Jon Prasomsack > Jon's Quotes

“In some cases, they are already doing so. Influenced by a coalition of community groups, the New York City Council passed a historic budget in the summer of 2014 that created a $1.2 million fund for the growth of worker-owned cooperatives. Richmond, California has hired a cooperative developer and is launching a loan fund; Cleveland, Ohio has been actively involved in starting a network of cooperatives, as we’ll see in the next chapter; and Jackson, Mississippi elected a mayor (Chokwe Lumumba) in 2013 on a platform that included the use of public spending to promote co-ops. On the federal level, progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders are working to get the government more involved in supporting employee ownership.130”
― Chris Wright, Worker Cooperatives and Revolution: History and Possibilities in the United States

“Great Job! Now you have a bow just like Cleo.”
― Sybrina Durant, Cleo Can Tie A Bow: A Rabbit and Fox Story

“Pack, on how he will run his Task Force: “We don’t defend. We attack constantly, and we don’t quit til we have every mammy-jammin’ fugitive back in custody. Attack, pursuit, exploitation. As Napoleon, and after him Patton said, “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace.”
― John M. Vermillion, Pack's Posse

“Isn’t that what it means to be a scientist? To push the boundaries of the unknown? To bravely, actively explore the enormity of our universe ?”
― Robyn Mundell, Brainwalker

“Children born of fairy stock
Never need for shirt or frock
Never want for food or fire
Always get their heart's desire
Jingle pockets full of gold
Marry when they're seven years old
Every fairy child may keep
Two strong ponies and ten sheep
All have houses, each his own
Built of brick or granite stone
They live on cherries, they run wild
I'd love to be a fairy's child”
― Robert Graves

“Hallo, Rabbit,” he said, “is that you?”
"Let’s pretend it isn’t,” said Rabbit, “and see what happens.”
― A. A. Milne

“Nature . . . did not seem cruel to him then, nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise. But she was indifferent, flatly indifferent.”
― Stephen Crane, Open Boat

“Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won’t use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won’t abuse it.”
― Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

“Some things were certain - they had already happened - but the future could not be divined. Perhaps by Ida Paine. For everyone else, the future was no ally. A person had only his life to barter with. He felt that way. He could lose himself... or trade what he had for something he cared about. That rare thing. Either way, his life would be spent.”
― David Wroblewski, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

“But now I know that I can help;
I can make a difference, too.
I’ll stand with you; I’ll shout with you,
And the rest can’t say, “I never knew.”
― Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It"

“You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree.”
― Malcolm X

“You are the only one who can create the life you deserve.”
― Rhonda Byrne, The Secret

“like the only hummable tune in a difficult opera.”
― Caleb Carr, The Alienist

“Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish—a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . . Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80's

“I shall never go back, I said to myself.

A door had shut, the low door in the wall I had sought and found in Oxford; open it now and I should find no enchanted garden.

I had come to the surface, into the light of common day and the fresh sea-air, after long captivity in the sunless coral palaces and waving forests of the ocean bed.

I had left behind me – what? Youth? Adolescence? Romance? The conjuring stuff of these things, "the Young Magician's Compendium," that neat cabinet where the ebony wand had its place beside the delusive billiard balls, the penny that folded double and the feather flowers that could be drawn into a hollow candle.

"I have left behind illusion," I said to myself. "Henceforth I live in a world of three dimensions — with the aid of my five senses."

I have since learned that there is no such world; but then, as the car turned out of sight of the house, I thought it took no finding, but lay all about me at the end of the avenue.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

“En el campo…
En el campo… Me encantaba el campo. Quería estar lejos de las ciudades,
lejos de la excitación. Sólo me apetecía tumbarme de espaldas bajo un árbol y
leer un libro o dibujar, y dejar de preocuparme porque me asaltaran, dejar de
llevar una faca o terminar casado con alguna fulana como una cabra. Así debía
de ser el campo, pensé ensoñadoramente.”
― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

“It’s not just other people we need to forgive. We also need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn’t do. All the things we should have done.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“As it did go. They never talked about the sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in the full daylight with the hot sun striking down, and at evening in the fire glow, quick, rough, laughing and snorting, no lack of noises, but saying not a goddamn word except once Ennis said, “I’m not no queer,” and Jack jumped in with “Me neither. A one-shot thing. Nobody’s business but ours.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“We yearn for tomorrow and the progress that it represents. But yesterday was once tomorrow, and where was progress in it? Or we yearn for yesterday, for what was or what might have been. But as we are yearning, the present is becoming the past, so the past is nothing but our yearning for second chances.”
― Dean Koontz, Brother Odd

“Don't go where I can't follow!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“We're in a freefall into future. We don't know where we're going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you're going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It's a very interesting shift of perspective and that's all it is... joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.”
― Joseph Campbell, Sukhavati:Place of Bliss

“For me, the sea has always been a confidant, a friend absorbing all it is told and never revealing those secrets; always giving the best advice - its meaningful noises can be interpreted any way you choose.”
― Ernesto "Che" Guevara

“Writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.”
― Shannon Hale

“A good psychologist will take already-traumatic events in your life and work with you to contextualize them as non-traumatic. A bad psychologist will take non-traumatic events in your life and twist your narrative to both make them traumatic and connect them to your current problems. The problem is that good psychologists solve your issues while bad ones create dependency and thus recurring revenue streams.”
― Simone Collins, The Pragmatist’s Guide to Crafting Religion: A playbook for sculpting cultures that overcome demographic collapse & facilitate long-term human flourishing

“When we came and rented the North Perth home, my father had a little ice chest, and on top of the ice chest was a radio. And we were sitting at our lunch time on Sunday eating dinner after church, and my Mum says, ‘Look where we’ve ended up. We’ve got a table cloth on our table, we’ve got food on our plate, and we’re listening to music.’ That was a big thing for my mother. - Mrs Helen Doropoulos, Greece”
― Peter Brune, Suffering, Redemption and Triumph: The first wave of post-war Australian immigrants 1945-66

“And when I’d settled down, I considered the possibility that I wasn’t yet ready to ask for the love of anyone because I had yet to learn how to truly love myself.  ”
― Steven Decker, Addicted to Time

“He now knew that war was not at all like culling deer, and the last one, with the man so close, had been the worst. The shock on the enemy’s face as the arrow halted his run would haunt him always.
Robert Reid – White Light Red Fire”
― Robert Reid, White Light Red Fire

“What we witness playing out in the relationships of our public figures we risk finding acceptable in our private lives. Feminists have connected women’s sexual subordination to their unequal status in society, and have strived to transform women’s expectations in their private lives. Private dignity at home equates to dignity in the workplace and the public sphere.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

“Because he that lacks knowledge about his enemy will find himself sitting in total defeat where bondage and misery reigns and rules.”
― John Ramirez, Fire Prayers: Building Arsenals That Destroy Satanic Kingdoms

“There are four steps to gaining ownership and intentionality over your personal identity and beliefs: Determining your objective function What is the purpose of my life? Determining your ideological tree How do I best fulfill that purpose? Determining your personal identity Who do I want to be? Determining your public identity How do I want others to think of me?”
― Malcolm Collins, The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life: A Guide to Creating Your Own Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions