Quotes about plug (71 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter One

Death , Fate , Imagination , Sense

“When a child turns 12, he should be kept in a barrel and fed through the bunghole, until he reaches 16 … at which time you plug the bunghole.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Attributed to Twain but never sourced, this quotation should not be regarded as authentic.
Misattributed

Time

“You will not be able to stay home, brother. You will not be able to plug in, turn on, and cop out.”

Gil Scott-Heron (1949–2011) American musician, poet and author

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Lyrics, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, 1970

Home

“Even though I'm president of the United States, my power is not limitless. So I can't dive down there and plug the hole. I can't suck it up with a straw. All I can do is make sure that I put honest, hard-working smart people in place … to implement this thing.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Radio interview, Grand Isle, LA, June 11, 2010. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/06/obama-on-spill-i-cant-suck-it.html?hpid=news-col-blog
2010, 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill (April 2010)

People

“There is a high fantasy element in the music, but I’m incredibly plugged into what’s going on politically, socially and pretty much in every way except pop-culturally. I’ve had a very real life, and there have been a lot of things that took a lot of strength and wherewithal to figure out… things I’m still figuring out. That’s probably why the music has such an element of escapism to it”

Lana Del Rey (1985) American singer-songwriter

NME http://www.nme.com/features/a-letter-from-lana-del-rey-the-full-nme-cover-interview-757009 (11 December 2015)

Life , Music , Way

“Extinguish my sight, and I can still see you;
plug up my ears, and I can still hear;
even without feet I can walk toward you,
and without mouth I can still implore.
Break off my arms, and I will hold you
with my heart as if it were a hand;
strangle my heart, and my brain will still throb;
and should you set fire to my brain,
I still can carry you with my blood.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book The Book of Hours

Translated by Annemarie S. Kidder
Das Stunden-Buch (The Book of Hours) (1905)

Heart

“We "conserve" nothing; neither do we want to return to any past periods; we are not by any means "liberal"; we do not work for "progress"; we do not need to plug up our ears against the sirens who in the market place sing of the future: their song about "equal rights," "a free society," "no more masters and no servants" has no allure for us.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

The Gay Science (1882)

Singing , Past , Future

“If you're just starting out as a writer, you could do worse than strip your television's electric plug-wire, wrap a spike around it, and then stick it back into the wall. See what blows, and how far. Just an idea.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Idea

“You know, a cell phone's like a guy; if you don't plug him in every night, charge him good, you got nothing at all.”

Catherine Coulter (1942) American romance novelist

Source: Tail Spin

Guy , Night

“It's okay," my husband said, shuffling toward his study. "I bought an electric-powered chain saw with a plug-in cord so if I run away fast enough, you can only chase me so far.”

Laurie Notaro American writer

Source: I Love Everybody

Study

“Kids grow up connected to nothing these days, plugged in and living lives boosted to them from other people.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

People

“She can go with us to the lab and keep Myrnin pinned down while we pull the plug, if he's not… you know, better."
"Define BETTER with that guy."
"Not all fangs and raaaaar.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Ghost Town

Guy

“Telling me I can do anything I want is like pulling the plug out of the bath and then telling the water it can go anywhere it wants. Try it, and see what happens.”

Nick Hornby book A Long Way Down

Source: A Long Way Down

Water

“When plugged in, the least elaborate computer can be relied on to work to the fullest extent of its capacity. The greatest mind cannot be relied on for the simplest thing; its variability is its superiority.”

Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) Historian

"The Masterpiece," in A Stroll with William James (1983)

“(When asked about gaming) I have a few favorites: Stand-up arcade game - 720 degrees, RTS - Command & Conquer & Star Wars Empire at War, FPS - Unreal Tournament 2004. As far as RPGs, I prefer good old D&D on paper for that. The game industry is as strong as the music and film industry now, and crosses over into both as well. I still play all the games I just mentioned every now and again. I find it intriguing that retro-gaming has come back in a big way. All the old arcade games from the 80s seem to have found their way back in the form of built in joysticks that plug into TVs. Xbox360 has live arcade downloads, the Wii has classic Nintendo and Turbo Graphix downloads, it's very interesting. I think people are recognizing once again that simple short fun experiences are just as good as having long huge production experiences. Theres something out there for everyone, and gaming is as much for adults as it is for kids. I love variety in gaming. For a good while there was too much of the same types of games year after year, and it feels like we're seeing more creativity again, which is a good thing.”

Frank Klepacki (1974) American musician, video game music composer and sound director

Gameplay magazine

Love , War , People , Music

“One must recently have lived on or close to a college campus to have a vivid intimation of what has happened. It is there that we see how a number of energetic social innovators, plugging their grand designs, succeeded over the years in capturing the liberal intellectual imagination. And since ideas rule the world, the ideologues, having won over the intellectual class, simply walked in and started to run things. Run just about everything.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

There never was an age of conformity quite like this one, or a camaraderie quite like the Liberals'.
"Publisher's Statement", in the first issue of National Review (19 November 1955) http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/buckley200406290949.asp.

