Berry Jacka > Berry's Quotes

“Someone else is watching James Ed Hoskins, Ms. Jones. I don’t know who or why, but he is being watched.”
― Shafter Bailey, James Ed Hoskins and the One-Room Schoolhouse: The Unprosecuted Crime Against Children

“Angus reached the young woman to find that she was shaken more by the sudden fire than by the lion, as she had only seen it as it ran back to the mountain. Sliding from the back of the cob, he took the woman’s hand to calm her shaking. Quietly he introduced himself, and hesitantly she told him that her name was Elbeth, and she was the daughter of James Cameron.”
― Robert Reid, White Light Red Fire

“Faith cannot be about absolute certainty in the letters of the Bible and wrath against those who don’t comply (Ephesians 2:15). It has to be about overwhelming trust in God’s love,6 which as the apostle Paul confirms, is beyond the letter of law and narrow legalistic interpretations.”
― Amos Smith, Healing the Divide: Recovering Christianity’s Mystic Roots

“If there was one thing a former sniper could do well, it was wait. Patiently. Quietly. Without a sound. Barely a movement. Just him, a quiet mind and his breath.”
― J. Rose Black, Losing My Breath

“This is step one to receiving God’s heart: Decide that your mission on this earth is to obey God every single day.”
― Kathryn Krick, The Secret of the Anointing: Accessing the Power of God to Walk in Miracles

“Being mindful of Aunt Kathy’s presence, I turned to reading the Bible while sitting in the living room. It was my way ofkeeping my aunt at bay. Yet, my facade didn’t sustain me for long. I got called to the dining table anyway. Next, I was told to follow Jerry’s instructions once we left the house. Then to my surprise, Aunt Kathy made breakfast for me anyway. Immediately, I was on high alert! “Oh hell, how do I get beyond this meal!”
There I was staring at bread blackened on one side and too soggy to fall off the plate. The bacon was two inches thick and fried hard enough to be a shoe insert. The grits had settled to a pace.
My eggs were a perfect substitute for popcorn. Even though I had no appetite, I had to gobble
something down or risk being ridiculed by my aunt.
Aunt Kathy made her own homemade peach preserves. It was extremely sweet and more concentrated than Playdough. I knew if she saw me using her sauce, she’d overlook the other items I left untouched. If lucky, thefermentation was potent enough to buzz me all day long. So, I made sure she’ll see me spreading that paste all over my charcoal toast. Of course, I made the

yummy sound “yums” as I took bite after bite. Fortunately, Aunt Kathy fell hook, line, and sinker for my facade. “I seeyou love that jelly! But I’m not going to let you eat all my jam! People will pay lots of money for that good stuff!”
“Yes Ma’am,” I said. Simply amazing! Being she had food she thought I liked, there was a limit.
 
But if I hated something then I had to be force-fed.
As Aunt Kathy talked, I fumbled and moved my food around as she gave me directives for the day. “When school is over, make sure to wait on the steps for your brother.”
“Yes Ma’am,” I said once again.”
― Harold Phifer, My Bully, My Aunt, & Her Final Gift

“Raya knew this type of girl – they never liked her. Usually they’d make fun of her, behind her back, but loud enough for her to hear. She was too alternative, too poor and too cynical – the foster kid – to be of any interest to these social climbers.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“Yeah. I’m an asshole. But I promise you, when the shit rolls downhill and you need someone with a shovel, I’m an asshole who can get the job done.”
― Lotchie Burton, Gabriel's Fire

“Pay attention. The momentum of change is building.”
― C. Toni Graham

“The sister played so beautifully. Her face was tilted to one side and she followed the notes with soulful and probing eyes. Gregor advanced a little, keeping his eyes low so that they might possibly meet hers. Was he a beast if music could move him so?”
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

“In our age, self-indulgence and self-destruction, rather than self-sacrifice, are the foundations for new heroic myths.”
― Dean Koontz, Brother Odd

“The faith itself was simple; he believed in the dignity of man. His ancestors were Huguenots, refugees of a chained and bloody Europe. He had learned their stories in the cradle. He had grown up believing in America and the individual and it was a stronger faith than his faith in God. This was the land where no man had to bow. In this place at last a man could stand up free of the past, free of tradition and blood ties and the curse of royalty and become what he wished to become. This was the first place on earth where the man mattered more than the state. True freedom had begun here and it would spread eventually over all the earth. But it had begun HERE. The fact of slavery upon this incredibly beautiful new clean earth was appalling, but more even than that was the horror of old Europe, the curse of nobility, which the South was transplanting to new soil. They were forming a new aristocracy, a new breed of glittering men, and Chamberlain had come to crush it. But he was fighting for the dignity of man and i that way he was fighting for himself. If men were equal in America, all the former Poles and English and Czechs and blacks, then they were equal everywhere, and there was really no such thing as foreigner; there were only free men and slaves. And so it was not even patriotism but a new faith. The Frenchman may fight for France, but the American fights for mankind, for freedom; for the people, not the land.”
― Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels

“We often confuse what we wish for with what is.”
― Neil Gaiman, MirrorMask

“She touched her forehead with the back of her”
― Carolyn Keene, Sleepover Sleuths

“Proverbs are all very fine when there's nothing to worry you, but when you're in real trouble, they're not a bit of help.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl

“Sir Edwin Chadwick (1800-1890) was an England reformer. His words are true and relevant in 2025. He said, “There is a moral as well as an intellectual objection to the custom, frequent in these times, of making education consist in a mere smattering of twenty different things, instead of in the mastery of five or six.”
― Shafter Bailey, James Ed Hoskins and the One-Room Schoolhouse: The Unprosecuted Crime Against Children

“This evening I spied her in the back orchard. I decided to sacrifice one of my better old shirts and carried it out to her. The weather’s been warm of late. Buds on the apple trees are ready to burst. Usually by this time of the year, at that time of day, the back orchard is full of screaming children. Damut’s boys were the only two. They were on the terrace below her, running through the slanted sunlight, chasing each other around tree trunks. She stood above them, like a merlin watching rabbits play.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“Next, the secretary advised me to take a seat while she notified the headmaster of my arrival. During those dreadful moments I did everything I could to remain calm. Nervously, I kept patting my foot to the floor and heard each and every tap. Suddenly, shouts of extreme havoc rung out just like the other times! “Oh God no! Jesus, please help me Lawd! I got you, Sir, I got you,” were screams filling the airwaves. The door opened and a battered female raced rightpast me with her hands covering her face. She kept mumbling phrases that shouldn’t be repeated by innocent lips. I couldn’t believe those disgusting words coming out of her baby-sized mouth.
Then damn, another nightmare was possibly moments away. I needed an out and fast. Fearing for my life, I formulated my plan of action. Right before Principal Shellshock steadies his paddle, I was going to blow out all the gas I reserved in my little butt. I was never a fan of the fart game, but I was scheming like a veteran. That’s all I had, and it was my “A game.” My intentions were to rip a good hard one that opens my belt, ruffles my pants, and sends my new shoes flyingacross the room. Then all options would be left to the principal. He could chance tearing into me and losing a lung or take cover and let me go. Punishing me will become a hazard to his health.
For the moment, I felt really good about that notion. I didn’t have much else to cling to, but I was dangerously packing breakfast from Aunt Kathy. Yes, I was sure my stink bomb defense would win that day. According to past reports, I would be the first and only kid at Mitchell Memorial to get on the scoreboard against the headmaster. Make that, Hal “1” and Principal Shell Shock “0.”
― Harold Phifer, My Bully, My Aunt, & Her Final Gift

“He clamped his eyes shut and waited for the pang of something he could no longer name to subside; it plucked at steel threads holding him together and reverberated through his system.”
― J. Rose Black, Losing My Breath

“And believe it or not, we did end up going to the bottom of the ocean, just not for the reasons I had wanted to go there in the first place.”
― Steven Decker, Addicted to Time

“The Vietnamese soldier said, “Before I spoke to her, I had given her a cooked ration of rice. Instead of her being grateful for the meal, she abused me! What gives with these Kampuchean People?”

(A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two)”
― Michael G. Kramer

“Out of the bedroom window, Tara watches the silver moon in the night sky cast a faint glow on the pine trees.  Ian was right.  It’s time to move on.  Not to forget, but to forge ahead.”
― Dawn Chalker

“Serving” is assisting your fellow man, the how-to, practical way to thrust your life into the spiritual wall to make the
tunnel bigger. Will God suddenly appear? Does
washing stacks of pots and pans bring salvation?
Can pulling weeds reclaim your brain? Will mopping the floor make you equal to the richest of men?”
― Tom Hillman, Digging for God

“Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary.”
― N.H. Kleinbaum, Dead Poets Society

“Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.”
― Graham Greene, The Quiet American

“It is never easier to understand the mind of a bomb-wielding anarchist than when standing amid a crush of those ladies and gentlemen who have the money and the temerity to style themselves “New York Society.”
― Caleb Carr, The Alienist

“I’m not doing anything with him.” “Well, maybe you should. Just don’t tell me about it. And make sure there’s at least a one million dollar donation to MCA involved.”
― Zack Love, The Syrian Virgin

“can’t help but think once again what a foolish, loutish creature is man. Is there another on earth that kills for the pure joy of it?”
― Jim Fergus, One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd

“As with stomachs, we should pity minds that do not eat.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables