Devora Smither > Devora's Quotes

“Heidi's role as grand master was to monitor all the women and to manage their locations and communication. Even though she’d done this many times on multiple missions, her heartbeat still pounded in her ears.”
― Kirsten Fullmer, Trouble on Main Street

“I regained consciousness after a big night at the Cock and Bull Inn, or it could’ve been The Weasel’s Way or The Badger’s Breath, who knows with these weird English pub names. Anyway, it was somewhere near The Pig and Whistle. Not far up from the Scotsman’s Kilt.”
― Harry F. MacDonald, Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll

“What is it that inspires you? What do you love to do? What would you do for free? At the beginning of my busi-ness career, my why was to become a millionaire, not a good why! And why not? Because that is an aspiration rather than a why. Aspirations, I have found, won’t fuel me when the going gets tough. But a true “why” will.”
― Richard Polak

“I’m being haunted by Gaspar the Friendly Ghost.”
― Michael Phillip Cash, The After House

“If the old lady were fifty years younger, she would deck her.”
― Marilyn Dalla Valle, Westwind Secrets

“Your right of religious freedom ends where my right of religious abstinence begins...”
― T. Rafael Cimino, Mid Ocean

“عندما كنت فتاة، اعتقدت أني ورعة تقية. كنت أحب الله و الصلاة. أما الآن فأنا روح تائهة تلاحقني الشياطين ليلا و نهارا...”
― Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

“The wish of death had been palpably hanging over this otherwise idyllic paradise for a good many years.

All business and politics is personal in the Philippines.

If it wasn't for the cheap beer and lovely girls one of us would spend an hour in this dump.

They [Jehovah's Witnesses] get some kind of frequent flyer points for each person who signs on.

I'm not lazy. I'm just motivationally challenged.

I'm not fat. I just have lots of stored energy.

You don't get it do you? What people think of you matters more than the reality. Marilyn.

Despite standing firm at the final hurdle Marilyn was always ready to run the race.

After answering the question the woman bent down behind the stand out of sight of all, and crossed herself.

It is amazing what you can learn in prison. Merely through casual conversation Rick had acquired the fundamentals of embezzlement, fraud and armed hold up.

He wondered at the price of honesty in a grey world whose half tones changed faster than the weather.

The banality of truth somehow always surprises the news media before they tart it up.

You've ridden jeepneys in peak hour. Where else can you feel up a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl without even trying? [Ralph Winton on the Philippines finer points]

Life has no bottom. No matter how bad things are or how far one has sunk things can always get worse.

You could call the Oval Office an information rain shadow.

In the Philippines, a whole layer of criminals exists who consider that it is their right to rob you unhindered. If you thwart their wicked desires, to their way of thinking you have stolen from them and are evil.

There's honest and dishonest corruption in this country.

Don't enjoy it too much for it's what we love that usually kills us.

The good guys don't always win wars but the winners always make sure that they go down in history as the good guys.

The Philippines is like a woman. You love her and hate her at the same time.

I never believed in all my born days that ideas of truth and justice were only pretty words to brighten a much darker and more ubiquitous reality.
The girl was experiencing the first flushes of love while Rick was at least feeling the methadone equivalent.

Although selfishness and greed are more ephemeral than the real values of life their effects on the world often outlive their origins.

Miriam's a meteor job. Somewhere out there in space there must be a meteor with her name on it.

Tsismis or rumours grow in this land like tropical weeds.

Surprises are so common here that nothing is surprising.

A crooked leader who can lead is better than a crooked one who can't.

Although I always followed the politics of Hitler I emulate the drinking habits of Churchill.

It [Australia] is the country that does the least with the most.

Rereading the brief lines that told the story in the manner of Fox News reporting the death of a leftist Rick's dark imagination took hold.

Didn't your mother ever tell you never to trust a man who doesn't drink?

She must have been around twenty years old, was tall for a Filipina and possessed long black hair framing her smooth olive face. This specter of loveliness walked with the assurance of the knowingly beautiful. Her crisp and starched white uniform dazzled in the late-afternoon light and highlighted the natural tan of her skin. Everything about her was in perfect order. In short, she was dressed up like a pox doctor’s clerk. Suddenly, she stopped, turned her head to one side and spat comprehensively into the street. The tiny putrescent puddle contrasted strongly with the studied aplomb of its all-too-recent owner, suggesting all manner of disease and decay.”
― John Richard Spencer

“Look at all the things that can go wrong for men. There’s the nothing-happening-at-all problem, the too-much-happening-too-soon problem, the dismal-droop-after-a-promising-beginning problem; there’s the size-doesn’t-matter-except-in-my-case problem, the failing-to-deliver-the-goods problem…and what do women have to worry about? A handful of cellulite? Join the club. A spot of I-wonder-how-I-rank? Ditto.”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

“I am learning to see. I don’t know why it is, but everything enters me more deeply and doesn’t stop where it once used to. I have an interior that I never knew of. Everything passes into it now. I don’t know what happens there.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge: A Novel

“She stabbed the earth with her big fork as if she could make Cookie Mac’s blood sprout from it.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“He will tell you what's wrong in your society, who's to blame, and make you afraid of it, but he won't tell you how to fix it.”
― March Lions, The Last Sunset

“I’m fucking asking you!” The man stood his ground.
From the corner of his eye Adam could see the other man getting up from his chair. It was time to go. Adam head-butted the first man who was blocking his way, and then kneed him in the groin for good measure. As the man doubled up, Adam pushed past him.”
― Max Nowaz, Get Rich or Get Lucky

“Their attraction to each other is derailed by a missing person, acts of vandalism, a jealous woman, and an accident—or was it a murder?”
― Cricket Rohman, Colorado Takedown

“Proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you have always known.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“It was not necessary that he be your friend, it was not even important that you had no means with which to repay him. Only one thing was required. That you, you yourself, proclaim your friendship. And then, no matter how poor or powerless the supplicant, Don Corleone would take that man’s troubles to his heart.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“It’s important now to just live with this and not fight it mentally…mind control….”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

“Work, love, courage and hope,
Make me good and help me cope!”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“The facts were out; it was now a question of who would believe them.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

“The summer sun bowing out threw slashes of colour between the buildings. London looked big, empty, and lonely. She stood in the doorway, like a cat trying to make up its mind.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“Low employee engagement is a symptom of a suboptimal workplace culture”
― Hanna Hasl-Kelchner, Seeking Fairness at Work: Cracking the New Code of Greater Employee Engagement, Retention & Satisfaction

“To know our true essence, we need to leave all of the energy of low vibrations out of our consciousness. We must withdraw all of our life force from that realm, because it is parasitic. It has little life force of its own and cannot exist unless we give it life through our attention, imagination and emotions.”
― Kenneth Schmitt, Quantum Energetics and Spirituality Volume 1: Aligning with Universal Consciousness

“Truthfully, Professor Hawking? Why would we allow tourists from the future muck up the past when your contemporaries had the task well in Hand?"
Brigadier General Patrick E Buckwalder 2241C.E.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Paradox Effect: Time Travel and Purified DNA Merge to Halt the Collapse of Human Existence

“She gasped. In his eyes, in just a heartbeat or two, she saw herself for what she was: a creature of this broken world, herself bearing the burden of the breaking.”
― Jack Borden, The Lost City: An Epic YA Fantasy Novel

“Science Fiction, is an art form that paints a picture of the future.”
― A.R. Merrydew

“السر في كونك شخصا مثيرا للملل، هو أنك تقول كل شيء!”
― فولتير

“articles of confederation.”
― Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

“A dog lives for you. A cat just lives with you.”
― Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water

“My son, do not forget my teaching,
But let your heart keep my commandments;
For length of days and years of life
And peace they will add to you.
Do not let kindness and truth leave you;
Bind them around your neck,
Write them on the tablet of your heart.
So you will find favor and good repute
In the sight of God and man.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version

“Most men cannot write good sex.”
― John Grisham