Quotes about tell
page 61

“This is the greatest political question of our time. How can we put an end to the empire of mega-corporations and restore democracy? If I knew I would be the savior of the world. What I think I can tell is that the media are crucial. The power of the corporate media enables truth to be suppressed and lies to be passed as truth. You probably heard that a half-truth can be worse than a lie. A lot of the things that our governments and media saying are 1/10 truths, 9/10 lies. And it doesn't take very many of them together to create a completely fictional world view (like the one that Bush presents when he talks). So I recommend that people stop listening to the mainstream media. Don't watch television news. Don't listen the news on radio. Don't read news from ordinary newspapers. Get it from variety of web sites which are not operated under the power of business money and you'll have better chance of not being fooled by the systematic lies that they all tell, because they're all paid by the same people to tell the same lies or 9/10 lies.”

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

2000s, What is free software? (2006)

Money, People, Truth, Lie

“The marvelous is of necessity a lie, a distortion. At best it is a metaphor which leads to the truth. I think that I know what causes the World’s Pain, lady. Or at least I think I know what contributes to that Pain.”
“And what would that be, Ulrich von Bek?”
“By telling a single lie to oneself or to another, by denying a single fact of the world as it has been created, one adds to the World’s Pain. And pain, lady, creates pain. And one must not seek to become saint or sinner, God or Devil. One must seek to become human and to love the fact of one’s humanity.”
I became embarrassed. “That is all I have learned, lady.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

“It is all that Heaven demands,” she said.
Source: The von Bek family, The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 16 (p. 158)

Love, God, Pain, Truth

“School was strange, rather amusing - with a teacher standing at the front telling you what to write. The camaraderie was interesting. I tend to remember the things you can't recreate on your own - queuing up for your dinner, learning team games, which were a complete mystery to me. I remember having to pretend I knew how to play hockey, that kind of thing.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

The Mail on Sunday - 06/02/2000
Childhood

School, Game, Learning, Teachers

“Why I’m telling you this is because that’s where this music comes from, that’s where my art comes from. You’re talking to a miracle; I am a miracle. I’m not halfway there, you know, dut-dut-dut-dut-da, drink a beer, hang out with my buddies, smoke a joint and get together with the band, wanna be a rock star; no. I am a very troubled individual who has been handed these obstacles in life, and overcome my fears to be honest with myself, so I can be honest with you. That’s not exploitation, it’s liberation.”

Travis Meeks (1979) American musician

[LEO Weekly, http://leoweekly.com/?q=node/7333, MUSIC ISSUE: You're talking to a miracle, 2008-07-16]

Life, Fear, Art, Music

“The only people that ever made a difference to Billy were the Provos, and they were cunts as well. Ah've no illusions aboot them as freedom fighters. The bastards made ma brar intae a pile ay cat food. But they jist pulled the switch. His death was concieved of by these Orange cunts, comin through every July with thir sashes and flutes, fillin Billy's stupid head with nonsense aboot crown and country and aw that garbage. They'll go home chuffed fae the day. They kin tell aw thir mates aboot how one ay the family died, murdered by the IRA, while defending Ulster. It'll fuel thir pointless anger, get them bought drinks in pubs, and help establish their doss-bastard credibility wi other sectarian arseholes.”

Irvine Welsh book Trainspotting

Renton, "Bang to Rites".
Trainspotting (1993)

Death, People, Stupidity, Family

“Jon Stewart: And I made a special effort to come on the show today, because I have privately, amongst my friends and also in occasional newspapers and television shows, mentioned this show as being bad.
Paul Begala: We have noticed.
Stewart: And I wanted to — I felt that that wasn't fair and I should come here and tell you that I don't — it's not so much that it's bad, as it's hurting America.
Tucker Carlson: But in its defense —
Stewart: But I wanted to come here today and say — Here's just what I wanted to tell you guys:
Carlson: Yes.
Stewart: Stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Guy, Effort, Hurt

“.. and, to tell the truth, I find it very difficult to like new art. It is only lately, and after having been unsympathetic for a great while, that I at last understood Eugene Delacroix, whom I now think a great man.”

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875) French landscape painter and printmaker in etching

as quoted by Arthur Hoebert, in The Barbizon Painters – being the story of the Men of thirty – associate of the National Academy of Design; publishers, Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York 1915, p. 61
undated

Truth, Art, Thinking

“But I'm telling you, it's going to change lives. I don't know how—I don't know what's going to happen, quite honestly — but it's going to change lives. It is a life-changing, and I think, a planet course-altering event and I would invite you to join us either physically or virtually.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2010s, 2011

Life, Thinking, Change

“I took that opportunity to tell him something that, er, I had long thought of telling somebody that was about to enter the world of really high secrecy. And I said, 'Henry, you're about to get a lot of clearence higher than top secret that you did not know existed. That's going to have a sequence of effects on you. First, a great exhileration that you're getting all this amazing information that you didn't know even existed. And the next phase is you'll feel like a fool for not having known about any of this. but that won't last long. Fairly soon, you'll come to think that everyone else is foolish. What would this expert be telling me if he knew what I knew? So in the end, you stop listening to them.”

Daniel Ellsberg (1931) American economist and whistleblower

On talking to Henry Kissinger about the effects of gaining high security clearence after Kissinger's first National Security Council with then president Nixon. 'The Most Dangerous Man in America - Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers' 2009 Documentary.

Secret, World, Fools, Feeling

“A work will be treated as art within a certain circle – that is, within the circle of let's say ten thousand people. There are about ten thousand in the world today who are prepared to take it on face value if you present anything to them as art, they deal with it straight on as art and tell you whether it stimulates them, moves them, or not. Some of them might even buy it... Anyway, it seems to me that within that ring of ten thousand, fortunately, that sincerity issue [the issue: is something art or not] is over. The reason why that issue failed is that it became obvious no one would live a life of art, a life of poverty, just to pull somebody's legs. In other words, there were compensating sacrifices for what people did.”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

Source: Artists talks 1969 – 1977, p. 18

Life, People, World, Art

“Chantrey [good friend of Turner] is as gay and as good as ever, ready to serve: he requests, for my benefit, that you bottle up all the yellows which may be found straying out of the right way; but what you may have told him about the old masters which you did not tell me, I can't tell, but we expected to hear a great deal from each other, but the stormy brush of Tintoretto was only to make the 'Notte' more visible.”

