Michael > Michael's Quotes

“Yea, I know, Fallen Angel got your tongue; it happens to the best of us.”
― Carl Novakovich, The Watchers: The Tomb

“Leadership begins and ends with relationships”
― Richard Polak, Work Smart Now: How to Jump Start Productivity, Empower Employees, and Achieve More

“Realization hit his face like a bomb. His hand trembled on my cheek, and he looked down to the ground, no longer able to hold my gaze.”
― M. R. Noble, Karolina Dalca, Dark Eyes

“Together let us hold the intention that all aspects of this living planet come together in love, acceptance, and celebration of both our diversities and commonalities. Let us possess the common purpose that we heal from our hearts into compassion and forgiveness for ourselves. Together let us own the belief that we will no longer unite with blame and judgement, but come to accept that we all carry the same wounds. In acknowledging this, the hope is for the whole planet in its jubilant diversity to be healed from any and all woundings so that we come together on equal footing, living in peace and joy and setting the tone for a future of harmony within and on this planet.
Peace to all and healing to all.”
― Wendy E. Slater, Of the Flame, Poems - Volume 15

“Monique bit at the side of lip. “He’s pretty active, I don’t want to impose…”
Tony stood and scooped up the puppy. “No, seriously, I’d love a little company.”
― Kirsten Fullmer, Problems at the Pub

“I don't intend to shrink from the truth, because the longer it's postponed, the harder it will be for them to accept it when they do hear it!”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“We're just as screwed up and brave and false and loyal and wrong and right as anyone else.”
― Patrick Ness, The Rest of Us Just Live Here

“I say , this picture sometimes appalled us, and made us rather bear those ills we had. Than fly to others, that we knew not of.”
― Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

“The team that keeps winning is not the most talented but the most hard-working.”
― Zoltan Andrejkovics, The Invisible Game: The Mindset of a Winning Team

“I’m not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.”
― Cormac McCarthy

“Moments are the elements of profit”
― Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Volume 1

“Life is complicated. If life was simple, wouldn’t that make us simpletons?”
― C. Toni Graham

“This must be awful for you. You get a job, and then next thing you know you’re dealing with a car chase, a bitchy manager, the SEC, and a boss dying to visit a secluded island with his admin assistant.” A slow grin grew on his face.
Mm… when can we go?”
― J.J. Sorel, A Taste of Peace

“The Great Spirit had shown mercy and had given him access to the most powerful weapon of all—love.”
― Diane L. Kowalyshyn, Crossbones

“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

“Cindy, have you heard of the second law of thermodynamics?”
“Yes. Something about heat energy can never be created or destroyed?”
“That’s the first law of thermodynamics. The second one is this…all organized systems tend to slide slowly into chaos and disorder. Energy tends to run down. The universe itself heads inevitably towards darkness and stasis. Our own star system eventually will die, the sun will become a red giant, and the earth will be swallowed by the red giant.”
“Cheery thought.”
“But mathematics has altered this concept; rather one particular mathematician. His name was Ilya Prigogine, a Belgian mathematician.”
“Who and what does that have to do with your being a PI and a great psychologist?”
“Are you being sarcastic? Of course you are. Anyway, what I was trying to say was that Prigogine used the analogy of a walled city and open city. The walled city is isolated from its surroundings and will run down, decay, and die. The open city will have an exchange of materials and energy with its surroundings and will become larger and more complex; capable of dissipating energy even as it grows. So my point is, this analogy very much pertains to a certain female. The walled person versus the open person. The walled person will eventually decline, fade, and decay.”
― Behcet Kaya, Appellate Judge

“Presidents, Senators, Congressmen, Governors, Mayors, Judges and Justices all fall prey to the Hitman.”
― RB Le `Deach, My Graphic Bipolar Fantasies: & Other Short Stories

“Hitch: making rules about drinking can be the sign of an alcoholic,' as Martin Amis once teasingly said to me. (Adorno would have savored that, as well.) Of course, watching the clock for the start-time is probably a bad sign, but here are some simple pieces of advice for the young. Don't drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food. Don't drink if you have the blues: it's a junk cure. Drink when you are in a good mood. Cheap booze is a false economy. It's not true that you shouldn't drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain. Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can't properly remember last night. (If you really don't remember, that's an even worse sign.) Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed—as are the grape and the grain—to enliven company. Be careful about up-grading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won't be easily available. Never even think about driving a car if you have taken a drop. It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't ever be responsible for it.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Colonel Talbot? he is a very disagreeable person, to be sure. He looks as if he thought no Scottish woman worth the trouble of handing her a cup of tea.”
― Walter Scott, Waverley

“I accepted because mysterious ladies offering bourbon under the stars is very much my aesthetic.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

“A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Hay una voz interior, si estamos dispuestos a escucharla, que nos dice con toda certeza cuándo adentrarnos en lo desconocido”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, The Wheel of Life: A Memoir of Living and Dying

“Simple answers, reductionist politics, are the most prone to compromise, to saying we’re addressing the essential issue and all that other stuff can slide. It is, in reality, people who slide.”
― Dorothy Allison, Skin: Talking about Sex, Class, and Literature

“Children of her type contrive the purest philosophies. Ada had worked out her own little system. Hardly a week had elapsed since Van’s arrival when he was found worthy of being initiated in her web of wisdom. An individual’s life consisted of certain classified things: "real things" which were unfrequent and priceless, simply "things" which formed the routine stuff of life; and "ghost things," also called "fogs," such as fever, toothache, dreadful disappointments, and death. Three or more things occurring at the same time formed a "tower," or, if they came in immediate succession, they made a "bridge." "Real towers" and "real bridges" were the joys of life, and when the towers came in a series, one experienced supreme rapture; it almost never happened, though. In some circumstances, in a certain light, a neutral "thing" might look or even actually become "real" or else, conversely, it might coagulate into a fetid "fog." When the joy and the joyless happened to be intermixed, simultaneously or along the ramp of duration, one was confronted with "ruined towers" and "broken bridges.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

“Speaking to a foreigner was the dream of every student, and my opportunity came at last. When I got back from my trip down the Yangtze, I learned that my year was being sent in October to a port in the south called Zhanjiang to practice our English with foreign sailors. I was thrilled.

Zhanjiang was about 75 miles from Chengdu, a journey of two days and two nights by rail. It was the southernmost large port in China, and quite near the Vietnamese border.

It felt like a foreign country, with turn-of-the-century colonial-style buildings, pastiche Romanesque arches, rose windows, and large verandas with colorful parasols. The local people spoke Cantonese, which was almost a foreign language. The air smelled of the unfamiliar sea, exotic tropical vegetation, and an altogether bigger world.

But my excitement at being there was constantly doused by frustration. We were accompanied by a political supervisor and three lecturers, who decided that, although we were staying only a mile from the sea, we were not to be allowed anywhere near it. The harbor itself was closed to outsiders, for fear of 'sabotage' or defection. We were told that a student from Guangzhou had managed to stow away once in a cargo steamer, not realizing that the hold would be sealed for weeks, by which time he had perished. We had to restrict our movements to a clearly defined area of a few blocks around our residence.

Regulations like these were part of our daily life, but they never failed to infuriate me. One day I was seized by an absolute compulsion to get out. I faked illness and got permission to go to a hospital in the middle of the city. I wandered the streets desperately trying to spot the sea, without success. The local people were unhelpful: they did not like non-Cantonese speakers, and refused to understand me. We stayed in the port for three weeks, and only once were we allowed, as a special treat, to go to an island to see the ocean.

As the point of being there was to talk to the sailors, we were organized into small groups to take turns working in the two places they were allowed to frequent: the Friendship Store, which sold goods for hard currency, and the Sailors' Club, which had a bar, a restaurant, a billiards room, and a ping-pong room.

There were strict rules about how we could talk to the sailors. We were not allowed to speak to them alone, except for brief exchanges over the counter of the Friendship Store. If we were asked our names and addresses, under no circumstances were we to give our real ones. We all prepared a false name and a nonexistent address. After every conversation, we had to write a detailed report of what had been said which was standard practice for anyone who had contact with foreigners. We were warned over and over again about the importance of observing 'discipline in foreign contacts' (she waifi-lu). Otherwise, we were told, not only would we get into serious trouble, other students would be banned from coming.”
― Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

“Because it's his bad luck to be the best.”
― Thomas Harris, Red Dragon

“All people on the planet are children, except for a very few. No one is grown up except those free of desire.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“This world we live in is confusing, overwhelming and painful because he has a condition known as autism.”
― Tina Traverse, Forever, Christian

“You're a bird who's been in a cage all your life, and suddenly all the walls are gone, and you're in the wide open. You're so afraid you're looking for any way back into the cage again." He saw the emotions flicker across her pale face. "Whatever you choose to think now, it's not safer there, Amanda. Even if you tried to go back now, I don't think you could survive that way again."
He was right. She knew he was. She had reached the end of enduring it even before Michael claimed her. Yet, being here was no assurance.
What if she couldn't fly?”
― Francine Rivers, Redeeming Love

“She was a triumph over ugliness, so often more beguiling than real beauty, if only because it contains paradox. In this case, as opposed to the scrupulous method of good taste and scientific grooming, the trick had been worked by exaggerating defects; she'd made them ornamental by admitting them boldly.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories