# Quote From a Book



## officerripley (Oct 21, 2022)

I stole this idea from another site. Got any quotes from books (or articles, etc., anything you've read) you'd like to share? (No politics, remember.) Here are a couple of mine:

"All those people out there, millions of them, billions, and not one of them knows or cares about him."
~~from _Our Missing Hearts_ by Celeste Ng

"Intelligence and compassion are the heart of what it means to be human. Help others where you can. This is clear enough. But a Creator may well want us to open our eyes, as well. If there _is_ a judgment, God may not be particularly interested in how many hymns we sang or what prayers we memorized. I suspect He may instead look at us and say, “I gave you a brain, and you never used it. I gave you the stars, and you never looked.”
~~from _Firebird _by Jack McDevitt


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## JaniceM (Oct 21, 2022)

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.."
(Allen Ginsberg)


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## Gaer (Oct 21, 2022)

"Great minds discuss Ideas.
Average minds discuss events.
Small minds discuss people."
Eleanor Roosevelt

"Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it."
Goethe

"Far better it is to dare mighty things,
to win glorious triumphs, even though
checkered by failure, than to take rank
with those poor spirits who neither enjoy
much nor suffer much, because they live
in the gray twilight that knows not
victory nor defeat."
Theodore Roosevelt

"What you are stands over you and
speaks so loudly
that I cannot hear what you say
to the contrary."
Emerson


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## bowmore (Oct 21, 2022)

Paraphrased.. Most men lead lives of quiet desparation and take their song to the grave-Thoreau


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## ohioboy (Oct 21, 2022)

"You think my gait 'spasmodic' - I am in danger - Sir - You think me 'uncontrolled' - I have no Tribunal.”

Emily Dickinson


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## officerripley (Oct 21, 2022)

"...the people in charge don’t have a great track record for solving problems. Most people are B and C students. There are a few brainiacs...but they’re generally not the ones in charge. Think high school. The jocks ran the show. Same thing now. Get a bunch of people together to solve a problem and it’s not the smartest guy who does the talking. It’s the loudest."
~~from _This Plague of Days - Season One_ by Robert Chazz Chute


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## Marie5656 (Oct 21, 2022)

*You've got to get busy living or get busy dying.

Shawshank Redemption*


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## CinnamonSugar (Oct 21, 2022)

LIzzie Bennet to Mr. Collins:  *You must give me leave to judge for myself, and pay me the compliment of believing what I say.*


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## officerripley (Oct 21, 2022)

"I never have much to say unless I’m in a library or a bookstore; and then I say too much. I never seem to get the talking thing right."
~~from _Where We Belong_ by Catherine Ryan Hyde


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## Alizerine (Oct 21, 2022)

I love Emerson and Thoreau and I really like this thread.  How about
Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination.      _ Immanuel Kant_
or Be yourself: everyone else is already taken.      _Oscar Wilde_


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## officerripley (Oct 21, 2022)

"I avoid [the sun] like it’s trying to kill me, because it is."
~~from _Caretakers_ by Jamie Sheffield


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## Gary O' (Oct 21, 2022)

This has been my favorite since first living at our mountain cabin;

*“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”* Emerson

I took his advice

no regrets


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## officerripley (Oct 21, 2022)

"[The human brain,] something that sits on our shoulders[,] is the most sophisticated object we know about in the universe."
~~from _The Future of the Mind_ by Michio Kaku


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## Gary O' (Oct 22, 2022)

Marie5656 said:


> you've got to get busy living or get busy dying.
> 
> Shawshank Redemption


Love the line
Love the movie


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## Warrigal (Oct 22, 2022)

The opening words of a Tale of Two Cities by Dickens

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. ~ _A Tale of Two Cities_

Also a quote from the end of the book

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” Sydney Carton, as he nobly takes the place of another man at the guillotine.


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## Pepper (Oct 22, 2022)

Marie5656 said:


> *You've got to get busy living or get busy dying.
> 
> Shawshank Redemption*





Gary O' said:


> Love the line
> Love the movie


He stole it from Bob Dylan's "It's All Right Ma"............"Those not busy being born are busy dying" 1965.


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## oldpop (Oct 22, 2022)

*“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” —George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four*​


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## officerripley (Oct 22, 2022)

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away."
~~from _I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon_ by Phillip K. Dick


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## DebraMae (Oct 22, 2022)

"The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, and the capacity for sacrifice.  Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable:  they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed."
- "The Letters of Ernest Hemingway"


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## officerripley (Oct 22, 2022)

"The lustful who punish beauty would be wiser to control lust."
~~above 4 from _The Fresco_ by Sheri S. Tepper


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## StarSong (Oct 22, 2022)

officerripley said:


> "...the people in charge don’t have a great track record for solving problems. Most people are B and C students. There are a few brainiacs...but they’re generally not the ones in charge. Think high school. The jocks ran the show. Same thing now. Get a bunch of people together to solve a problem and it’s not the smartest guy who does the talking. It’s the loudest."
> ~~from _This Plague of Days - Season One_ by Robert Chazz Chute


If this isn't the ever-loving blue-eyed truth, I don't know what is.


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## officerripley (Oct 22, 2022)

"…I [am] a feral loner who walks between worlds, between cultures, languages, roles and vocations and who has been homesick her entire life for places that don’t exist…"
~~from “Dreaming the Dark” by Athena Andreadis in _The Other half of the Sky_ (ed. by Andreadis)


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## Gary O' (Oct 22, 2022)

Pepper said:


> He stole it from Bob Dylan's "It's All Right Ma"............"Those not busy being born are busy dying" 1965.


Thinking about it, maybe Dylan stole it from Dufresne, since the movie is based on a true story.....

Jus' kiddin'

....made ya think, though, didn't it


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## Pepper (Oct 22, 2022)

Gary O' said:


> Thinking about it, maybe Dylan stole it from Dufresne, since the movie is based on a true story.....
> 
> Jus' kiddin'
> 
> *....made ya think, though, didn't it*


 Nope.


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## officerripley (Oct 22, 2022)

"The black hole is nature’s ultimate assault on the notion of a reasonable, friendly universe. No advantage can be extracted from its existence. It adds nothing to the majesty of the natural world. And if there is evidence anywhere that the cosmos does not give a damn for its children, this is it."
~~from _Coming Home_ by Jack McDevitt


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## officerripley (Oct 22, 2022)

"...[H]ate takes lots of forms, but all of them are dumb."
~~Matt Nedostup, “Somebody left a hateful note on this woman’s yard,” www.happyplace.someecards.com, 6/18/15.


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## officerripley (Oct 22, 2022)

"My anatomy...belongs to me. I [give] you no rights to it...for your uncalled-for comments."
~~from _Grandmother and the Priests_ by Taylor Caldwell


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## palides2021 (Oct 22, 2022)

"Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration" - Thomas A. Edison


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## palides2021 (Oct 22, 2022)

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." - William Shakespeare


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## officerripley (Oct 22, 2022)

"...STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Math] professionals are the mandarins of [this] computer age—and...our view of reality may turn out to be every bit as blinkered as the things 'everyone' knew in the inner courts of Versailles or St. Petersburg or the Forbidden Palace. There is a certain smell to the lies that privileged intellectuals tell each other in deeply divided societies during the last few gilded years before the streets catch fire."
~~from “Books” column by Chris Moriarty in _The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction_, Sept./Oct. 2015


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## officerripley (Oct 22, 2022)

"...[H]ow easily lifelong prejudices can be formed by the silliest of circumstances. Therefore...it is important that our children be taught this simple tenet: Hate people on an individual basis only—you must actually get to know someone at least slightly before you can properly hate him or her."
~~from _The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love_ by Jill Conner Browne


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## Pink Biz (Oct 22, 2022)

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
― Jack Kerouac, _On the Road_


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## Bretrick (Oct 22, 2022)

I have always remembered this passage from Somerset Maugham's book - Of Human Bondage

“I have nothing but contempt for the people who despise money.
They are hypocrites or fools. Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
Without an adequate income half the possibilities of life are shut off.
The only thing to be careful about is that you do not pay more than a shilling for the shilling you earn.
You will hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist.
They have never felt the iron of it in their flesh.
They do not know how mean it makes you.
It exposes you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it eats into your soul like a cancer.”


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## Beezer (Oct 22, 2022)

"Please return this book to the Library on the due date."


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## Bretrick (Oct 22, 2022)

"He who controls the spice controls the Universe"
Frank Herbert -Dune


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## officerripley (Oct 23, 2022)

"Try to avoid getting involved with somebody who’s gonna need killing before it’s over. It may seem to you that narrows the field somewhat, but be diligent."
~~from _The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love_ by Jill Conner Browne


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## palides2021 (Oct 23, 2022)

Beezer said:


> "Please return this book to the Library on the due date."


That was funny! I remember I bought a book once from the library book sale, and inside, someone had written, something like this: "This book belongs to "name," and whoever took it, may your eyes fall out."  Or something to that effect.


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## feywon (Oct 23, 2022)

palides2021 said:


> That was funny! I remember I bought a book once from the library book sale, and inside, someone had written, something like this: "This book belongs to "name," and whoever took it, may your eyes fall out."  Or something to that effect.


The Albany County Library in Laramie, WY had a small container on the check out desk where they put the things (envelopes, letters, photos) that people used as bookmarks and forgot when returning.  Sometimes they were missed and slid down between pages and if you bought book at library sale you might find some interesting things. i've also found some interesting things stuck in books i bought at estate or yard sales. 
0


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## feywon (Oct 23, 2022)

"...the wiser people become, whether in science, religion, politics or art, the less dogmatic they become.  Apparently the better we know the territory of human experience, the more aware we are of the limitations of the verbal maps we can make of it."  
S.I. Hayakawa
Language in Thought and Action


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## Timewise 60+ (Oct 23, 2022)

"mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent"
*Adam Smith*
_from The Vision of the Anointed", by Thomas Sowell_


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## officerripley (Oct 23, 2022)

"...[T]hink of [misbehaving in middle age] as Building an Inventory of Good Stories to Tell in the Nursing Home."
~~from _God Save the Sweet Potato Queens_ by Jill Conner Browne


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## charry (Oct 23, 2022)

It’s not the dying that scares me….it’s the living …..
annie Lennox lyric ….
sorry not a book , a song …


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## NorthernLight (Oct 23, 2022)

charry said:


> It’s not the dying that scares me….it’s the living …..


I once said that, and someone replied, "It's the same thing, isn't it?"


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## officerripley (Oct 23, 2022)

"I’ll take Cthulhu over you devils any day."
~~from _The Ballad of Black Tom_ by Victor LaValle

[Note: this is not a reference to anyone here on SF.  ]


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## Bella (Oct 23, 2022)

“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit. 

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.' 

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?' 

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”  

―  Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit


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## officerripley (Oct 23, 2022)

“Neurotypical syndrome [i.e., NOT on the autism/Aspergers spectrum] is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity. There is no known cure.”
~~from The Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical website, launched by Laura Tisoncik, as quoted in _NeuroTribes_ by Steve Silberman


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## SeniorBen (Oct 23, 2022)

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed- in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from _Letters and Papers from Prison_


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## officerripley (Oct 23, 2022)

"Geriatrician William H. Thomas...[has said], 'Elders have long spoken for the Earth, its living creatures, and the children who are yet to be born.'...Let us consider those elders who have 'long spoken for Earth.' I guess Thomas isn’t talking about old men who made their fortunes from strip mining, logging, or dumping industrial waste into rivers and who are trying to hang on to every dollar they have acquired from despoiling the natural world."
~~from _Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age_ by Susan Jacoby


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## officerripley (Oct 23, 2022)

"…I have never admired the 'natural' or believed in the 'wisdom of the body.' Death is as 'natural' as anything gets, and the body has always seemed to me like a retarded Siamese twin dragging along behind me, a hysteric really, dangerously overreacting, in my case, to everyday allergens…I put my faith in science."
~~from _Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America_ by Barbara Ehrenreich


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## officerripley (Oct 24, 2022)

"…[T]he faint, lingering echoes of the savannah…flickering shadows of the Old Forest…remnants of tooth and claw…[remind] all…men and women that the Universe [owes] nobody any favors. Or even explanations."
~~from “Lungfish” by David Brin in _Lifeboat Foundation Presents Visions of the Future_ edited by J. Daniel Batt


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## officerripley (Oct 24, 2022)

"...[D]estiny[:]...a fancy word for being told what to do with [your] life."

and

"If [you] want lessons in becoming invisible, the first rule [is] to hold still...The second rule—being the least important person in the room."

~~from “Unfinished” by Kendra C. Highley in the anthology _Star Rebels_


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## officerripley (Oct 24, 2022)

"Survival doesn’t mean _rightness."_
~~from _The Fifth Season_ by N. K. Jemisin


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## Jamala (Oct 25, 2022)

"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting
*(The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho)*

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."
*"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë,*

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird


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## Bella (Oct 25, 2022)

“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”  
  ―  William O. Douglas, The Douglas Letters: Selections from the Private Papers of Justice William O. Douglas


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## officerripley (Oct 25, 2022)

"[Trying to have a career as a professional athlete is] a useless thing to do with yourself, okay for a bit of private discipline or for a collegiate extracurric, but you [don’t] make a career out of it. For a career...you [have] to make some real use of your life, which [means] entering into the human race, not the 1500-meter one. You [have] to justify your presence on the planet by giving something to the others who [are] here in space and time sharing it with you, and being the [best athlete isn’t] close to being enough."
~~from _Tom O’Bedlam_ by Robert Silverberg


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## Been There (Oct 25, 2022)

“What if this is as good as it gets?” -Jack Nicholson-      (I often wonder about that.)


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## Been There (Oct 25, 2022)

“Frankly my Dear, I don’t give a damn.” Rhett Butler “Gone With the Wind”


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## Been There (Oct 25, 2022)

“Lead me, follow me or get out of my way.” Gen. George Patton


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## officerripley (Oct 25, 2022)

"...[Each] world has a song that is begun with the first life on a world, a song that sounds within the world to foster life and variation. All living creatures are a part of the song which shall be sung forever, until the last star goes out...[But] sometimes living creatures do not wish to be part of the song; they do not hear it; they rise up against it; they cry that they are larger than the song and more important than the music, and when their words drown out the song, then the world begins to die. Within the song, we are an immortal resonance. Outside it, we are like the tinkle of a tiny bell, gone quickly into nothing."
~~from _Singer From the Sea_ by Sheri S. Tepper


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## Gardenlover (Oct 25, 2022)

"We wrap up our violent and mysterious world in a pretense of understanding. We paper over the voids in our comprehension with science or religion, and make make believe that order has been imposed. And, for the most of it, the fiction works. We skim across surfaces, heedless of the depths below. Dragonflies flitting over a lake, miles deep, pursuing erratic paths to pointless ends. Until that moment when something from the cold unknown reaches up and takes us. The biggest lies we save for ourselves. We play a game in which we are gods, in which we make choices, and the current follows our wake. We pretend a separation from the wild. Pretend that a man's control runs deep, that civilization is more than a veneer, that reason will be our companion in dark places. ~ Mark Lawrence - Prince of Thrones (The broken empire, #1)


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## StarSong (Oct 25, 2022)

@Gardenlover, I like that quote.  A lot.  So much truth there.


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## officerripley (Oct 25, 2022)

"Some people [have] been waiting their whole lives to live lawlessly, and they [would be] the first to take to the streets [in a disaster or apocalypse]."
~~from _The Book of the Unnamed Midwife_ by Meg Elison


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## officerripley (Oct 25, 2022)

"It is required of every man...that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide...Business! Mankind [should have been] my business. The common welfare [should have been] my business; charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence, were [supposed to have been], all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
~~Jacob Marley’s ghost to Ebenezer Scrooge in _A Christmas Carol_ by Charles Dickens


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## officerripley (Oct 26, 2022)

"I[’ve often] felt disappointed that books and life [are] so different and wondered which [is] wrong. Sometimes I still do."
~~from “The Leaning Lincoln” by Will Ludwigsen in _Asimov’s Science Fiction_ magazine, Oct./Nov. 2016 issue


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## officerripley (Oct 26, 2022)

"...[A] species either learns to come together on a global scale, or dissolves into squabbling factions doomed to extinction, whether through war or ecological disasters too great to tackle divided."
~~from _The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers)_ by Becky Chambers


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## officerripley (Oct 26, 2022)

"For that which befalleth the sons of man befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity."
~~Ecclesiastes 3:19, King James Christian Bible


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## Pink Biz (Oct 26, 2022)

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass


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## officerripley (Oct 26, 2022)

"No civilization has survived forever. All move toward dissolution, one after the other, like waves of the sea falling upon the shore. None, including ours, is exempt from the universal fate."
~~from _The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story_ by Douglas Preston


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## Farrah Nuff (Oct 26, 2022)




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## officerripley (Oct 27, 2022)

"...[R]evenge is a dish best eaten by muttonheads, an expensive luxury item that costs a lot and benefits very little, in the final analysis..."
~~from _Thunderstruck_ by Jamie Sheffield


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## ronaldj (Oct 27, 2022)

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.”
― Theodore Roosevelt


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## officerripley (Oct 27, 2022)

"No nation, even the most heroically hopeful, is immune to the forces of history."
~~from _The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks_ by Joshua Cooper Ramo


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## officerripley (Oct 27, 2022)

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
~~from “Suicide in the Trenches” by English poet Siegfried Sassoon


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## officerripley (Oct 29, 2022)

"…[T]rue power resides in reason, in eloquence, in compassion and in honest service to others. Power unites people in a common goal, a common cause, and unified action, empowering everyone in the process. Force[, on the other hand,] divides people and seeks to conquer others, empowering one at the expense of another. In life, we must recognize the difference between power and force and decide which one we will follow."
~~from _Meteor Storm_ by David Capps


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## officerripley (Oct 29, 2022)

"Every piece of this [war] is man’s bullshit. They call this war 'a cloud over the land' but they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say 'Shit, it’s rainin’!'
~~the character Ruby Thewes (played by Renee Zellweger) in the movie _Cold Mountain_ by Charles Frazier (book author) and Anthony Minghella (screenplay writer)


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## Marie5656 (Oct 29, 2022)

*“Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

Atticus Finch*


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## officerripley (Oct 30, 2022)

"…[M]ost wars: just a bunch of young men killing young men on the orders of old men. But…it [is] women who [are] left to clean it all up in the end…"

And:

"[Almost all] old men want it to be like it was when they were young. But it’ll never be like that again, and they’ll never be young again, no matter what they do."

~~both from _American War: A Novel_ by Omar El Akkad


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## Liberty (Oct 30, 2022)




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## officerripley (Oct 30, 2022)

"The 'control of nature' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man…It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth."
~~from _Silent Spring_ by Rachel Carson


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## officerripley (Oct 30, 2022)

"'Economy' isn’t really a thing...—it’s an idea, [an] idea [that was] invented."
~~above 6 from _Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World_ by Rutger Bregman


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## officerripley (Oct 30, 2022)

"...[T]he priestly classes...never like speaking truth to power."
~~from _The End of the Day_ by Claire North


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## officerripley (Oct 31, 2022)

"*The Infinite Abyss *by Peter Payack
Once mom died
I felt the weight and immensity
of never and forever."
~~from _Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine_, Jan./Feb. 2017 issue


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## officerripley (Nov 3, 2022)

"The cold claw of loneliness reach[es] out and touch[es] with icy fingers[, a] terrible loneliness...[t]he loneliness of age—of age and the outdated."
~~from _City_ by Clifford D. Simak


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## officerripley (Nov 3, 2022)

"Order is not justice."
~~from _B*tch Planet, Book Two: President B*tch_ by Kelly Sue DeConnick & Valentine De Landro


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## officerripley (Nov 3, 2022)

"These days, loneliness is the new cancer--[considered, as cancer used to be and sometimes still is,] a shameful, embarrassing thing, brought upon yourself in some obscure way. A fearful, incurable thing, so horrifying that you dare not mention it; other people don’t want to hear the word spoken aloud for fear that they might too be afflicted, or that it might tempt fate into visiting a similar horror upon them."
~~from _Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine_ by Gail Honeyman


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## officerripley (Nov 4, 2022)

Can't post something here without it being all underlined. Anybody else having the same problem?


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## officerripley (Nov 4, 2022)

"I…mind the smile-on-command directive on class grounds. Listen here, buster. It’s not my f*cking job to decorate your world, not unless you’re willing to make it so. Sure, I’ll smile. That’ll be five bucks."
~~from _Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America_ by Linda Tirado


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## officerripley (Nov 4, 2022)

Darn I keep trying to post something here and it keeps being underlined, help!


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## officerripley (Nov 5, 2022)

"[To answer the argument that humans should escape the ecological mess we’ve made of Earth by fleeing into space to preserve human civilization: w]hat is a civilization worth if it can not protect the natural conditions that gave birth to it?"
~~from _Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene_ by Clive Hamilton


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## officerripley (Nov 6, 2022)

"Not creative enough to make up my own imaginary friends, I depended on the world’s greatest writers to distract me when the tension between my parents got too intense. I certainly couldn’t ask real live classmates to come home with me for snickerdoodles and cocoa and shattered glass."
~~from _To the Stars Through Difficulties_ by Romalyn Tilghman


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## Paco Dennis (Nov 6, 2022)

@officerripley   You are finding some quotes that I really like. Thank you!


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## officerripley (Nov 6, 2022)

Paco Dennis said:


> @officerripley   You are finding some quotes that I really like. Thank you!


Thank _you_, Paco Dennis! I've been keeping a quotes journal for quite some time and it's fun to go through it. It's really long and I'm not even posting a lot of it since it's p*litical, lol. If you noticed above, I was griping about not being able to post a quote without it being underlined, no matter what I did. I think I've figured out that since the journal is such an old document--orig. an MS Word 97 [!!] doc--that I've converted over to a LibreOffice doc, something in the formatting carried over in a weird way. So far, everything else I've posted's been okay, so I'm gonna stop worrying about it and chalk it up to the sweet mystery of software!


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## officerripley (Nov 6, 2022)

"It_ is...blind obedience to authority that cause[s atrocities]."
~~from Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the U.S. Army to Fight Hitler by Bruce Henderson [An absolutely, stupendously, wonderful book; highly recommended!]_


----------



## Bella (Nov 6, 2022)

“Although we each believe our thoughts are specific and personal, our thoughts, fears, and desires are typical to all egos and commonly shared. In this way, it is relatively easy to read the thoughts of most humans with just a few subtle cues. Thoughts tend to run along the same worn tracks leading to the same worn conclusions. Combining this knowledge with an understanding of the types of thoughts that individuals at different levels of consciousness gravitate towards will, with experience, lead to becoming a most astute mind reader.” 
- Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion


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## officerripley (Nov 6, 2022)

"People, who are so clever and so capable of amazing things, have a collective moral value below that of dogs. Rare is the dog who is intrinsically mean and self-serving above all other concerns. But it is common in people. Which is why people are the most successful predators."
~~from _Tahoe Payback_ by Todd Borg


----------



## officerripley (Nov 7, 2022)

"Economics is a science, yet most economists are not scientists. Economists act like p*liticians, priests, or propagandists. They ignore evidence that does not fit their paradigms. Economists want scientific prestige without the rigor. Today’s weak world [economic] growth can be traced to this imposture."
~~from _The Road to Ruin: The Global Elite’s Secret Plan for the Next Financial Crisis_ by James Rickards


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## officerripley (Nov 7, 2022)

"I’ve seen enough cruelty to know it lights on the unlucky more often than the guilty."
~~from _Far North_ by Marcel Theroux


----------



## officerripley (Nov 7, 2022)

"Do not be subservient. Do not be polite. Be good. There is a difference, and surprisingly often 'good' and 'polite' are at opposite ends of the spectrum."
~~from _You Are Here: An Owner’s Manual for Dangerous Minds_ by Jenny Lawson


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## Farrah Nuff (Nov 7, 2022)




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## Geezer Garage (Nov 7, 2022)

"It's not the best of lives being a private dick, but it's far better than being a public one". From a novel I started many years ago (a spoof on film noir), and hope to return to some day.


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## Farrah Nuff (Nov 7, 2022)

@officerripley I was hoping that you'd see the humor I intended. Thanks!


----------



## officerripley (Nov 8, 2022)

"People say you should listen to your inner voice, but my inner voice is always going on about burning down the garages of people who are mean to me. Maybe I should listen to my inner voice’s inner voice. I imagine it just wants love and kindness. And matches, probably. I can never find matches."
~~from _You Are Here: An Owner’s Manual for Dangerous Minds_ by Jenny Lawson


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## officerripley (Nov 8, 2022)

"Yesterday, I bought a shirt and the rack said 'slightly irregular' and the price tag said 'slightly off,' and I thought it would have been more accurate if those things were written on the front of my shirt, but still, I’ll take it. Also, it was on sale for some reason."
~~from _You Are Here: An Owner’s Manual for Dangerous Minds_ by Jenny Lawson


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## officerripley (Nov 8, 2022)

"…[M]en who at any point in their lives have had the power to frighten people, to terrorize them, become addicted to that power. Intimidation was how they influenced the world around them, how they made themselves felt, and it’s hard to give that up."
~~from “In the Time of the Voodoo” by John Lantigua, _Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine_, May/June 2017 issue


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## officerripley (Nov 8, 2022)

"You know the best thing about people?...Their dogs."
~~from _Righteous_ by Joe Ide


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## officerripley (Nov 9, 2022)

"...[T]hank you very much, but my tiny world is quite enough, I don’t need to be accepted into yours."
~~from _We Were Strangers Once_ by Betsy Carter


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## officerripley (Nov 9, 2022)

*"You [ask] for wisdom? Hear these words. Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one’s own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality."*
~~from _The Visitor_ by Sheri S. Tepper


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## officerripley (Nov 9, 2022)

"Them as can do has to do for them as can’t. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices."
~~from _The Wee Free Men: A Story of Discworld_ by Terry Pratchett


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## Farrah Nuff (Nov 9, 2022)

_*“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”*_

From The Alchemist by Paulo Cohelo


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## officerripley (Nov 10, 2022)

"It [is] impossible to look at a pilot whale cutting through the water, or a dolphin leaping out of a wave for the sheer joy of being alive, and not love them. They [are] majestic wonders of the natural world, and if mankind [has] any obligation left to the sea that [has] been its birthplace, it [is] preserving the ones [who’ve] stayed behind."

AND:

"You shouldn’t eat anything that knows how to play fetch. It’s rude."

~~above 2 from _Into the Drowning Deep_ by Mira Grant


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## officerripley (Nov 10, 2022)

"…[There’s a] fault line separating the ground of verified evidence from the tectonic plate of obstinate belief."
~~from “Introduction” by Sarah Vowell in _The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2017_, ed. by Sarah Vowell


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## officerripley (Nov 10, 2022)

"…It’s important to tell the young they can be 'anything they can dream,' so that one day, they’ll blame themselves instead of the system."
~~from _Selected Tweets from @Werner Twertzog_ by William Pannapacker on Twitter.com


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## officerripley (Nov 11, 2022)

"Unfortunately, war makes heroes of men who sometimes don’t deserve it..."
~~from _Zero Hour - A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller: Omnibus Edition_ by Eamon Ambrose


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## officerripley (Nov 11, 2022)

"Never attribute anything to conspiracy that can be explained by a**holery..."
~~from _The People’s Police_ by Norman Spinrad


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## officerripley (Nov 11, 2022)

"Some people just need a tap on the shoulder to change. Others need a slap in the face. Me? I’ve often needed a piano dropped on my head."
~~from _Why We Did It_ by Tim Miller


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## officerripley (Nov 11, 2022)

"...[N]o scientific evidence has yet been found to support the notion that suffering is ennobling."
~~from _We Are Our Brains_ by D. F. Swaab


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## officerripley (Nov 12, 2022)

"Nearly every species that has ever lived has gone extinct...No reason to think we humans will be any different!"
~~from _All the Light We Cannot See_ by Anthony Doerr


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## officerripley (Nov 12, 2022)

"He has brought down rulers from their thrones,
And has exalted those who were humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And sent away the rich empty-handed."
~~Luke Ch. 1:52-53, _New American Standard Bible_

(We can hope, right?  )


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## officerripley (Nov 12, 2022)

"America is the wealthiest nation on earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves...Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters.
~~from _Slaughterhouse Five_ by Kurt Vonnegut


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## officerripley (Nov 13, 2022)

"...[T]ruth [doesn't] mean anything without someone to share it with; you [can] shout truth into the air forever, and spend your life doing it, if someone [doesn't] come and listen."
~~from _Uprooted_ by Naomi Novik


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## officerripley (Nov 13, 2022)

"Craving independence is very frustrating if being small makes it impossible."
~~from _The Illegal Gardener_ by Sara Alexi


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## officerripley (Nov 13, 2022)

"If I could, for you,
I would believe
In heaven."
~~from _A Gift Upon the Shore_ by M. K. Wren


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## officerripley (Nov 13, 2022)

"...[H]uman beings often become passive not because they are ignorant, stupid, lazy, or immature but because they are overwhelmed by their pain, and their primary goal is to shut down or divert themselves in order to function at all."
~~from _Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite_ by Bruce E. Levine


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## officerripley (Nov 14, 2022)

"...If people are too stupid to figure out the relationship between the oceans being dead and their own future, they don't deserve to continue on this still-beautiful planet."
~~from The Myth of Human Supremacy by Derrick Jensen


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## officerripley (Nov 14, 2022)

"The lie [of a] hierarchy...--whether you call it the Great Chain of Being or the "food chain"--[is that it] exists at all. There is no top of any food chain. It's all cycles within cycles. You eat the fish who ate the worm, and in time the worm eats you. It doesn't matter whether you are a gnat or an elephant, you eat and you will be eaten. Get over it."
~~from _The Myth of Human Supremacy_ by Derrick Jensen


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## officerripley (Nov 14, 2022)

"Two roads diverged in a wood and she said to hell with both of them."
~~from _Managing Bubbie_ by Russel Lazega


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## officerripley (Nov 14, 2022)

"...[We live in] a world where, as in a hall of mirrors gone mad, humanity has swollen to become everything, and the measure of everything."
~~from _Defending Middle-Earth: Myth and Modernity_ by Patrick Curry


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## officerripley (Nov 15, 2022)

"...[Y]ou either work together or starve alone."
~~from _Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth_ by Sarah Smarsh


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## officerripley (Nov 15, 2022)

"Monoculture is where the logic of nature collides with the logic of economics; which logic will ultimately prevail can never be in doubt."
~~from _The Botany of Desire_ by Michael Pollan


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## officerripley (Nov 15, 2022)

"Believe me when I say this: there is nothing crazier than a truly sane old lady who can't lose more than she already has."
~~from _The Testament of Harold's Wife_ by Lynne Hugo


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## officerripley (Nov 16, 2022)

"Life gives us nothing outright. It only lends. Nothing is ours to keep. Absolutely nothing. Not even our bodies, our brains. This "self" that we think we know so well, that we think of as us. It is only on loan. If a person comes into our life, they will go again. In a parting of ways, or because everyone dies. They will die or you will die. Nothing we receive in this life are we allowed to keep."
~~from _Have You Seen Luis Velez?_ by Catherine Ryan Hyde


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## officerripley (Nov 16, 2022)

"A dangerous form of magical thinking often accompanies new technological developments, a curious assurance that a revolution in our tools inevitably wipes the slate of the past clean."
~~from _Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor_ by Virginia Eubanks


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## Della (Nov 16, 2022)

I just came across this a few hours ago in the middle of a book written in 1924, set in 1810.  

"I couldna but sigh to think of what a many plans they were all making, and each plan cutting the throats of the others."

-- from _Precious Bane_ by Mary Webb


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## officerripley (Nov 16, 2022)

"Elderly people don't just want to look at photos of the past, or of a nice bloody view. [They] want to see bright lights, and hear music, and see young people having fun."
~~from _The Library of Lost and Found_ by Phaedra Patrick

(This describes me but not my huzz unfortunately.)


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## officerripley (Nov 16, 2022)

"Money flows across frontiers, but laws do not. The rich live globally; the rest of us have borders."
~~from _Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World_ by Oliver Bullough


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## bowmore (Nov 16, 2022)

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
Theodore Rosevelt


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## officerripley (Nov 17, 2022)

"Sometime you don't do well on your own and then you turn around and don't do well with people...Then what you gonna do?"
~~from _Land of Wolves_ by Craig Johnson


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## officerripley (Nov 17, 2022)

"The problem with an anarchic perspective, of course, is that anything it establishes is likely to have a short life span…[and its] leaders…all…[tend] to be authoritarian."
~~from _Octavia Gone_ by Jack McDevitt


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## officerripley (Nov 17, 2022)

"It’s some man who talks a _lot_. And he talks so much that he thinks he believes in something. And really, he just wants to f*ck who he wants to f*ck. I’ve seen it enough, and I’m not even mad about it anymore. I’m just tired, I’m just bored of men like you. You think I don’t see you for who you really are? The fragile, little man preying on the weak and lost? I’ve heard it and I don’t care. I’d rather sit here and listen to the rain."
~~from the screenplay of the 2018 movie _Bad Times at the El Royale _by Drew Goddard


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## Alligatorob (Nov 17, 2022)

_When you come to a fork in the road, take it._
Yogi Berra


----------



## officerripley (Nov 17, 2022)

"…[M]en kill each other over territory that only time [can] truly own."
~~from _Imaginary Friend_ by Stephen Chbosky


----------



## officerripley (Nov 17, 2022)

"From the tiniest grudge to the great sweep of armies across the field, no one is ever wrong, until enough blood has been spilt and enough voices raised in pain that the pillars of [the] deceit [of the mighty] crack, and all that is left is brutal, arctic truth."

And:

"Your masters, this system they’ve built for their own benefit; do you think they will ever stop playing their great games, and look to their own streets? They are fantastically skilled in keeping us from rising up in our own name, making every beggar grateful for a scrap of bread, every poor man angry to see a beggar eat."

And:

"...[The] only thing [the mighty] fear is the moment the persecuted stop persecuting each other, and see. See the truth of where this oppression was truly born."

And:

"If you say that it is just business, I cannot guarantee the placidity of my reaction."

~~from _The Pursuit of William Abbey_ by Claire North


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## officerripley (Nov 18, 2022)

"…[E]asier to eat while I’m reading. That’s my main priority when it comes to food. Other people are obsessed with calories, nutritional value, antioxidants. I look at food and wonder: Can I eat that without having to put my book down?"
~~from _The Secret, Book & Scone Society_ by Ellery Adams

[This is so me, lol. How the heck cooking & food presentation ever became an art form, I'll never understand!   ]


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## officerripley (Nov 18, 2022)

"Decades of research show that the link between mental illness and violent behavior is small and not useful for predicting violent acts; people with diagnosable conditions such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are in fact far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators of it."
~~from _Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America_ by Mark Follman


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## officerripley (Nov 18, 2022)

"…*ecause a man is born with a particular knack for gathering in vast aggregates of money and power for himself, he may not on that account be the wisest leader to follow nor the best fitted to propound on a sane philosophy of life."
~~from The Epic of America by James Truslow Adams*


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## officerripley (Nov 18, 2022)

"Every book has at least one good thing…Love stories and bad news and evil masterminds, plots as thick as sludge, places and people she wishes she could know in real life, and words whose loveliness and music make her want to cry when she says them aloud."

And:

"…I got my first cheerleading outfit when I was still in diapers. All of us [girls] did. If we were lucky, we made it to twelve before some man or boy, or some well-intentioned woman who just thought we ought to know the score, let us know why we were put on this earth. To cheer [men and boys] on. To smile and bring a little sunshine into the room. To prop them up and know them, and be nice to everybody we meet."

~~from _Valentine_ by Elizabeth Wetmore


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## officerripley (Nov 18, 2022)

"The world [is] old now. Most of the unexplored territory left [is] in the space between people's ears."
~~from _Vanishing Act_ by Thomas Perry


----------



## officerripley (Nov 18, 2022)

"…[N]obody ever saw a U.F.O. until somebody said he saw one in 1947. Once he said it everybody and his brother started seeing them. Maybe that’s the year when the U.F.O’s got here. Maybe it’s just that once somebody makes something up, then it’s everybody’s. It gets to be another way to seem important, to have something to tell, because nothing that’s true about you is worth listening to."
~~from _Shadow Woman_ by Thomas Perry


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## officerripley (Nov 19, 2022)

"I [melt] when there [are] too many people around. I [become] background. In a group of three or four, I [can] find some space for myself and engage with the conversation, but more than that and no one [cares] about the person who [is] too quiet to be heard."
~~from “Birds Without Wings” by Rebecca Zahabi, in _The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction_, May/June 2020 issue


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## officerripley (Nov 19, 2022)

"[M]yth[:]…what the big religion calls the little religion…"
~~from “Open Letter to [Science Fiction/Fantasy Conventions] from the Indians No Longer in the Background of a John Wayne Movie” by Stephen Graham Jones, Tor.com Personal Essays, 5/19/21


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## officerripley (Nov 20, 2022)

"People are always saying you have your whole life ahead of you, but that's not true. If you're a woman, you need to set yourself up. You need to make your path before you get steamrolled by everything everyone expects you to do. Kids, house, all that sh*t."
~~from _Please See Us_ by Caitlin Mullen


----------



## officerripley (Nov 20, 2022)

"A body cannot shoot up an elementary school with a fishing pole."
~~from _Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside_ by Nick Offerman


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## officerripley (Nov 20, 2022)

"…[T]he rich really are like you and me: they think they deserve more money than they have."
~~from_ The 9.9 Percent: The New Aristocracy That Is Entrenching Inequality and Warping Our Culture_ by Matthew Stewart


----------



## officerripley (Nov 20, 2022)

"[A] fistful of business cards does not a community make…It needs to mean caring for and helping each other too, not just hustling."
~~from _The Lonely Century: How to Restore Human Connection in a World That’s Pulling Apart_ by Noreena Hertz


----------



## officerripley (Nov 21, 2022)

"When we try to control nature, we often come to imagine ourselves as outside nature. We speak of ourselves as if we were no longer animals, as if we were a species alone, disconnected from the rest of life, and subject to different rules. This is a mistake. We are both part of and intimately dependent on nature. The law of dependence states that all species depend on other species. And we, as humans, are probably dependent on more species than any other species ever to exist. Meanwhile, just because we depend on other species does not mean nature depends on us. Long after we go extinct, the rules of life will continue. Indeed, the worst assaults we carry out on the world around us nonetheless favor some species. What is remarkable about the big story of life is the extent to which it is ultimately independent of us."
~~from _A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us About the Destiny of the Human Species_ by Rob Dunn


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## officerripley (Nov 21, 2022)

"It is not enough to be loved by your mother. It is a good start, and you wouldn't want to do without, and it helps, but it is not enough. You need also the love of your community, the love of friends and admirers, the love of strangers who don't know you but still wish you well, the love that comes from passion and from commitment and from someone who will never, never betray you and not just because they're related to you. You need more love. We all need more love."
~~from _One Two Three_ by Laurie Frankel


----------



## officerripley (Nov 21, 2022)

"Laws aren't natural phenomena. They have particular and often horrific histories. Ever heard of the Nuremberg Laws? Ever heard of Jim Crow?"
~~from _Red Clocks: A Novel_ by Leni Zumas


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## officerripley (Nov 23, 2022)

"If you tell enough little boys that they should get everything they desire, eventually one of them will have desires so fierce they collapse in on themselves and become a superdense gravity well, drawing everything to themselves."
~~from “Scientists Confirm: There’s a Black Hole in the Center of Your Heart” by Jo Miles in _Lightspeed_ Magazine, 6/1/22 issue


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## officerripley (Nov 24, 2022)

"'Witch' is the label society slaps on women it can't understand or control.
~~from _The Change_ by Kirsten Miller


----------



## officerripley (Nov 25, 2022)

"Americans worship ancestors whose lives were spent overthrowing ancestor worship; they pointlessly adhere to a tradition whose achievement was the overthrow of pointless traditions."
~~from _The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future_ by Stephen Marche


----------



## Nemo2 (Nov 25, 2022)

"When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind." - C. S. Lewis

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there."  Lewis Carroll  (Cheshire Cat)

“In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."   Oscar Wilde

 "If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him"  Cardinal Richelieu  1585-1642

 "I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times."  Everett Dirksen


----------



## officerripley (Nov 25, 2022)

"You've made a home out of this world somehow--I don't how you did it, but you did. And that means you can go anywhere in it. Everyplace is your backyard...Never let anyone tell you you don't belong where you're at."
~~from _The Reapers are the Angels _by Alden Bell


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## officerripley (Dec 7, 2022)

"...[M]ove through the world without making a sound...If they can't hear you coming, they'll never lay hands on you."
~~from _The Huntress_ by Kate Quinn


----------



## Paco Dennis (Dec 7, 2022)

officerripley said:


> "...[M]ove through the world without making a sound...If they can't hear you coming, they'll never lay hands on you."
> ~~from _The Huntress_ by Kate Quinn




 I appreciate this saying. In my monk training we practiced moving through the forest without making a sound. It is symbolic of "letting" the universe "happen" without adding or subtracting from it by inserting our personal desires on it. The concept of being "invisible" or "unnoticed" is involved also.


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## officerripley (Dec 7, 2022)

Paco Dennis said:


> I appreciate this saying. In my monk training we practiced moving through the forest without making a sound. It is symbolic of "letting" the universe "happen" without adding or subtracting from it by inserting our personal desires on it. The concept of being "invisible" or "unnoticed" is involved also.


I love that. If I hadn't been born without the creative gene, I'd paint a picture of the Earth with "Tread Lightly On Me" on it.


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## officerripley (Dec 18, 2022)

"The world of men is wicked... Full of royals and clergymen so afraid of losing power, they’ll execute anyone who stands up to them.”

~~from _The Book of Gothel_ by Mary Mcmyne


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## Nemo2 (Dec 18, 2022)

officerripley said:


> "The world of men is wicked... Full of royals and clergymen so afraid of losing power, they’ll execute anyone who stands up to them.”
> 
> ~~from _The Book of Gothel_ by Mary Mcmyne


T'was ever thus...nowadays only the appellatives have been changed to protect the guilty.


----------



## officerripley (Dec 19, 2022)

"How can one change the world if one identifies oneself with everybody? How else can one change it?"
~~from _Darkness at Noon_ by Arthur Koestler


----------



## Farrah Nuff (Dec 20, 2022)

“There are men in the world, and some of them not unintelligent men, who have a natural appetite for the untrue, just as there are others who have a natural appetite for the ugly.”

From - HL Mencken On Religion


----------



## Nemo2 (Dec 20, 2022)

“If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?”

From_ Candide_― by Voltaire


----------



## Nemo2 (Dec 20, 2022)

“If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.”

― Albert Camus -  _L'Étranger_


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## officerripley (Dec 21, 2022)

"The health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries."
~~from _Cosmos _by Carl Sagan


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## officerripley (Dec 25, 2022)

Tech executives love to talk about the value of “connection” and their goals of “connecting” the world. Almost two decades into the social media era, we should know better than to believe those empty paeans used as cover for the relentless pursuit of profits.

~~from "An Epidemic of Loneliness and the Dark World of Far-R*ght Conspiracy Theorists" by Andy Kroll, Opinion column, 12/23/22, commondreams.org


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## Nemo2 (Dec 25, 2022)

“Not all who wander are lost.”

Lewis Carroll   -  _Alice in Wonderland_


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## officerripley (Dec 26, 2022)

They were the oddballs and eccentrics, the quirky ones who made brilliant leaps in logic and didn't so much go by the book as fling it out the window.

~~from Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn


----------



## Magna-Carta (Dec 28, 2022)

“To this day, I remain impressed by the ability of Britons of all ages and social backgrounds to get genuinely excited by the prospect of a hot beverage.”

*Bill Bryson -- Notes From a Small Island*


----------



## officerripley (Jan 2, 2023)

"An awareness that grows and deepens. An intelligence that is made to join and join and join. This is how life began; this is how it goes on living."

And

"Humanity was an ecological disaster, as far as Phyllis was concerned. A misstep made by an otherwise magnificently intelligent system of life and death. Evolution could do so much better. Someday, it would."

And

"...[T]here are some things that cannot be taught. Some things that a body innately knows--or doesn't."

~~all from _The Light Pirate_ by Lily Brooks-Dalton


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## officerripley (Monday at 5:39 PM)

We live in our heads, in our brains, which gave us dominion over the earth, and we mistake that power for righteousness.
~~from _The Revivalists_ by Christopher M. Hood


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## officerripley (Monday at 5:39 PM)

He played as if there was no one but him, his guitar and music...keeping his eyes closed because otherwise the reality of the world would have knocked his music from the sky and eaten it.

~~from "Giant Mechs in the Distance, Forever Fighting" by ZZ Claybourne, _Galaxy's Edge_ magazine, Issue No. 55, March 2022.


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## Sippican (Monday at 6:15 PM)

I love quotes, always have. Here are some I found very profound..


*When you retire, it’s not about the hours in a day, but the days in your life that matter. 


I can explain it to you but I can’t understand it for you.


when the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.


Every day you wake up proves God has a plan for you. Walk in his shoes and your rewards will be more than you can imagine 


You can’t do normal things and expect  exceptional results 


instead of thinking what I wanted to be doing in 5 years, I started to think about who I wanted to do it with.


Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.


Money spends once. Knowledge monetizes forever. 


I’m living different because I want different. Old keys don’t unlock new doors. 


If your absence doesn’t bother them,,,,your presence never meant anything to them.


You will never see a UHaul behind a hearse 


nostalgia is not what it used to be


Avoiding unhappiness doesn’t lead to happiness 


When you die you don’t know you’re dead, It’s only difficult for everyone else, It’s the same way when you’re stupid. 


Live your life like someone left the gate open. 


We shouldn't reward people for what they know, but what they do with what they know. *
*

Its too late for regrets when your life is only one stair step down to the basement


Don’t make a permanent decision based on temporary circumstances


Education cures poverty *
*

Sometimes uncertainty spreads faster than understanding. 


Never push a loyal person to the point where they no longer care. 


The person you respected the most agreed with you the least. 


We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves*
*

True love, in absolute form, have many purposes in life. 


A harsh life lesson doesn’t mean you regret the event that taught you it


The best optimist is the one with the worst memory 


Take risks when you are confident of your ability. *
*

Jesus use to speak in parables so as to confuse the oppressors and military guards. Much like we do today. *
*

Faith, is when you think things will not be better again.

I’ve never allowed schooling to get in the way of my education

The saddest thing about betrayal is it never comes from your enemies 


I’m closer to the end than I am to the beginning.  Sets in motion a life perception change that is profound in everything you do from that day forward. 

*
*Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.  


My Goal is to build a life I don’t need a vacation from..*
*

It's harder to be kind than clever. 

*
*Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing*


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## charry (Today at 6:24 AM)




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## Pepper (Today at 6:44 AM)

Tolstoy must have been talking about himself.


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## Nemo2 (Today at 6:51 AM)

I don't think this is from a book, in fact I may have come up with it myself; anyhow I've been using it for eons:

_"Some people need pain before they learn, some people need a lot of pain before they learn, and some people will never learn."_


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## Farrah Nuff (Today at 7:01 AM)

“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” 

  ― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx


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