World"), Zamosc, 1932 [i.e. Warszawa, 1943], pp. 33-34.

Soul, Reality, Evil

“It took me about a year with Sandy Hook to come to grips with the fact that the whole thing was fake. I mean, I couldn't believe it. I knew they jumped on it, used the crisis, hyped it up. But then I did deep research and my gosh, it just pretty much didn't happen.”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

The Alex Jones Show https://nypost.com/2018/05/23/alex-jones-sued-by-more-families-over-sandy-hook-hoax-claims/, 28 December 2014. 2014

“Cheer up. You never know — maybe something awful will happen tomorrow.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Books, Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste (1981)

Quotes about happening page 23

Quotes about happening
page 23