Walter > Walter's Quotes

“And now insane men adrift in a world without order formed a line at the door.  They rendered unto her every evil act brought into this world by God.  They fell upon her with brutality that none of them at any other time would have thought possible.  There was once no scenario that would lead them to behave this way.  At any other time in their life there were no words or arguments that could convince them to treat a woman with such wanton disregard.  No one now asked, “What brought me to this?” Not one of them asked, “Who are these men?  How did we end up here, doing these things? Who am I now?”
― John Payton Foden, Magenta

“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

“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

“Judaea was not a forgotten backwater in the Roman world. Jews represented about ten percent of the population of the western empire and about twenty percent of the population of the eastern empire. By comparison, Jews represent only about two per cent of the population of the United States today. Never, since the fall of Judah to Babylon in the sixth century BC until the twentieth century had Jews comprised so large a part of any body politic.”
― James Allen Moseley, Biographies of Jesus' Apostles: Ambassadors in Chains

“How could I live without dancing?”
― Maria Nhambu, America's Daughter

“Love itself is what is left over when one being in love is burned away, and this is both an art and option that accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that group of each other on the ground and when all the pretty blossoms branches. We found that we were one tree and not two.”
― Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli's Mandolin filmscript

“What did God really know about brothers (or for that matter sisters)? He was after all an only child and before it all an equally lonely father.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“Every man the least conversant in Roman story, knows how often that republic was obliged to take refuge in the absolute power of a single man, under the formidable title of Dictator, as well against the intrigues of ambitious individuals who aspired to the tyranny, and the seditions of whole classes of the community whose conduct threatened the existence of all government, as against the invasions of external enemies who menaced the conquest and destruction of Rome.”
― Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

“God gived you the seed. But the watering and caring of that seed is up to you.”
― James McBride, The Good Lord Bird