Duzzlebrarian > Duzzlebrarian's Quotes

“The biggest challenge facing the great teachers and communicators of history is not to teach history itself, nor even the lessons of history, but why history matters. How to ignite the first spark of the will o'the wisp, the Jack o'lantern, the ignis fatuus [foolish fire] beloved of poets, which lights up one source of history and then another, zigzagging across the marsh, connecting and linking and writing bright words across the dark face of the present. There's no phrase I can come up that will encapsulate in a winning sound-bite why history matters. We know that history matters, we know that it is thrilling, absorbing, fascinating, delightful and infuriating, that it is life. Yet I can't help wondering if it's a bit like being a Wagnerite; you just have to get used to the fact that some people are never going to listen.”
― Stephen Fry, Making History

“...the consequences of militancy do not disappear when the need for militancy is over. Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.”
― Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch

“The moment I took hold of the line, I felt the mighty tug of the wind coursing into my palm and wrist, and there I stayed, transfixed. The pwer in that topgallant sail suddenly awed me, and yet it was among the smaller sails on the mast. It was a mere speck on the ocean, catching an infinitesimal fraction of all the howling winds that crossed the wide seas. I literally could not move a muscle, trying in vain to absorb the magnitude of it.
And there was something else, as well. This wind was blowing me westward. I was hurtling into my own predestined future. With neither star nor compass, I knew the heading of this wind. It bore down on a lonely river crossing in one of the last wild places on Earth, where timber moaned in a gale, and frosty grass sparkled in the dawn, and beasts lumbered and thundered the valley. A sacred place protected by Comanches.”
― Mike Blakely, Moon Medicine

“Was your old man in the war?"
"He was in the air force. He built runways."
"The fucking air farce. He ever tell you about it? Did he live?"
"Yes, he lived. He spoke once about Vietnam."
"If he only spoke about it once, he wasn’t lying.”
― Anthony Swofford

“CAN OFFER YOU A TOW OR WOULD YOU PREFER US TO HEAVE TO AND WIND UP YOUR ELASTIC BANDS AGAIN SIGNED CLINT CHIEF OFFICER END.”
― Brian Callison, A Flock of Ships

“Seven Cities was an ancient civilization, steeped in the power of antiquity, where Ascendants once walked on every trader track, every footpath, every lost road between forgotten places. It was said the sands hoarded power within their sussurating currents, that every stone had soaked up sorcery like blood, and that beneath every city lay the ruins of countless other cities, older cities, cities that went back to the First Empire itself. It was said each city rose on the backs of ghosts, the substance of spirits thick like layers of crushed bone; that each city forever wept beneath the streets, forever laughed, shouted, hawked wares and bartered and prayed and drew first breaths that brought life and the last breaths that announced death. Beneath the streets there were dreams, wisdom, foolishness, fears, rage, grief, lust and love and bitter hatred.”
― Steven Erikson, Deadhouse Gates

“They found out about him in July and stayed angry all through August. They tried to kill him in September. It was way too soon. They weren't ready. The attempt was a failure. It could have been a disaster, but it was actually a miracle. Because nobody noticed.”
― Lee Child, Without Fail

“Nobody really wants us. So let us watch and say jaggy things, in the hope that some of them will hurt.”
― J.M. Barrie

“I often used to turn off the television whenever there was yet another documentary on National Socialism. Yeah, yeah, it was dreadful, I said to myself, but we know it was dreadful.... The equation ' National Socialism equals Holocaust' had always led me to the point where I thought, oh yes, horror. Horror ticked off like a piece of prep; horror as ritualised as a victim's story on television or at the cinema.”
― Stephen Lebert, My Father's Keeper: The Children of the Nazi Leaders- An Intimate History of Damage and Denial

“There are some things worth giving up anything for, even your freedom, and getting rid of your period is definitely one of them.”
― Connie Willis, Even the Queen, & Other Short Stories

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“It was joy, joy, happy joy.
Happy, happy joy.
A big fat smiley sun rose above the rooftops and beamed down its blessings onto the borough known as Brentford.”
― Robert Rankin, Web Site Story

“The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”
― Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

“Of course you know him. Everyone knows a pear-shaped man.”
― George R.R. Martin

“I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute,
From the centre all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
O solitude! Where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place.”
― William Cowper, The Poems of William Cowper

“Hey!" he shouted. "This is my fucking Lake of Death. I have complete and utter exclusive rights to sailing this lake. Get the fuck off my lake!”
― Jeff Noon, Pollen

“The most serious point in the case is the disposition of the child."
What on earth has that to do with it?" I ejaculated.
My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining insight as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid. I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

“PRAYER BEFORE BIRTH
I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the club-footed
ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born; console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.”
― Louis Macniece, Oración antes de nacer (Poesia / Poetry)

“I felt instantly at home, and wanted only to dismiss Alistair, along with the rest of Justice Hall, that I might have a closer look at the shelves.I had to content myself instead with a strolling perusal, my hands locked behind my back to keep them from reaching out for Le Morte D'Arthur, Caxton 1485 or the delicious little red-and-gilt Bestiary, MS Circa 1250 or.... If I took one down, I should be lost. So I looked, like a hungry child in a sweet shop, and trailed out on my guide's heels with one longing backward glance.”
― Laurie R. King, Justice Hall

“Wherin they shalle fynde many Ioyous and playsaunt hystoryes / and noble & renomed actes of humanyte / gentylnesse and chyualryes / For herein may be seen noble chyualrye / Curtosye / Humanyte / frendlynesse / hardynesse / loue / frendshyp / Cowardyse / Murdre / hate / vertue / and synne / Doo after the good and leue the euyl / and it shal brynge you to good fame and renommee / And for to passe the tyme thys boook shal be plesaunte to rede in / ”
― William Caxton

“I know what is going on," said Sir. "I am the Boss! Of course I know!”
― Lemony Snicket, The Miserable Mill

“When scientists use the word 'intractable', you know there is a problem.
A big problem.
A hell of a big problem.”
― Wilmot James

“To those of you who seek lost objects of history, I wish you the best of luck. They're out there, and they're whispering.”
― Clive Cussler, The Sea Hunters

“I must say one thing about southern down-home brewed coffee with chicory. If you have worms, you'll never have them again.”
― Clive Cussler, The Sea Hunters

“A moment later, Jackie lifts himself into a canter. It is analyzable - I have seen the picture of how he steps so far under with his supporting hind leg that he is placing it right beneath where I am sitting; his leg and body become a U-shaped spring that lifts me forward - but it is not describable. It is neither floating nor springing. It is power without labor, thrust without force, the very opposite of any sort of aggression, the particular physics of his anatomy, the demonstration and the effect of his personality.”
― Jane Smiley, A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck

“SA's challenge is to get the democratic whole working in the way that the formerly white parts are used to. SA's threat is that the democratic whole ends up working in the way that the formerly black parts have become increasingly used to.”
― Denis Beckett

“We landed on the island of South Beeveland, where we remained about three weeks, playing at soldiers, smoking mynheer's long clay pipes, and drinking his vrow's butter-milk, for which I paid liberally with my precious blood to their infernal musquittos ; not to mention that I had all the extra valour shaken out of me by a horrible ague, which commenced a campaign on my carcass and compelled me to retire upon Scotland, for the aid of my native air, by virtue of which it was ultimately routed.”
― John Kincaid, Adventures In The Rifle Brigade: In The Peninsula, France And The Netherlands From 1809 To 1815

“Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Nine Billion Names of God

“The German people in its whole character is not warlike, but rather soldierly, that is, while they do not want war, they are not frightened by the thoughts of it.”
― Adolf Hitler, The speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939

“It makes logical sense that 168 is a greater number than 17, so why would you shelve 168 first? Because a librarian is always right. To the common man, this looks wrong, but to the librarian, this is right, because a librarian is never wrong.”
― Scott Douglas