J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) British Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker

Quote from Turner's letter, London Feb. 1830, to his friend George Jones in Rome; as cited in 'The life of J.M.W. Turner', Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; https://ia801207.us.archive.org/18/items/lifeofjmwturnerr02thor/lifeofjmwturnerr02thor.pdf Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, p. 234 1821 - 1851

Way

“Is someone you know anorexic? A good joke would be to tell them that they're fat. They'll laugh because anorexic people aren't fat. HAHAH”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

Pranks to try on people in the hospital! http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=jokes The Best Page in the Universe

People

“Well, it's hard to tell on the basis of the Party's rhetoric, after all they're running for state ofﬁce, but my experience is that most people who are in the Libertarian Party have pretty decent anarchist impulses, even if they do not say they are anarchists—most of them will say they are libertarians, at any rate.And one thing that is useful is that they have a fairly well-reﬁned analysis of why they aren't conservative. It took the New Left to do a proper analysis on American liberals, it seems to me, and I suspect that the libertarians are doing the best analysis of American conservatives.I think that they are quite good people, and that the Party contains within it probably more people of an anarchist tendency than any other organisation in the country.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

Anarchism in America http://alexpeak.com/art/films/aia/ (15 January 1983)

People, Thinking, Country

“He is Karna, whom the world has abandoned. Karna Alone. Condemned goods. A prince raised in poverty. Born to die unfairly, unarmed and alone at the hands of his brother. Majestic in his complete despair. Praying on the banks of the Ganga. Stoned out of his skull.
Then Kunti appeared. She too was a man, but a man grown soft and womanly, a man with breasts, from doing female parts for years. Her movements were fluid. Full of women. Kunti, too, was stoned. High on the same shared joints. She had come to tell Karna a story.
Karna inclined his beautiful head and listened.
Red-eyed, Kunti danced for him. She told him of a young woman who had been granted a boon. A secret mantra that she could use to choose a lover from among the gods. Of how, with the imprudence of youth, the woman decided to test it to see if it really worked. How she stood alone in an empty field, turned her face to the heavens and recited the mantra. The words had scarcely left her foolish lips, Kunti said, when Surya, the God of Day, appeared before her. The young woman, bewitched by the beauty of the shimmering young god, gave herself to him. Nine months later she bore him a son. The baby was born sheathed in light, with gold earrings in his ears and a gold breastplate on his chest, engraved with the emblem of the sun.
The young mother loved her first-born son deeply, Kunti said, but she was unmarried and couldn't keep him. She put him in a reed basket and cast him away in a river. The child was found downriver by Adhirata, a charioteer. And named Karna.
Karna looked up to Kunti. Who was she? Who was my mother? Tell me where she is. Take me to her.
Kunti bowed her head. She's here, she said. Standing before you.
Karna's elation and anger at the revelation. His dance of confusion and despair. Where were you, he asked her, when I needed you the most? Did you ever hold me in your arms? Did you feed me? Did you ever look for me? Did you wonder where I might be?
In reply Kunti took the regal face in her hands, green the face, red the eyes, and kissed him on his brow. Karna shuddered in delight. A warrior reduced to infancy. The ecstasy of that kiss. He dispatched it to the ends of his body. To his toes. His fingertips. His lovely mother's kiss. Did you know how much I missed you? Rahel could see it coursing through his veins, as clearly as an egg travelling down an ostrich's neck.
A travelling kiss whose journey was cut short by dismay when Karna realised that his mother had revealed herself to him only to secure the safety of her five other, more beloved sons - the Pandavas - poised on the brink of their epic battle with their one hundred cousins. It is them that Kunti sought to protect by announcing to Karna that she was his mother. She had a promise to extract.
She invoked the Love Laws.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

pages 232-233.
The God of Small Things (1997)

Love, Women, God, Secret

“I'm a stickler for prevention. If I had to pick out one very difficult conversation, it's one with a diabetic smoker. I actually look at their feet when I'm talking to them and I tell them why I'm looking at their feet: because the amputation rate is so high in that population, as well as heart attack and stroke. It really seems to get their attention.”

Kim A. Williams (1955) American cardiologist

"10 Questions: Kim Williams, MD" https://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/Prevention/45250, MedPage Today (April 14, 2014).

Heart

“Nasrudin used to take a donkey across a frontier every day, with the panniers loaded with straw. Since he admitted to being a smuggler when he trudged home every night, the frontier guards searched him again and again. They searched his person, staffed the straw, steeped it in water, even burned it from time to time. […] One of the customs officers met him years later.
"You can tell me now, Nasrudin," he said. "Whatever was it that you were smuggling, when we could never catch you out?"”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

"Donkeys," said Nasrudin.
N. Hanif (ed.), Biographical Encyclopaedia of Sufis: Central Asia and Middle East (2002), ISBN 8176252662, p. 335

Home, Search, Water, Time

“When factory farmers tell us that animals kept in 'intensive' (i. e. concentration) camps are being kindly spared the inclemency of a winter outdoors, and that calves do not mind being tethered for life on slats because they have never known anything else, an echo should start in our historical consciousness: do you remember how the childlike blackamoors were kindly spared the harsh responsibilities of freedom, how the skivvy didn't feel the hardship of scrubbing all day because she was used to it, how the poor didn't mind their slums because they had never known anything else?”

Brigid Brophy (1929–1995) novelist, essayist

Source: The Rights of Animals (1965), p. 17

Life, Feeling, Freedom, Winter

“Now what in hell am I going to tell this boy Schaefer's parents? That a substitute nurse assassinated him because she couldn't tell the doctors from the patients on the floor?”

Paddy Chayefsky (1923–1981) American playwright, screenwriter and novelist

Dr. Bock.
The Hospital (1971)

Boy, Hell, Parent

“Every culture has a Story of the People to give meaning to the world. Part conscious and part unconscious, it consists of a matrix of agreements, narratives, and symbols that tell us why we are here, where we are headed, what is important, and even what is real. I think we are entering a new phase in the dissolution of our Story of the People, and therefore, with some lag time, of the edifice of civilization built on top of it….
But the new mythos has not yet emerged. We will abide for a time in the space between stories. Those of you who have been through it on a personal level know that it is a very precious - some might say sacred - time. Then we are in touch with the real. Each disaster lays bare the real underneath our stories. The terror of a child, the grief of a mother, the honesty of not knowing why. In such moments we discover our humanity. We come to each other’s aid, human to human. We take care of each other. That’s what keeps happening every time there is a calamity, before the beliefs, the ideologies, the politics take over again.
How can we prepare? We cannot prepare. But we are being prepared.”

Charles Eisenstein (1967) American writer

Charles Eisenstein, 2013:The Space Between Stories http://charleseisenstein.net/2013-the-space-between-stories/, Charleseisenstein.net, 2013

People, World, Thinking, Time

“Tell me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere—
She whose beauty was more than human?—
But where are the snows of yester-year?”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) English poet, illustrator, painter and translator

The Ballad of Dead Ladies http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/roset03.html#13, st. 1 (1870).

Love, Beauty, Way

“Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.”

Trent Lott (1941) United States Senator from Mississippi

On Sunnis and Shia, as quoted in CNN http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2006/09/lott-bush-barely-mentioned-iraq-in.html (2006). 2000s

Hate, People, Religion

“Afflictions, they are but as a dark entry into your Father's house; they are but as a dirty lane to a royal palace. Now, tell me, souls, whether it be not very great madness to shun the ways of holiness, and to walk in the ways of wickedness, because of those afflictions which attend the ways of holiness.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 1652

Way, Soul, Affliction, Housing

“If the truth is worth telling, it is worth making a fool of yourself to tell.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Telling the Truth (1977)

Truth, Fools

“I must die so as to see again those who died before, and to tell them the seed we sowed has taken root.”

Mengistu Neway (1919–1961) Commander of the Ethiopian Imperial Bodyguard

March 30, 1961, as quoted in Edmund J. Keller (1991) Revolutionary Ethiopia: From Empire to People's Republic, Indiana University Press, page 131

“Our neighbors use searchlights, for they want more light. I tell you, Nikolai Pavlovich, we need more darkness.”

Ivan Konev (1897–1973) Soviet military commander

Quoted in "The Last Battle" - Page 354 - by Cornelius Ryan - History - 1966.

Light

“My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as “Quothe.” Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. I’ve had more names than anyone has a right to.
The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it’s spoken, can mean “The Flame,” “The Thunder,” or “The Broken Tree.””

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 7, “Of Beginnings and the Names of Things” (p. 57)

Tree, Dependency, Personality

“Logic always seems to be telling us, in language quite unnecessarily technical, what we understood much better before it was explained.”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Theism and humanism

“Franziska (mother of Charlotte): 'In Heaven everything is much more beautiful than here in earth – and when your Mummy has turned into a little angel she'll.... bring a letter, telling her what's like in Heaven..”

Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) German painter

Franziska was of somewhat sentimental disposition. written text with brush, in her painting JHM no. 4175 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Charlotte_Salomon#/media/File:Charlotte_Salomon_-_JHM_4175.jpg: in 'Life? or Theater..', p. 66 her mother committed suicide when Charlotte was still a young girl - as many in her family did, before or later Charlotte Salomon - Life? or Theater?

Beauty, Angels

“I hit many what you call the "bad bol" pitches, and get good wood. The bol' travel like bullet. That remind me, I hit 565 foote hum-rum in Chicaga last year; the bol' disappear from centerfield, and Raj Hornsby tell me it longest drive he ever saw hit out of Wrigley Field. The bol' feel good on the bat but I feel bad at heart, when no writer with our team play up the big drive. I feel effort not appreciated.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted by Bill Nunn, Jr. in The New Pittsburgh Courier (June 25, 1960); reproduced in Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero https://books.google.com/books?id=jIhcvFs-k1cC&pg=PA98 (2006) by David Maraniss, p. 98 Comment: Clemente is not entirely correct. At least nationally (via TSN's weekly Pirates report), one veteran Pirates beat writer did do his part to publicize the blast. See Les Biederman (5/27/59 and 6/6/66) in Media, as well as Ernie Banks in Opponents. Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1960</big>

Travel, Feeling, Effort, Heart

“Look into my eyes, you will see
What you mean to me.
Search your heart, search your soul.
And when you find me there,
You’ll search no more.Don’t tell me it’s not worth trying for.
You can’t tell me it’s not worth dying for.
You know it’s true,
Everything I do, I do it for you.”

Bryan Adams (1959) Canadian singer-songwriter

(Everything I Do) I Do It for You, written by Bryan Adams, Mutt Lange, and Michael Kamen
Song lyrics, Waking Up the Neighbours (1991)

Soul, Search, Heart

“Windelband, the historian of philosophy, in his essay on the meaning of philosophy (Was ist Philosophie? in the first volume of his Präludien) tells us that "the history of the word 'philosophy' is the history of the cultural significance of science." He continues: "When scientific thought attains an independent existence as a desire for knowledge, it takes the name of philosophy; when subsequently knowledge as a whole divides into its various branches, philosophy is the general knowledge of the world that embraces all other knowledge. As soon as scientific thought stoops again to becoming a means to ethics or religious contemplation, philosophy is transformed into an art of life or into a formulation of religious beliefs. And when afterwards the scientific life regains its liberty, philosophy acquires once again its character as an independent knowledge of the world, and in so far as it abandons the attempt to solve this problem, it is changed into a theory of knowledge itself." Here you have a brief recapitulation of the history of philosophy from Thales to Kant, including the medieval scholasticism upon which it endeavored to establish religious beliefs. But has philosophy no other office to perform, and may not its office be to reflect upon the tragic sense of life itself, such as we have been studying it, to formulate this conflict between reason and faith, between science and religion, and deliberately to perpetuate this conflict?”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), Conclusion : Don Quixote in the Contemporary European Tragi-Comedy

Life, World, Faith, Religion

“If it has been revealed to man that the Almighty made him out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, it is in vain to tell a Christian that man was originally a speck of albumen, and passed through the stages of monads and monkeys, before he attained his present intellectual preeminence. If it be a received truth that the Creator has repeatedly interposed in the government of the universe and displayed his immediate agency in miraculous interpositions, it is an insult to any reader to tell him that the being slumbers on his throne and rules under a "primal arrangement in his counsels," and "by a code of laws of unbending operation."”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

Review of Vestiges (1845)

Life, Truth, Law, Universe

“I hear so many things about who I am supposed to be I hardly know what to believe. I am willing to tell all, but what Is it? Doubtless all these myths and legends will be straightened out eventually, but It may take years.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

Comic interview with Jo Ranson, "Living from Can to Mouth," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Eagle Magazine, November 24, 1929, p. 5.

“Large-eyed and well endowed, as her name Pritha connotes, she is strikingly lovely, and Kuntibhoja exhorts her not to neglect any service out of pride in her beauty. Kunti’s relationship with Durvasa does not appear to have been easy. In the account she gives much later to Vyasa, she tells him that despite Durvasa’s conduct having been such as to provide abundant cause for anger, she had not given way to it. She further states that she was constrained at the sage’s insistence to accept his boon, whereby any god would be compelled to answer her summons, and that she obeyed out of fear of his curse. The interaction that she describes after this between her and the sun god, Surya, is exactly similar – the same insistence and the same fear.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Five Holy Virgins, Five Sacred MythsOf Kunti and Satyawati Sexually Assertive Women of the Mahabharata

Love, God, Fear, Beauty

“I can’t imagine,” said Dupre, “a better way to unnerve people than to tell them there’s no cause for alarm.”

Jack McDevitt book The Hercules Text

Source: The Hercules Text (1986), Chapter 9 (p. 132)

People, Way, Imagination

“Last week, Mr President, I seemed to hear a strange sound emanating from Blackpool. And I thought at first it was seagulls. [laughter] Then I remembered that Labour was holding its annual Conference there. And I realised it wasn't seagulls, it was chickens—[laughter and applause] chickens being counted before they were hatched—[laughter and applause] except for Labour's call to enter the ERM and cut interest rates. That was a case of counting chickens after they'd flown the coop. Then, I heard voices getting all worked up about someone they kept calling the “Prime Minister in Waiting”. [laughter] It occurs to me, Mr President, that he might have quite a wait. [applause] I can see him now, like the people queuing up for the Winter sales. All got up with his camp bed, hot thermos, woolly balaclava, CND badge… [laughter and applause] Waiting, waiting, waiting… And then when the doors open, in he rushes—only to find that, as always, there's “that woman” ahead of him again. [applause and laughter] I gather there may be an adjective between “that” and “woman” [laughter] only no-one will tell me what it is. [laughter and applause]”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108217 Third term as Prime Minister

People, Laughter, Winter, Waiting

“I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends… that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Campaign statement in Fresno, California (10 September 1952); earlier incidence of similar comments exist:
If Mr. Hughes will stop lying about me, I will stop telling the truth about him.
William Randolph Hearst, about Charles Evans Hughes, in 1906, as quoted in The Quote Verifier : Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes
If you will refrain from telling any lies about the Republican Party, I'lll promise not to tell the truth about the Democrats.
Chauncey Depew, as quoted in "If Elected I Promise … "Stories and Gems of Wisdom by and About Politicians (1969) by John F. Parker

Truth, Thinking

“I've spoken many times about the Japanese woman. I've praised her again and again. But I have to tell you that I think the Japanese man is the worst. The women are such delicate creatures and they're treated abominably by the men. The Japanese men are pigs - even worse than American men.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Reflections (1981)

Women, Men, Thinking, Time

“When the cabin port-holes are dark and green
Because of the seas outside;
When the ship goes wop (with a wiggle between)
And the steward falls into the soup-tureen,
And the trunks begin to slide;
When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap,
And Mummy tells you to let her sleep,
And you aren't waked or washed or dressed,
Why, then you will know (if you haven't guessed)
You're ‘Fifty North and Forty West!”

Rudyard Kipling book Just So Stories

How the Whale Got His Throat.
Just So Stories (1902)

Sleep, Sea

“At present, I am a poet trying to be a soldier. To tell the truth, I am not interested in writing nowadays, except in so far as writing is the expression of something beautiful … The only sort of book I care to write about the war is the sort people will read after the war is over — a century after it is over.”

Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) American poet, editor, literary critic, soldier

A letter home, included in Joyce Kilmer, Poems, Essays and Letters (1918) edited by Robert Holliday

War, People, Truth, Books

“The Bobbit case, which brought to life the ancient mythic archetype of woman as castrator, demonstrated that women are as aggressive as men and that sex is a dark, dangerous force of nature. But of course the feminist establishment, stuck in its battered-woman blinders, learned nothing as usual from this lurid refutation of its normal views. Classic art works like Bizet’s Carmen tell us more about the irrationality of love, jealousy and revenge than do all the pat formulas of the counseling industry.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 42

Love, Life, Women, Men

“I would like to review your book myself,’ said the editor of one of our principal newspapers about Worshipping False Gods. ‘But if I praise it, they will be after me also. I too will be called communal, high-caste and all that.’ ‘Brilliant, Arun, it was fascinating,’ said a leading commentator who had written a review that inclined to the positive. ‘But, you’ll understand, I couldn’t say all that in print. But it really is brilliant. How do you manage to put in this much work?’ The very selection of reviewers tells the same story. If there is a book by a leftist, editors will be loath to give it to a person of a different point of view: ‘They will say, I have deliberately given it to a rightist,’ the editors are liable to explain. On the other hand, if it is a book by a person they have decided is a rightist, they will be loath to give it to a reviewer who also has been branded a rightist: ‘They will denounce me for deliberately giving the book to a person who is bound to praise it,’ they will bleat. Therefore, in such cases they deliberately give the book to a person who ‘is bound to condemn it’!”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud

God, Books, Communication, Understanding

“If you know me so well, then tell me which hand I use.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

"Yes, Anastasia".
Songs

“I want to tell you that, when the army of Egypt came down the streets, came to protect you, and stayed for 18 months, none of the soldiers harmed you, Our hands must be cut if they would harm you. I am repeating this for you to know, during those 18 months, there were 150,000 soldier in the streets. it means for 500 days with 150,000 soldier in the street there were 7.5 million possibilities, we were struggling not to harm any Egyptian!”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

Remarks by el-Sisi on Sinai liberation celebrations day (28 April 2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1xN8LUYG4. 2013

“[President Obama] encouraged me and supported me and thanked me for speaking out about the concerns of American women. And what was really personal for me was that he said to tell my parents that they should be proud, and that meant a lot because Rush Limbaugh questioned whether or not my family would be proud of me. So I just appreciated that very much.”

Sandra Fluke (1981) American women's rights activist and lawyer

Andrea Mitchell interview with Sandra Fluke. Andrea Mitchell Reports. March 2, 2012. — cited in [Andrea Mitchell interviews Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke moments after speaking with President Obama, MSNBC, http://info.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/02/10563035-andrea-mitchell-interviews-georgetown-law-student-sandra-fluke-moments-after-speaking-with-president-obama, March 2, 2012, March 8, 2012, NBCUniversal, Weesie, Vieira]
Media interviews

Women, Family, Question, Support

“She stood up. “Professional? Ha! My father used to say, you have to be able to tell a tracheotomist from a cutthroat. Well, I can.””

Gregory Benford Artifact

Artifact (1985), Part 4, Chapter 4 (p. 186)

“Since in this view dictatorships generate development while development leads to democracy, the best way to democracy was said to be a circuitous one. Yet common sense would indicate that in order to strengthen democracy we should strengthen democracy, not support dictatorships. And, even if G. B. Shaw warned that "common sense is that which tells us that the world is flat," the lesson of our analysis is that this time it is the best guide. With development, democracy can flourish in poor countries.”

Adam Przeworski (1940) Polish-American academic

Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi, "Modernization: Theories and Facts", World Politics (Jan., 1997)

World, Way, Democracy, Support

“A little boy and a little girl were looking at a picture of Adam and Eve. "Which is Adam and which is Eve?" said one. "I do not know," said the other, "but I could tell if they had their clothes on."”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Adam and Eve
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XVI - Written Sketches

Girl, Boy, Clothes

“You can bother me to autograph anything you want. When you quit bothering me to sign autographs, then I'll know I'm through. Slip me the old apple and a pen. And tell 'em to keep on bothering me.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Speaking to autograph seeker, as quoted in "'Never Happier in My Life' Ruth Tells Grantland Rice..."

“He used to wear a little blond moustache but Mother made him cut it off. She said -'
'Don't tell me. The minister needed it to stuff a cushion.”

Raymond Chandler book The Little Sister

Source: The Little Sister (1949), chapter 2

“Back and forth the fantastic tableaux would spin, past his cruel plebe hazing, the self-discovery at the West Texas Military Academy, the patriarchal Judge MacArthur, all beard and cigar smoke, presiding over dynastic feats at Washington's 1201 N Street; the chimes of the drawing-room clock there telling off the quarters; the ceremonial changing of the guard at Leavenworth; his father's tales of Sherman's dauntless Boys in Blue; his mother's imperious commands to fight and fight and never lower his blade short of victory; the clean crack of Krag rifles and the warm prickling of desert sand as he played with his brother outside the fort stockade; the rumbling of the sunset gun and Pinky's face tilting downward, her lambent smile gilding the child's upturned features while he clutched at her cascading skirts; the yellow notes of the bugles as he stirred in his cradle; the chant of sergeants hawking cadence on the parade ground outside; and, snapping proudly in the overarching sky above him, the flag, and the flag, and the flag.”

William Manchester (1922–2004) (April 1, 1922 – June 1, 2004) American author, journalist and historian

Source: American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 (1978), p. 709

Smile, Boy, Change, Past

“Morgot and Myra would tell her there wasn’t any reason to make promises or seek changes because the Great Mother didn’t bargain. The deity didn’t change her mind for women’s convenience. Her way was immutable. As the temple servers said, “No sentimentality, no romance, no false hopes, no self-petting lies, merely that which is!””

Sheri S. Tepper book The Gate to Women's Country

Which left very little room, Stavia thought, for womanly initiative.
Source: The Gate to Women's Country (1988), Chapter 2 (p. 9)

Women, Hope, Way, Change

“Akbar abolished Jiziyah in 1564. In all probability many of his 'devout' officers in far off regions, did not care to enforce this anti-Islamic measure. Therefore, ten years later he once again issued orders for its abolition. Badaoni tells us that it was customary "to search out and kill heretics" (Shias), let alone non-Muslims as late as 1574. Hemu's father, when captured, was offered his life if he turned Muslim. Abdun Nabi executed a Brahman for blasphemy on the complaint of a Qazi. Husain Khan, the governor of Lahore (died 983H/ 1575-76) ordered Hindus to stick patches on their shoulders so that no Muslim could be put to the indignity of showing them honour by mistake, nor did he allow Hindus to saddle their horses. Jihad was practised as usual, massacre at Chittor was done in true Jihadist spirit. "The Akbar Nama, the Ain-i-Akbari and Badaoni are all agreed that prior to 1593, some Hindus had been converted to Islam forcibly." In 1581 some Portuguese captives at Surat were offered their lives if they turned Muslim. Even iconoclastic zeal did not disappear under Akbar. Kangra was invaded in 1572-73, and even though Birbal was in joint command, the umbrella of the Goddess was riddled with arrows, 200 cows were killed and Muslim soldiers threw their shoes full of blood at the walls and doors of the temple. A Mughal officer, Bayazid, converted a Hindu temple into a Muslim school. Jain idols in Gujarat could not escape vandalism. "Such seem to have been and continued to be the popular prejudices against the Hindus", under Akbar and his successors as per the obligations of the Shariat and practice of Sunnah, writes S. R. Sharma.”

K. S. Lal book Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India

Source: Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999), ch. 2

Life, School, Shoe, Search

“It must be the old, darling, foolish Highlands in us, my dear, the old people and the old stupid stories they are telling us for generations round he fire, and it must be the hills about us, and the constant complaint of the sea.”

Neil Munro (Hugh Foulis) (1863–1930) Journalist, author, critic

Gilian the Dreamer, ch. 5.

People, Stupidity, Sea

“As for 'story' I never yet did enjoy a novel or play in which someone didn't tell me afterward that there was something wrong with the story, so that's going to be no drawback as far as I'm concerned. "Good Lord, why am I so bored"—"I know; it must be the plot developing harmoniously." So I often reply to myself, and there rises before me my special nightmare—that of the writer as craftsman, natty and deft.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Letter 104, to Forrest Reid, 19 June 1912
Selected Letters (1983-1985)

“I like women a lot and I champion them. I tell people when they are beautiful, I tell other actresses when I think their work is amazing… So I think women feel relatively comfortable in my presence. Also, because I'm not perfect, you know? I've got flabby thighs, I'm aging and I'm 5ft 3in. I talk about my failing in contemporary society in terms of gyms or food or whatever. I think there's a polite appreciation that I'm honest.”

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

On being appreciated by women — Net-a-Porter "Gillian Anderson on finding Scully again and her chemistry with David Duchovny" https://www.net-a-porter.com/magazine/333/11 (January 14, 2016) 2010s

Women, People, Age, Food

“"But is it alive?" exclaimed she again; and the finger on which the gorgeous mystery had alighted was so tremulous that the butterfly was forced to balance himself with his wings. "Tell me if it be alive, or whether you created it. But"—and here his countenance somewhat changed—"this butterfly is not now to me what it was when I beheld it afar off in a daydream of my youth."”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

"The Artist of the Beautiful" (1844)

Youth, Change

“You know, I'm sure I could have done a lot of things much better, but I will tell you this, Tim: I was there.”

Ray Nagin (1956) politician, businessman

Transcript for September 11, Ray Nagin, Arlen Specter, John Barry & Ivor van Heerden
2005

“You are too calculating. Don't tell me you are young. Youth gives all it can: it gives itself without reserve.”

Josemaría Escrivá book The Way

#30
The Way (1950)

Youth

“Playboy: Then for now, aren't you asking home-computer buyers to invest $3000 in what is essentially an act of faith?
Jobs: In the future, it won't be an act of faith. The hard part of what we're up against now is that people ask you about specifics and you can't tell them. A hundred years ago, if somebody had asked Alexander Graham Bell, "What are you going to be able to do with a telephone?" he wouldn't have been able to tell him the ways the telephone would affect the world. He didn't know that people would use the telephone to call up and find out what movies were playing that night or to order some groceries or call a relative on the other side of the globe. But remember that first the public telegraph was inaugurated, in 1844. It was an amazing breakthrough in communications. You could actually send messages from New York to San Francisco in an afternoon. People talked about putting a telegraph on every desk in America to improve productivity. But it wouldn't have worked. It required that people learn this whole sequence of strange incantations, Morse code, dots and dashes, to use the telegraph. It took about 40 hours to learn. The majority of people would never learn how to use it. So, fortunately, in the 1870s, Bell filed the patents for the telephone. It performed basically the same function as the telegraph, but people already knew how to use it. Also, the neatest thing about it was that besides allowing you to communicate with just words, it allowed you to sing.
Playboy: Meaning what?
Jobs: It allowed you to intone your words with meaning beyond the simple linguistics. And we're in the same situation today. Some people are saying that we ought to put an IBM PC on every desk in America to improve productivity. It won't work. The special incantations you have to learn this time are "slash q-zs" and things like that. The manual for WordStar, the most popular word-processing program, is 400 pages thick. To write a novel, you have to read a novel—one that reads like a mystery to most people. They're not going to learn slash q-z any more than they're going to learn Morse code. That is what Macintosh is all about. It's the first "telephone" of our industry. And, besides that, the neatest thing about it, to me, is that the Macintosh lets you sing the way the telephone did. You don't simply communicate words, you have special print styles and the ability to draw and add pictures to express yourself.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

Steve Jobs, Playboy, Feb 1985, as quoted in “Steve Jobs Imagines 'Nationwide' Internet in 1985 Interview” https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/steve-jobs-imagines-nationwide-internet-in-1985-intervi-1671246589, Matt Novak, 12/15/14 2:20pm Paleofuture, Gizmodo. 1980s

People, World, Faith, Way

“And oft-times cometh our wise Lord God, master of every trade,
And tells them tales of His daily toil, of Edens newly made;
And they rise to their feet as He passes by, gentlemen unafraid.”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Dedication, Stanza 5.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

God, Time

“Suppose two politicians are running for president, and one goes through the farm section and is asked, "What are you going to do about the farm question?" And he knows right away - bang, bang, bang. Now he goes to the next campaigner who comes through. "What are you going to do on the farm problem?" "Well, I don't know. I used to be a general, and I don't know anything about farming. But it seems to me it must be a very difficult problem, because for twelve, fifteen, twenty years people have been struggling with it, and people say that they know how to solve the farm problem. And it must be a hard problem. So the way I intend to solve the farm problem is to gather around me a lot of people who know something about it, to look at all the experience that we have had with this problem before, to take a certain amount of time at it, and then to come to some conclusion in a reasonable way about it. Now, I can't tell you ahead of time what solution, but I can give you some of the principles I'll try to use - not to make things difficult for individual farmers, if there are any special problems we will have to have some way to take care of them," etc., etc., etc.
Now such a man would never get anywhere in this country, I think. It's never been tried, anyway. This is in the attitude of mind of the populace, that they have to have an answer and that a man who gives an answer is better than a man who gives no answer, when the real fact of the matter is, in most cases, it is the other way around. And the result of this of course is that the politician must give an answer. And the result of this is that political promises can never be kept. It is a mechanical fact; it is impossible. The result of that is that nobody believes campaign promises. And the result of that is a general disparaging of politics, a general lack of respect for the people who are trying to solve problems, and so forth. It's all generated from the very beginning (maybe - this is a simple analysis). It's all generated, maybe, by the fact that the attitude of the populace is to try to find the answer instead of trying to find a man who has a way of getting at the answer.”

Richard Feynman book The Meaning of It All

lecture III: "This Unscientific Age"
The Meaning of It All (1999)

People, Way, Question, Problem

“You've got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Letter to Frances Turnbull (9 November 1938), in A Life in Letters (1994), p. 368
Quoted, Letters

People, Learning, Time, Heart

“Any high school boy or girl knows how to calculate the force with which a stone he or she throws will hit someone in the face, but nothing in those equations they use will tell them whether or not to throw it…To solve the problem of values we must know what is valuable. Consciousness is the most valuable commodity…To bring values into science, we need to connect science with what is valuable—consciousness.”

Ravi Gomatam (1950) Indian academic

An interview with Ravi Gomatam by Thomas Beardy for Clarion Call magazine (Clarion University's newspaper) There Consciousness Within Science?" http://www.vedicsciences.net/articles/consciousness-in-science.html#Consciousness-Science"Is, 1990.

School, Girl, Boy, Problem

“I think it is well also for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1932/nov/10/international-affairs in the House of Commons (10 November 1932). 1932

People, Thinking

“Usually, old ladies tell me to find Jesus. Look, I'm just trying to find some chai and a good vegan muffin.”

Davey Havok (1975) American singer

Rolling Stone, March 2003 http://web.archive.org/web/20050507192246/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/5937492

“A methodology will lack the precision of a technique but will be a firmer guide to action than a philosophy. Where a technique tells you 'how' and a philosophy tells you 'what', a methodology will contain elements of both 'what' and 'how.”

Peter Checkland (1930) British management scientist

Source: Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, 1981, p. 162 cited in: Rob Pooley, Pauline Wilcox (2003) Applying UML: Advanced Applications. p. 50

“Look, Jeyaretnam can't win the infighting. I'll tell you why. WE are in charge. Every government ministry and department is under our control. And in the infighting, he will go down for the count every time… I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for mercy.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

1981, as recounted by former President C. V. Devan Nair, as quoted in Beyond suspicion?: the Singapore judiciary, Francis T. Seow http://www.singapore-window.org/sw99/90321dn.htm 1980s

Time

“My school was a happy place. All of us who started our schooling there completed our studies till the eighth standard. I don't remember even a single person dropping out. These days, when i visit schools, both big and small, all across the country, i tell them that true quality does not come from a great building or great facilities or great advertisements. It happens when education is imparted with love by great teachers.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (1931–2015) 11th President of India, scientist and science administrator

My Journey: Transforming Dreams into Actions

Love, Happiness, Education, School

“You decide which side you want to be on and then help your general win. Christians have a great advantage. See, we have an infallible book that tells us how it comes out. I read the last chapter - we win! I think it would be smart to get on God's side, okay?”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

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

God, Books, Thinking, Reading

“Let's define the word, what racist is - "A person who believes that their race to be superior to another's." I've never advocated that. And I challenge anyone to tell me one thing that I've said that is racist. Criticism is not racism. Accountability is not racism. And that's what I've tried to say over the years.”

Pauline Hanson (1954) Australian politician

Interview on Enough Rope (September 20, 2004) http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s1203646.htm

Personality

“McKay tells me that you went home sick,” she said. “Personally, I hope you don’t survive.”

Clifford D. Simak (1904–1988) American writer, journalist

“Skirmish” (p. 44); originally published in Amazing Stories, December 1950
Short Fiction, Skirmish (1977)

Hope, Home, Personality

“When I come to put down their names, there weren’t many. David O. Selznick, Sam Goldwyn, Darryl Zanuck, Walter Wanger, Irving Thalberg seem to exhaust the list…Ninety per cent of the producers I have known were not bright. They were as slow-witted and unprofessional toward making up a story as stockbrokers might be, or bus drivers. Even after twenty or thirty years of telling writers what and how to write, they were still as ignorant of writing as if they had never encountered the craft.”

Ben Hecht (1894–1964) American screenwriter

from "Elegy for Wonderland", by Ben Hecht, Esquire Magazine, March 1959

“She knew he was telling his soul what it needed to hear so that he could gather his courage to go and go what he must”

Alice Borchardt (1939–2007) American fiction writer

Beguiled

Soul, Courage

“Along the Syria border there were no farms and no refugee camps — there was only the Syrian army… The kibbutzim saw the good agricultural land … and they dreamed about it… They didn't even try to hide their greed for the land… We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was…The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.”

Moshe Dayan (1915–1981) Israeli military leader and politician

On pre-1967 clashes with the Syrians, from a private conversation in 1976 with Rami Tal, as quoted in The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/11/world/general-s-words-shed-a-new-light-on-the-golan.html?scp=1&sq=Moshe%20Dayan%20Rami%20Tal&st=cse and Associated Press reports (11 May 1997)

War, Dreams

“Dio Nicæus, an ancient author, speaking of the inhabitants of the northern parts of this island, tells us, they were a fierce and barbarous people, who tilled no ground, but lived upon the depredations they committed in the southern districts, or upon the food they procured by hunting.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 2
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Britons

People, Food, Parting

“Jack: What do you mean, you think? Can't you tell?”

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

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

Thinking

“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end,
after he plundered the stronghold
on the proud height of Troy.
He saw the townlands
and learned the minds of many distant men,
and weathered many bitter nights and days
in his deep heart at sea, while he fought only
to save his life, to bring his shipmates home.
But not by will nor valor could he save them,
for their own recklessness destroyed them all—
children and fools, they killed and feasted on
the cattle of Lord Hêlios, the Sun,
and he who moves all day through the heaven
took from their eyes the dawn of their return.”

Robert Fitzgerald (1910–1985) American poet, critic and translator

opening lines
The Odyssey (1961)

Life, Men, Children, Fools

“Love is not always evil, truth to tell;
Though harm he does, he serves the good as well.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Dunque Amor sempre rio non si ritrova:
Se spesso nuoce, anco talvolta giova.
Canto XXV, stanza 2 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Love, Truth, Evil

“My life [is] a series of Hollywood orgies and Kabbalah center brunches with the cast of Friends. At least that's what my handlers tell me. I’m actually too valuable to live my own life and spend most of my days in a vegetable crisper to remain fake news anchor fresh.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

College of William & Mary Commencement Address (2004)

Life

“My friends, who are both women, tell me their stories,
which cannot be believed and which are true. They
are horror stories and they have not happened to me,
they have not yet happened to me, they have
happened to me but we are detached, we watch our
unbelief with horror.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Selected Poems 1976-1986 (1987), Marrying the Hangman

Women

“So many times, I've seen men and women get into trouble when they travel away from home because they believe that no one will ever know what they do when away. This is a lie, and it will always come back to haunt you. In Genesis 38, the Bible tells the story of Judah, who went on a business trip. When he arrived at a distant town, he saw a prostitute and approached her to sleep with her. But he didn't have any money to pay her, so he had to give her some personal items as a down payment. Of course, everyone knew those items belonged to him, and soon what he had done in secret, far away from home, was a public matter. And, again, we're reading about his hypocrisy thousands of years later. His actions have brought shame to his entire famiy for many generations. It's just not worth it. I remember an old tent preacher saying, sin will take you further than you want to go; cost you more than you want to pay; and keep you longer than you want to stay.”

Ted Haggard (1956) American minister

[Haggard, Ted, Letters from Home, Regal Books, March 2003, p. 20, ISBN 0830730583]

Women, Men, Money, Lie

“I remember reports that the American and English newspapers were very happy about the fact that so many were killed in Dresden. There are many instances of barbarity and cruelty on the part of the Allies which I could tell you.”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

To Leon Goldensohn, June 15, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

Happiness, Parting

“…that if you want to do something, achieve something, you can't be thinking all the time of what you don't have… I don't have an opening batsman, I don't have a fast bowler, I don't have an all-rounder… You think like this and you are telling yourself you can't win. You have to see what you have, and then plan how to use it the best way you can, that is how to win games. Not this business of 'we don't have an all-rounder so we are not a balanced team!”