Age , World , Imagination , Idea

“Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing's going to disappear just because you can't see what's going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes. That's the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won't make time stand still.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Kafka on the Shore (2002)

World , Change , Time

“Once again, my family and I find ourselves being assaulted by the obscenity that is Mumia Abu-Jamal. On Sunday October 5th, my husband's killer will once again air his voice from what masquerades as a prison, and spew his thoughts and ideas at another college commencement. Mumia Abu-Jamal will be heard and honored as a victim and a hero by a pack of adolescent sycophants at Goddard College in Vermont. Despite the fact that 33 years ago, he loaded his gun with special high-velocity ammunition designed to kill in the most devastating fashion, then used that gun to rip my husband's freedom from him--today, Mumia Abu-Jamal will be lauded as a freedom fighter. Undoubtedly the administrators at Goddard who first accepted, then enthusiastically supported Abu-Jamal as their speaker will be moved by his "important message" when, if one distills that message to its basic meaning, it amounts to nothing more than the same worn out hatred for this country and everyone in law enforcement that Mumia Abu-Jamal has harbored his entire life. Many at Goddard College have said that this is a matter of Abu-Jamal's First Amendment right to speak and be heard. What a convenient way to dodge their responsibility to take a moral position on this situation. This is not a matter of First Amendment rights -- it's a matter of right and wrong. Across the country, people have been voicing their disgust with the wrong that the college is about to commit by allowing a convicted cop-killer to speak to them. Is this the message to be heard? How could they allow him to speak when Danny no longer has a voice? It is my opinion that all murderers should forfeit their right to free speech when they take the life of an innocent person. I have repeatedly seen college administrators deny conservative and religious speakers access to their campuses when even the tiniest minority feel their message is in some way offensive. What could be more offensive than having a person who violently took the life of another imparting his "unique perspective" on your students? Let's be honest. The instructors, administrators and graduates at Goddard College embrace having this killer as their commencement speaker not despite the fact that he brutally murdered a cop, but because he brutally murdered a cop. Otherwise, like so many other speakers that have been denied access to college campuses across the country, Goddard's administration would have lived up to their moral responsibility and pulled the plug on this travesty long ago. Shame on Goddard College and all associated with that school for choosing to honor an arrogant remorseless killer as their commencement speaker. Unfortunately, this is something that I am certain they will be proud of for the rest of their lives.”

Mumia Abu-Jamal (1954) Prisoner, Journalist, Broadcaster, Author, Activist

Statement http://6abc.com/news/mumia-abu-jamal-speech-met-with-vigil-for-slain-officer/337357/ by Maureen Faulkner, widow of Daniel Faulkner, upon Abu-Jamal's delivering the Commencement Address at Goddard College in 2014
About

Life , People , School , Family

“The Adobe flash plug-in is non-free software, and people should not install it, or suggest installing it, or even tell people it exists.”

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

On the OpenBSD mailing list (14 December 2007) http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=119762874930534&w=2
2000s

People

“"We are not in the business of finding faults. But when we detect some loopholes during the process of audit, we advise the executive to plug those loopholes." - Vinod Rai at a seminar on 'Public Accountability and the Role of CAG' organized by the Institute of Public Auditors of India at New Delhi on 28/03/2012.”

Vinod Rai (1948) Comptroller and Auditor General of India

Business

“I wake up in the morning, all I think is flip
Count a couple hundreds, flip a couple bricks
Time to hit the plug now, need another flip
Counting all this money, got me filthy rich”

Fetty Wap (1991) American rapper and singer from New Jersey

"Trap Luv"

Money , Thinking , Time

“He’s engaged to be married to Stiffy Byng, and his long years of football should prove an excellent preparation for setting up house with her. The way I look at it is that when a fellow has had plug-uglies in cleated boots doing a Shuffle-off-to-Buffalo on his face Saturday after Saturday since he was a slip of a boy, he must get to fear nothing, not even marriage with a girl like Stiffy, who from early childhood has seldom let the sun go down without starting some loony enterprise calculated to bleach the hair of one and all.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963)

Marriage , Fear , Way , Girl

“A builder. A rough and ready plasterer. A colour grinder. He Courbet is like a Roman bricklayer. And yet he's another true painter. There's no one in this century that surpasses him. Even though he rolls up his sleeves, plugs up his ears, demolishes columns, his workmanship is classical!... His view was always compositional. His vision remained traditional. Like his palette-knife, he used it only out of doors. He was sophisticated and brought his work to a high finish... His great contribution is the poetic introduction of nature - the smell of damp leaves, mossy forest cuttings - into nineteenth century painting; the murmur of rain, woodlands shadows, sunlight moving under trees. The sea. And snow, he painted snow like no one else!”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Source: Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900, Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, (1897 - 1906), p. 198 in: 'What he told me – II. The Louvre'

Nature , Tree , Painting , Sea

“No.3 Commando was very anxious to be chums with Lord Glasgow, so they offered to blow up an old tree stump for him and he was very grateful and said don't spoil the plantation of young trees near it because that is the apple of my eye and they said no of course not we can blow a tree down so it falls on a sixpence and Lord Glasgow said goodness you are clever and he asked them all to luncheon for the great explosion.
So Col. Durnford-Slater DSO said to his subaltern, have you put enough explosive in the tree?. Yes, sir, 75lbs. Is that enough? Yes sir I worked it out by mathematics it is exactly right. Well better put a bit more. Very good sir.
And when Col. D Slater DSO had had his port he sent for the subaltern and said subaltern better put a bit more explosive in that tree. I don't want to disappoint Lord Glasgow. Very good sir.
Then they all went out to see the explosion and Col. DS DSO said you will see that tree fall flat at just the angle where it will hurt no young trees and Lord Glasgow said goodness you are clever.
So soon they lit the fuse and waited for the explosion and presently the tree, instead of falling quietly sideways, rose 50 feet into the air taking with it ½ acre of soil and the whole young plantation.
And the subaltern said Sir, I made a mistake, it should have been 7½ not 75. Lord Glasgow was so upset he walked in dead silence back to his castle and when they came to the turn of the drive in sight of his castle what should they find but that every pane of glass in the building was broken.
So Lord Glasgow gave a little cry and ran to hide his emotions in the lavatory and there when he pulled the plug the entire ceiling, loosened by the explosion, fell on his head.
This is quite true.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Letter to his wife (31 May 1942)

Disappointment , Mathematics , Tree , Silence

“About the accident itself I can say very little. Almost nothing. It involved something falling from the sky. Technology. Parts, bits. That's it, really: all I can divulge. Not much, I know.
It's not that I'm being shy. It's just that—well, for one, I don't even remember the event. It's a blank: a white slate, a black hole. I have vague images, half-impressions: of being, or having been—or, more precisely, being about to be—hit; blue light; railings; lights of other colours; being held above some kind of tray or bed. But who's to say my traumatized mind didn't just make them up, or pull them out from somewhere else, some other slot, and stick them there to plug the gap—the crater—that the accident had blown? Minds are versatile and wily things. Real chancers.”

Tom McCarthy (writer) book Déjà vu

Source: Remainder (2005), Ch. 1.

Light , Parting

“Here we are, sixty something human minds. We’ve been migrated—while still awake—right out of our own heads using an amazing combination of nanotechnology and electron spin resonance mapping, and we’re now running as software in an operating system designed to virtualize multiple physics models and provide a simulation of reality that doesn’t let us go mad from sensory deprivation! And this whole package is about the size of a fingertip, crammed into a starship the size of your grandmother’s old Walkman, in orbit around a brown dwarf just over three light-years from home, on its way to plug into a network router created by incredibly ancient alien intelligences, and you can tell me that the idea of a fundamental change in the human condition is nonsense?”

Charles Stross book Accelerando

Source: Accelerando (2005), Chapter 5 (“Router”), p. 184

Way , Home , Intelligence , Idea

“The Liberation Ladies will lead to generations of women willing to support a tired husband, and provide for his old age. He can be snug-abed in the morning while she pounds off in her thick boots to her job or carries a briefcase to her office. And when she comes home at night - she can cook his dinner, too, and wash and iron his shirts. She can do the housework, while he watches TV and complains of the pain in his back - which she will eventually rub away at bedtime. Women wanted careers, didn't they? They can do a man’s work, can't they? Well, let 'em do it, and be glad they were able to get a husband besides, even if they have to take care of him! Men, in short, are licking their lips and, for the first time in history, are readying themselves to be the exploiters in their turn…. Mom's out there, plugging and 'fulfilling' herself, and why should Pop worry? He's had it coming to him since Eve….”

Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) Novelist

"They're Spoiling Eve's Great Con Game" in American Opinion (September 1970), p. 6
1970s-

Women , Men , Pain , Age

“My job was to keep the house clean, get the children off to school, help the cook-housekeeper, and serve at table. The house was much more perfect than the sort of gilt-bordered Christmas-card-Heaven that a crooked-nosed woman would sacrifice everything to attain in the next world: it was an all-electric house, with machines being plugged in and started up all day long; there was no such thing as a fire; heat came from hot-springs underground, and the glowing embers in the fireplace were made of glass.”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

Children , World , School , Spring

“(After chatting about the Serbian sex machine invention and Karl said 'Did it have to be a woman or could they have got a gay fella in - butt plugs and that')..”

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

On Sex

Sex

“As a physician I am embarrassed by the lack of initiative and obstructionist policies of my own medical profession toward healthier lifestyles. This is not surprising. Physicians lack training and knowledge of nutrition and are self-serving when they proclaim “patients won't follow plant-based nutrition.” Having counseled patients with severe coronary artery heart disease for over twenty years, I find the opposite to be true. Patients sent home to die by expert cardiologists after failing bypass or stents rejoice as they lose weight, eliminate angina chest pains, lessen their medication, lower their blood sugars, decrease or come off their insulin, revert their positive stress test back to normal, selectively diminish the plaque plugging their arteries, and resume a fully active life empowered by the knowledge that they, not their physicians, have become the locus of control for the disease that was destroying them.”

Caldwell Esselstyn (1933) American physician, author and rower

Foreword https://books.google.it/books?id=6Aosc1wlAXcC&pg=PA1 to No More Bull! by Howard Lyman (New York: Scribner, 2005).

Life , Pain , Disease , Home

“Jim and his crew of a dozen or so specialize in loud, sloppy publicity seeking…. Myself, I like the stiletto-in-the-night approach. That's partly because I'm younger, a post-Sixties type, and partly because my thing is toxics, not nukes or mammals. … there are all kinds of direct, simple ways to go after toxic criminals.
You just plug the pipes.”

Neal Stephenson book Zodiac

Source: Zodiac (1988), Chapter 6

Way , Night

“Are you going to come along quietly, or am I going to have to use ear plugs?”

Spike Milligan (1918–2002) British-Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor

The Goon Show, Season 9, Episode 12: "The Call of the West" (January 20, 1959)
Alternative: "Are you going to come along quietly, or do you want musical accompaniment?"

“So you think I need some discipline, well, I had my share. I have been sent to my room. I've been sat in a chair. I held my tongue. I didn't plug my ears. No, I got a good talking to. And now I don't know why, but I still try to smile when they talk at me like I'm just a child. Well, I'm not a child. No, I am much younger than that. And now I have read some books and have grown quite brave. If only I could just speak up I think I would say that there is no truth. There is only you and what you make the truth.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Don't Know When But A Day is Gonna Come
Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

Truth , Books , Smile , Thinking

“Worms seize leaves and other objects, not only to serve as food, but for plugging up the mouths of their burrows; and this is one of their strongest instincts.”

Charles Darwin book The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms

Source: The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (1881), Chapter 2: Habits of Worms, p. 58. http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=73&itemID=F1357&viewtype=image

Food

“Something funny I have noticed—perhaps you have noticed it, too. You know what futurists and online-ists and cut-out-the-middle-man-ists and Davos-ists and deconstructionists of every stripe want for themselves? They want exactly what they tell you you no longer need, you pathetic, overweight, disembodied Kindle reader. They want white linen tablecloths on trestle tables in the middle of vineyards on soft blowy afternoons. (You can click your bottle of wine online. Cheaper.) They want to go shopping on Saturday afternoons on the Avenue Victor Hugo; they want the pages of their New York Times all kind of greasy from croissant crumbs and butter at a café table in Aspen; they want to see their names in hard copy in the “New Establishment” issue of Vanity Fair; they want a nineteenth-century bookshop; they want to see the plays in London; they want to float down the Nile in a felucca; they want five-star bricks and mortar and Do Not Disturb signs and views of the park. And in order to reserve these things for themselves they will plug up your eyes and your ears and your mouth, and if they can figure out a way to pump episodes of The Simpsons through the darkening corridors of your brain as you expire (ADD TO SHOPPING CART), they will do it.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013)
Variant: Something funny I have noticed—perhaps you have noticed it, too. You know what futurists and online-ists and cut-out-the-middle-man-ists and Davos-ists and deconstructionists of every stripe want for themselves? They want exactly what they tell you you no longer need, you pathetic, overweight, disembodied Kindle reader. They want white linen tablecloths on trestle tables in the middle of vineyards on soft blowy afternoons. (You can click your bottle of wine online. Cheaper.) They want to go shopping on Saturday afternoons on the Avenue Victor Hugo; they want the pages of their New York Times all kind of greasy from croissant crumbs and butter at a café table in Aspen; they want to see their names in hard copy in the “New Establishment” issue of Vanity Fair; they want a nineteenth-century bookshop; they want to see the plays in London; they want to float down the Nile in a felucca; they want five-star bricks and mortar and Do Not Disturb signs and views of the park. And in order to reserve these things for themselves they will plug up your eyes and your ears and your mouth, and if they can figure out a way to pump episodes of The Simpsons through the darkening corridors of your brain as you expire (ADD TO SHOPPING CART), they will do it.

Way , Star , Wine , Time

“Our enemy really isn't capitalism, it's cynicism. That's one the things I learned from Woody (Guthrie)… Not to be cynical… That cynicism… It destroys you, it rots you away from the inside. So that sense of optimism and humanity… which 20 years ago I would have called socialism but now I'll call compassion… You know, that idea is still out there and alive and if you can plug into that and encourage that it makes it all worth while.”

Billy Bragg (1957) English singer-songwriter and left-wing political activist

From Curtis, Hillman, MTIV, Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer (Indianapolis: New Riders, 2002), page 221.

Idea , Optimism , Sense , Learning

“I remember when I got a new device for my computer. I connected it to the landline phone plug(!), and the device called another device and sang a robot love song to it. That made the devices connect, and I could go online and exchange messages. That was one of the most important things that ever happened to me, breaking my isolation. It helped me to reach out to other folks all around the globe. Communication is key in nerd culture. But beware if that communication fails. You can create toxic troll wastelands! Not even robot love songs can help you with that!”

Johannes Grenzfurthner (1975) Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film director

via Film Threat http://filmthreat.com/interviews/johannes-grenzfurthner-is-kinda-nerdy/

Love , Communication , Help

“The first paper I ever wrote was "Gestalt Programming" and that was in 1955. The whole idea there was to replace the laborious writing out of detailed programs and all those steps by having analyzed a problem area well enough so that you had what I later came to call a "systematized solution." Then you could compose different problems of this class by just plugging together pieces of program, and they would in turn be controlled by a pushbutton language. The user would make a number of discreet selections. It's just like nowadays it's done with menus, and when you had indicated all the pieces that you wanted to put together--by these mnemonic names and words for things associated with buttons, switches, with one meaning "period," essentially, for that sentence, you see--all these things would be brought together and that would be the man/machine, manual-intervention mode of problem-solving. I took over the term from studying Gestalt psychology, meaning that everything was brought together at once, as a unit, instead of this laborious step-by-step build-up.”

Douglas T. Ross (1929–2007) American computer scientist

Source: An Interview with Douglas T. Ross (1989), p. 4.

Idea , Problem , Study

“I was walking past a sex shop an' that. One, it was open early which I never understood, it was about eight o'clock in the morning. Who needs butt plugs then?”

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

Podcast Series 1 Episode 2
On Sex

Sex , Past

“Also, I love my google ads. I have no idea if I make a dime off them, and in fact would pay to have them for what they add to the overall nuklearpower. com experience. Case in point: I just saw an ad for "Rodent Supplies." The obvious question now is, "How do I plug those damn google ad things into Photoshop so I can retire while the comic factory pumps out comedy gold three times a week?"”

Brian Clevinger (1978) writer

http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=060523

Love , Idea , Question , Time

“We need to teach people to refuse to install non-free plug-ins; we need to teach people to care more about their long-term interest of freedom than their immediate desire to view a particular site.”

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

"Interview with Richard Stallman: Four Essential Freedoms" Roy Schestowitz, in IT Management (19 December 2007) http://tech-insider.org/free-software/research/2007/1219.html
2000s

People , Freedom

“Technology adds nothing to art. Two thousand years ago, I could tell you a story, and at any point during the story I could stop, and ask, Now do you want the hero to be kidnapped, or not? But that would, of course, have ruined the story. Part of the experience of being entertained is sitting back and plugging into someone else's vision.”

Penn Jillette (1955) American magician

Wired Issue 2.09 (September 1994) http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.09/penn.html
1990s

Art , Parting

“They couldn't, in the National Party, run a bath and if either the deputy leader or the leader tried to, Sir Robert would run away with the plug.”

David Lange (1942–2005) New Zealand politician and 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand

Referring to the National Party's problems with internal discipline and Robert Muldoon's reluctance to relinquish power.
Source: Gliding on the Lino: The Wit of David Lange, compiled by David Barber, 1987.

“There is now a strong movement in this country to bring the public school system under federal domination. The movement could not have been thought of before the government had the means for carrying out the idea; that is, before income taxation. The question is, have those who plug for nationalization of the schools come to the idea by independent thought, or have they been influenced by the bureaucrats who see in nationalization a wider opportunity for themselves? We must lean to the latter conclusion, because among the leaders of the movement are many bureaucrats. However, if the movement is successful, if the schools are brought under the watching eye of the federal government, it is a certainty that the curriculum will conform to the ideals of Big Government. The child’s mind will never be exposed to the idea that the individual is the one big thing in the world, that he has rights which come from a higher source than the bureaucracy.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

Source: The Income Tax: Root of All Evil (1954), pp. 34-35

World , School , Idea , Question

“Punk: Don't stop on account of me. [Starts singing "Happy Birthday" to Rey's daughter, who is scared]. Rey, you look scared, but I assure you I'm not out here to hurt you, and I'm not out here to hurt your family. In fact, I'm happy that we're all here – my family and yours. And today's a big day, we all need to celebrate the occasion, and it doesn't get any bigger that WrestleMania, Rey, so that's exactly why I wanna challenge you to a match at WrestleMania. I also wanna challenge you to a match tonight. And I don't mean later in the show, Rey. I mean now. I mean, as in, right now!
Rey: Come on Punk. This ain't the time
Punk: Don't be sad. Aaliyah, since it's your birthday, sweet, innocent little Aaliyah, I'll tell you what. As my birthday present to you, I'll let you shut your eyes while I reduce your daddy to tears and make him beg for my mercy. And Dominik. You're such… you're all grown up now, aren't you? We watched you grow up before our very eyes, but I don't think you ever heard your father squeal like a pig from somebody repeatedly stomping his surgically repaired knees, so it's okay if you plug your ears. And beautiful, voluptuous Angie. Now I'm sure you and your loving husband Rey have shared the best of times. But look at me. I promise you, after I do what I'm going to do to your husband, it will be the worst of times. So feel free to cup your hand over your mouth to muffle the screams. What's the matter, Rey? Don't you wanna fight me in front of your family? No? Are you afraid that your family's gonna watch you get hurt? You're a coward! I know it; deep down inside, Dominik knows it; your wife has always known; and now on her 9th birthday, your sweet innocent little Aaliyah knows it. All these people here know it, Rey, you're a coward! What's it gonna take? Huh, Rey? Where's Giant-Killer Rey Mysterio at? [Crowd chants "619"] Where's your 619, huh, Rey? Where's the ultimate underdog, Rey? Rey, where's your machismo? Where's your machismo, Rey?! I'll tell you where, Rey. Your machismo, your courage – you never had it. What's it gonna take, Rey? Huh? Rey, I'll even drop down to your level, Rey. [Gets down on his knees] Come on, Rey! So, you're turning me down? You won't fight me? What's it gonna take, Rey? [Gets up] What's it gonna take, Rey?! Not now?! Not now?! [Slaps Rey across the face] [Rey then walks away very frustrated with his family. ] Come on, Rey! Come on, now! There he is, ladies and gentlemen! There's your superhero!
Striker: He's got no alternative but to protect his family.
Punk: Watch him take his walk of shame! But one more thing, sweet little princess Aaliyah… [Sings "Happy Birthday" to her in a disturbing type way. ]”

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

March 12, 2010
Friday Night SmackDown

Love , People , Sadness , Family

“I’m always looking for opportunities to explore that freewheeling imagination and insanity of children. To be able to plug in to that and let that carry you in to a performance is such a gas, I have so much fun with that. I love kids; I raised two girls and I love being a parent. Being a parent is hands down the greatest thing of my life, and I loved when they were young because as a parent you can spend that special time with them when they’re young and you can attach your imagination on to their ride and go with them and do what they’re doing. I always loved that and it’s kind of how I approach Patrick. I don’t know if this makes sense, but I guess that’s my approach and that’s what I continue to do because I’m so fortunate to keep going with this character. It’s very satisfying and enjoyable.”

Bill Fagerbakke (1957) American actor

Interview With Bill Fagerbakke: The Voice of Spongebob's Patrick Star http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/spongebob-squarepants/225197/interview-with-bill-fagerbakke-the-voice-of-spongebobs-patrick-star (November 11, 2013)

Love , Life , Children , Imagination

“Turning a small surface of water into vapour by fire, applied to the bottom of the cylinder that contains it; which vapour forces up the plug (or piston) in the cylinder to a considerable height, and which, as the vapour condenses, (as the water cools when taken from the fire,) descends again by air's pressure, and is applied to raise water out of the mine.”

Denis Papin (1647–1713) French physicist, mathematician and inventor

Denis Papin, Letter, as quoted by Robert Stuart Meikleham, A Descriptive History of the Steam Engine (1824)

Water

“When you get in these people when you… get these people in, say: 'Look, the problem is that this will open the whole, the whole Bay of Pigs thing, and the President just feels that' ah, without going into the details… don't, don't lie to them to the extent to say there is no involvement, but just say this is sort of a comedy of errors, bizarre, without getting into it, 'the President believes that it is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again.' And, ah because these people are plugging for, for keeps and that they should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don't go any further into this case, period!”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

The 'smoking gun tape' on (23 June 1972)
1970s

People , Lie , Error , Feeling

“The album is very different from the all the other albums today. First of all, the album was one year delayed because I wasn’t happy and every time I did an album it was unofficially finished. I had some time to listen to some new songs and plug into some music programs and discovered this new song and delayed the release for a month, because I wanted to update the new tracks to these new sounds I found… so then when I did that all the other songs sounded like crap compared to the new ones! So I said f*** this I need to reproduce the other ones as well. Then I scrapped a few songs and produced new ones. So to produce this album I pretty much produced maybe about 50 tracks and picked out the best of them. You know when you buy an album from a producer/artist, you kind of hear the same sound repeating in each song, you hear the same sound repeating, but this album is like every song is individual. Like you wont find two songs which have the same sound. Each song is completely different which I think kind of represents what I do because I produce everything and I love producing everything. Sometimes I’m in the mood to produce you know a dance song, sometimes I’m in the mood to produce an R&B song, it’s just interesting because I just want to show people that I can deliver to all ears.”

Basshunter Calling Time

Guestlist interview with Ria Talsania (10 July 2013) https://guestlist.net/article/9219/catching-up-with-basshunter
Calling Time

Love , People , Music , Mood

“Mauthen ain’t much for listenen. Nothin’ plugs a man’s ears like money.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 73, “Pegs” (p. 580)

Money

“It seemed to me at an early age that all human communication – whether it’s TV, movies, or books – begins with somebody wanting to tell a story. That need to tell, to plug into a universal socket, is probably one of our grandest desires. And the need to hear stories, to live lives other than our own for even the briefest moment, is the key to the magic that was born in our bones.”

Robert McCammon book Boy's Life

Book One, Ch. 3.
Boy's Life (1991)

Books , Age , Communication , Universe

“All this is very good in theory, but in practice, you take a piece of iron, wind a wire around it, then plug the wire in. The core gets hot, the wires smoke, and the fuse blows. So you see, there are practical limitations to theory.”

James Van Allen (1914–2006) American nuclear physicist

Comments to an undergraduate physics class about transformers, Reach Into Space http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,892531,00.html, Time, 1959-05-04.

“It was just like some ancient electricity-powered computer; it didn't matter how fast, error-free, and tireless it was, it didn't matter how great a labor-saving boon it was, it didn't matter what it could do or how many different ways it could amaze; if you pulled its plug out, or just hit the off button, all it became was a lump of matter; all its programs became just settings, dead instructions, and all its computations vanished as quickly as they'd moved.
It was, also, like the dependency of the human-basic brain on the human-basic body; no matter how intelligent, perceptive and gifted you were, no matter how entirely you lived for the ascetic rewards of the intellect and eschewed the material world and the ignobility of the flesh, if your heart just gave out…
That was the Dependency Principle; that you could never forget where your off switches were located, even if it was somewhere tiresome.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Excession (1996), Chapter 4 “Dependency Principle” section III (p. 122).

World , Way , Error , Intelligence

“It is a costly thing living here to fight the erosion. The sea is constantly threatening to cut into the coastline and sweep all this away. Every year we have to haul stones up here to repair the damage and plug the holes. It's a full-time job.”

Dermot Healy (1947–2014) Irish writer

John O'Mahony (2000). Let the west of the world go by http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/jun/03/fiction.johnomahony, The Guardian (3 June 2000)

Time , Fight , Sea

“Everything was plugged in and should’ve been working, but it gave me a communication error. I got like a cave man and got so mad at it. I was completely fed up. I’m not an engineer, I’m not a computer whiz. I don’t know anything about electronics. All I know is that I want this thing to make noise, I want to write music, and it’s not working.”

Patrick Stump (1984) American musician

About using 4 track tape decks compared to GarageBand
Apple Pro Profiles

Music , Error , Communication , Madness

“We see for the first time in al-Jazari's work several concepts important for both design and construction: the lamination of timber to minimize warping, the static balancing of wheels, the use of wooden templates (a kind of pattern), the use of paper models to establish designs, the calibration of orifices, the grinding of the seats and plugs of valves together with emery powder to obtain a watertight fit, and the casting of metals in closed mold boxes with sand.”

Donald Hill (1922–1994) British historian and engineer

Donald Routledge Hill, "Mechanical Engineering in the Medieval Near East", Scientific American, May 1991, pp. 64-9.

Time , Box

“The essential difference with Builders is that they've found something to do that matters to them and are therefore so passionately engaged, they rise above the personality baggage that would otherwise hold them down. Whatever they are doing has so much meaning to them that the cause itself provides charisma and they plug into it as if it was electrical current.”

Jerry I. Porras (1938) American writer

Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery and Mark Thompson. Success Built to Last: Creating A Life That Matters, Wharton School Publishing, 2006. p. 110

Passion , Personality

“I can understand J. Edgar Hoover, because he wasn't inaccurate.… He said that we were the main threat. We were trying to be the main threat. We were trying to be the vanguard organization. J. Edgar Hoover was an adversary, but he had good information. We were plugged into all of the revolutionary groups in America, plus those abroad. We were working hand-in-hand with communist parties here and around the world, and he knew that.”

Eldridge Cleaver (1935–1998) American activist

Interview by Reason magazine (1986)
1980s

World , Understanding

“Were God to give us, at last, the cable, or patch-cord that links the Sun to the Climate System it would have on the solar end a banana plug, and on the other, where it hooks into the Earth—in ways we don’t yet know—a Hydra-like tangle of multiple 24-pin parallel computer connectors. It is surely at this end of the problem where the greatest challenges lie.”

John A. Eddy (1931–2009) American astronomer

Source: NASA EOS Project Science Office: The Earth Observer January/February 2004, Vol. 16, No. 1 http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/eos_observ/pdf/Jan-Feb04.pdf, Page 4

God , Lie , Way , Problem

“The plan is to always have a plug into my past, where I am from. And how deep that is and having that gave me confidence to be able to expand. I am confident that I have something (music) that is backing me and that is always there for me… so that I can explore more, learn and grow more as an artiste and as a musician.”

Zakir Hussain (musician) (1951) Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer

Quote, I am not torchbearer of Indian classical music: Zakir Hussain

Music , Confidence , Learning , Past

“"I guess I make things that need energy stronger. I'm like a walking battery." "You're the table everyone wants at Starbucks," Gansey mused as he began to walk again. Blue blinked. "What?" Over his shoulder, Gansey said, "Next to the wall plug."”

Maggie Stiefvater (1981) American writer

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

“Many people wanna make money, make love,
make friends, make peace with death —
But most mainly want to win the game they came to win
they want to come out ahead.
But you, you're a rock, with a heart like a socket I can plug into at will.
And will you guess when I come around next.
I hope your open sign is blinking still.”

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

"Marry Me"
Marry Me (2007)

Love , Death , Money , People

“Gods reappear in unlimited numbers in the guise of the simulators who have the power of life and death over the simulated realities that they bring into being. The simulators determine the laws, and can change the laws, that govern their worlds. They can engineer anthropic fine-tunings. They can pull the plug on the simulation at any moment, intervene or distance themselves from their simulation; watch as the simulated creatures argue about whether there is a god who controls or intervenes, work miracles or impose their ethical principles upon the simulated reality.”

John D. Barrow (1952–2020) British scientist

"Glitch," New Scientist (June 7, 2003)

Life , Death , God , World

“Black people have had to become great at seeing ourselves where we are not present because that’s where we grew up. I see myself in Downton Abbey. Even before they introduced the black character, I was right there. Some weeks I was upstairs, some weeks I was downstairs! But it is different when you have a character who looks like you, so I’m glad to have plugged that gap a little bit.”

Suzan-Lori Parks (1963) American writer

On the United Kingdom being behind the United States when it comes to incorporating Black characters in “Suzan-Lori Parks: 'People in America are often encouraged not to think'” https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/sep/21/suzan-lori-parks-interview-royal-court-father-comes-home-from-the-wars-obama in The Guardian (2016 Sep 21)

People

“I stare longingly at the bare chunk of space on the desktop. There may be a keyboard stitched into the lining of my cummerbund, but without a machine to plug it into it’s about as much use as a chocolate hacksaw.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Jennifer Morgue (2006), Chapter 12, “Power Breakfast” (p. 234)

“We are not in the business of finding faults. But when we detect some loopholes during the process of audit, we advise the executive to plug those loopholes.”

Vinod Rai (1948) Comptroller and Auditor General of India

Vinod Rai at a seminar on 'Public Accountability and the Role of CAG' organized by the Institute of Public Auditors of India at New Delhi on 28/03/2012.

Business

“This beautiful-looking guy with a fur coat and mad, curly hair walked in. He went to the bar and got a pint of Guinness, then plugged in his Fender and began to sing. Everybody was completely blown away. Who was it? It was Jeff Buckley.”

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter

Douglas Payne of Travis from Dream Brother (the book) written by David Browne.

Singing , Beauty , Madness , Guy

“It is at work everywhere, functioning smoothly at times, at other times in firs and starts. It breathes, it heats, it eats. It shits and fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the id. Everywhere it is machines- real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections. An organ-machine is plugged into an energy-source-machine: the one produces a flow that the other interrupts The breast is a machine that produces miilk, and the mouth a machine coupled to it.”

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher

The Desiring Machine
Anti-Oedipus Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1977)

Time

“It’s time to let the secret out: mathematics is not primarily a matter of plugging numbers into formulas and performing rote computations. It is a way of thinking and questioning that may be unfamiliar to many of us, but is available to almost all of us.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Introduction (p. 3)
A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

Time , Question , Thinking , Secret

“It is better to watch TV when it is switched off — that is, in the traditional way, but by pulling the plug out of the socket. One of the advantages of the alternative is electricity saving; in addition — the use of this method does not pose a threat to eyesight.”

Viktor Pinchuk (1969)

Press interview quotes
Source: «A Little Journey into the Past» — South Capital. Crimea: newspaper. — 20.08.2021. — № 32 (1504), M. Kiseleva, ru, simadm.ru, 2021-09-02 http://simadm.ru/media/uploads/userfiles/2021/08/23/ЮС32.pdf,

Way

“Mirror-world. The plugs on appliances are huge, triple−pronged, for a species of current that only powers electric chairs, in America. Cars are reversed, left to right, inside; telephone handsets have a different weight, a different balance; the covers of paperbacks look like Australian money.”

William Gibson Blue Ant trilogy

Source: Blue Ant trilogy, Pattern Recognition (2003), Chapter 1, "The Website of Dreadful Night"

Money , World , Cars