Kapil Dev (1959) Indian cricketer

The Rediff Cricket Interview, Kapil Dev

Way, Game, Business, Thinking

“I lie awake at night to wait 'til you come in.
You stay a little while and then you're gone again.
Every question that I ask, I get a lie, lie, lie.
For every lie you tell, you're gonna cry, cry, cry!”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Cry! Cry! Cry!
Song lyrics, Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar (1957)

Lie, Question, Waiting, Cry

“I don’t know any other business that tells you not to go in and buy their product.”

Jack Valenti (1921–2007) President of the MPAA

On the film rating system, as quoted in The New York Times (5 May 1985)

Business

“I should have been happy—I was being paid to be here—but happiness does not respond to that kind of imperative; it is no good telling yourself you should be happy.”

Geoff Dyer (1958) English writer

Source: Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It (1993), p. 225

Happiness

“"Overwrite — put down everything that comes to your mind," I was told.
"Be explicit, elaborate. Judicious pruning will be done later. Don't be afraid to name names. Lawyers will tooth-comb the book before it gets into print and protect you from libel suits. Don't be afraid to shock people. Be daring. Be spicy. Tell all!"
I did.
I followed everybody's advice. About seven hundred thirty pages were judiciously pruned in order to protect the innocent, to make it possible for the book to be sent through the U. S. mails, and to prevent me from spending the twilight years of my life in jail for criminal libel.
What's left is here.
PLEASE LIKE IT.”

Walter Slezak (1902–1983) actor

Preface, p. viii
What Time's the Next Swan? (1962)

Life, People, Books

“Get me a drink, or I'll tell you I love you. I'll wake you up in an hour or two, crooning, all sloppy and maudlin, tell you I love you really. You'd like that, right? Hearing Momma tell you she loves you? Isn't that what you want, deep inside?”

Arthur M. Jolly (1969) American writer

Sarah, Act I, Scene 4
Past Curfew (2009)

Love, Drink

“D. I. Y., D. I. Y., D. I. Y., D. I. Y.
Don't tell me what I will do, 'cos I won't.
Don't tell me to believe in you, 'cos I don't.
Be on your guard, better hostile and hard, don't risk affection;
Like flesh to the bone in the no-go zone,
You're still looking for the Resurrection.
Come up to me with your "What did you say?"”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

And I'll tell you, straight in the eye:
D.I.Y., D.I.Y.
D.I.Y
Song lyrics, Peter Gabriel (II) (1978)

Hostility

“Indeed you can usually tell when the concepts of democracy and citizenship are weakening. There is an increase in the role of charity and in the worship of volunteerism. These represent the élite citizen's imitation of noblesse oblige; that is, of pretending to be aristocrats or oligarchs, as opposed to being citizens.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

Reflections of a Siamese Twin (1997)

Democracy

“I wish the Queen had died the night before the Royal Jubilee – I wish she’d just fucking died. But they wouldn’t have been able to tell us that she’d died. They would have had to hollow out her body and get that guy who plays Gollum to wear it.”

Frankie Boyle (1972) Scottish comedian

Give It Up for Comic Relief

Guy, Night

“Sometimes because I'm sad I do bad things.
I can't tell you what they are.
They are too bad. And it's not fair on the cat.”

Michael Rosen (1946) British children's writer

Sad Book

Sadness, Cats

“I mean that to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is; a Being that is love. We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people," Paul says. "That is why God tells us so many times to love each other.”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Love, God, People, Thinking

“At every period of history, people have believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you risked ostracism or even violence by saying otherwise. If our own time were any different, that would be remarkable. As far as I can tell it isn't.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"Taste for Makers" http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html, February 2002

People, History, Time

“See, if evolution is true, who owns the world? Who makes the rules? How do we decide right from wrong? If man is God, and that's what humanism means, there is no absolute standard. How do you tell right from wrong? I mean, maybe Osama Bin Laden should tell right from wrong for everybody. Maybe congress should decide. Maybe Bill Clinton ought to decide. "Right and wrong? Never heard of that before."”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

How do you tell right from wrong? Where are the rules?
Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

God, World

“I'm here to validate all the millions of people who are opposed to the Obama healthcare. We're witnessing a slow and steady takeover of our true freedoms. We're becoming a socialist nation, and Obama is causing civil unrest in this country… The stimulus didn't work…. We're being told what cars we can drive, how much we can make…. Obama has made this [healthcare] a personal crusade now…. As we can see it really is about him. He is arrogant and he's adamant that he's going to get this passed…. He's trying everything, even the so-called God card. If you love God, he tells us, then it's your duty to vote this healthcare bill in…. They're taking away God's first gift to man. Our free will.”

Jon Voight (1938) American actor

Criticizing President Obama's healthcare proposal on the August 30, 2009 edition of Fox News Sunday with Mike Huckabee http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/31/jon-voight-on-huckabee-ob_n_272571.html

Love, God, People, Cars

“There's no question that at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate. And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn't trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them. I found that I felt compelled to seek God's forgiveness. Not God's understanding, but God's forgiveness. I do believe in a forgiving God. And I think most people, deep down in their hearts hope there's a forgiving God. Somebody once said that when we're young, we seek justice, but as we get older, we seek mercy.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

2011-03-09 interview with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network, quoted in * 2011-03-09
Gingrich: Past Adultery 'Partially Driven By How Passionately I Felt About This Country' (Video)
Eric
Kleefeld
Talking Points Memo
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/gingrich-past-adultery-partially-driven-by-how-passionately-i-felt-about-this-country-video.php
2011-03-31
2010s

Life, God, People, Justice

“I had often heard of the wonderful power of the President in telling anecdotes, but no one could form an adequate idea of his ability in this line unless he had been alone with him for ten days as I was. He had an illustration for everything, and if anything particular attracted his attention he would say, 'That reminds me of something that occurred when I was a lawyer in Illinois,' or 'when I was a boatman on the Mississippi.' He was not at all ashamed of any business he had ever been engaged in, because it was honest business, and he made an honest living by it; and he told me many stories of his earlier life, which were as creditable to him as anything he was engaged in while occupying a higher sphere.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), pp. 282–283

Life, Idea, Business

“If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is "Probably because of something you did."”

Jack Handey (1949) American comedian

Deep Thoughts (1992)

God, Thinking, Cry

Quotes about tell page 61

Quotes about tell
page 61