Wilburn > Wilburn's Quotes

“Convincing all nations in the civilized world to agree that any investments into these corporations should be tax-free was not an easy task. Tea with the Queen didn’t quite cut it. Saki with the Japanese Prime Minister was pleasant, but not quite enough. We had to offer major trade concessions to our partner nations to bring them to the negotiating table. In retrospect, it was a small price to pay. The talks earned me the title of “The Great Negotiator.” I didn't mind.”
― Nancy Omeara, The Most Popular President Who Ever Lived [So Far]

“We’re not here to argue with you about the wisdom of our alliance that has kept the Persians at bay for forty years. An argument requires a measure of equality between those in the dispute and Samos is not the equal of Athens.”
― Yvonne Korshak, Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece

“He sounds like a politician running for office.”
― March Lions, The Last Sunset

“One thing I have learnt is that you may do a lot of evil things, but if you are ever afforded a chance to be good, then you should take it. You will feel better about yourself.”
― Max Nowaz, The Polymorph

“It's as if life equals winning, so death equals losing”
― Art Spiegelman, Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began

“Cum adică, băiete! continuă şmecherul, ai două muieri, una mai mişto ca alta, trăieşti gol în mijlocul naturii c-o întreagă bandă de nudişti simpatici, haleşti, bei, vânezi; ai marea, soarele, nisipul cald, până şi perlele le capeţi pe damoaca, şi nu găseşti ceva mai bun de făcut decât să laşi baltă toate astea ca s-o iei din loc? Încotro? Zi! Ca să treci strada în fugă, să nu te calce maşinile, ca să fii nevoit să-ţi plăteşti chiria, croitorul, lumina şi telefonul, iar dacă ţi s-a făcut de-o maşină mică, să faci spargere, sau să munceşti ca un dobitoc pentru vreun patron, câştigând cât să nu mori de foame? Nu te-nţeleg, omule! Erai în cer şi te-ntorci de bunăvoie în iad, unde, pe lângă grijile vieţii, mai trebuie să te fereşti de toţi gaborii din lume care te vânează!”
― Henri Charrière, Papillon

“To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”
― Founding Fathers, The United States Constitution

“I neglected my clients and my own business to give myself to the contemplation of the mysteries which I had once beheld, yet which I could impart to no one, and found daily more difficult to reproduce even before my own mental vision.”
― Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

“No war ever fought without an economic intent”
― Omar Farhad, Need a Ride?

“I felt guilty. Stupid, I know, but I thought about Scott—about what we did and how it felt—and I wished I hadn’t done it, because it felt like a betrayal. Of Tom. The man who left me for another woman two years ago. I can’t help how I feel.”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

“Snake Street is an area I should avoid. Yet that night I was drawn there as surely as if I had an appointment. 
The Snake House is shabby on the outside to hide the wealth within. Everyone knows of the wealth, but facades, like the park’s wall, must be maintained. A lantern hung from the porch eaves. A sign, written in Utte, read ‘Kinship of the Serpent’. I stared at that sign, at that porch, at the door with its twisted handle, and wondered what the people inside would do if I entered. Would they remember me? Greet me as Kin? Or drive me out and curse me for faking my death?  Worse, would they expect me to redon the life I’ve shed? Staring at that sign, I pissed in the street like the Mearan savage I’ve become.
As I started to leave, I saw a woman sitting in the gutter. Her lamp attracted me. A memsa’s lamp, three tiny flames to signify the Holy Trinity of Faith, Purity, and Knowledge.  The woman wasn’t a memsa. Her young face was bruised and a gash on her throat had bloodied her clothing. Had she not been calmly assessing me, I would have believed the wound to be mortal. I offered her a copper. 
She refused, “I take naught for naught,” and began to remove trinkets from a cloth bag, displaying them for sale.
Her Utte accent had been enough to earn my coin. But to assuage her pride I commented on each of her worthless treasures, fighting the urge to speak Utte. (I spoke Universal with the accent of an upper class Mearan though I wondered if she had seen me wetting the cobblestones like a shameless commoner.) After she had arranged her wares, she looked up at me. “What do you desire, O Noble Born?”
I laughed, certain now that she had seen my act in front of the Snake House and, letting my accent match the coarseness of my dress, I again offered the copper.
 “Nay, Noble One. You must choose.” She lifted a strand of red beads. “These to adorn your lady’s bosom?”
            I shook my head. I wanted her lamp. But to steal the light from this woman ... I couldn’t ask for it. She reached into her bag once more and withdrew a book, leather-bound, the pages gilded on the edges. “Be this worthy of desire, Noble Born?”
 I stood stunned a moment, then touched the crescent stamped into the leather and asked if she’d stolen the book. She denied it. I’ve had the Training; she spoke truth. Yet how could she have come by a book bearing the Royal Seal of the Haesyl Line? I opened it. The pages were blank.
“Take it,” she urged. “Record your deeds for study. Lo, the steps of your life mark the journey of your soul.”
  I told her I couldn’t afford the book, but she smiled as if poverty were a blessing and said, “The price be one copper. Tis a wee price for salvation, Noble One.”
  So I bought this journal. I hide it under my mattress. When I lie awake at night, I feel the journal beneath my back and think of the woman who sold it to me. Damn her. She plagues my soul. I promised to return the next night, but I didn’t. I promised to record my deeds. But I can’t. The price is too high.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“Alix looked at Nikola. With a slight movement of his head, he indicated the open doorway, and she got up and followed him outside. They faced each other, hunched against the wind, and he began quietly, ‘If anything should happen to me…’
She met his eyes and saw something different there. This was not his usual self-pitying ploy to engage her sympathy. He really meant this. Her first instinct was to reply, ‘Nothing will happen. You’ve been in dozens of battles and come out safely.’
‘This could be different,’ he said. ‘I just want you to know, if anything did happen, I have made Dragomir promise to look after you.’
She almost laughed. Dragomir had taken care of her ever since they were forced out of Uzice a year ago. Then she realised what it had cost Nikola to exact that promise. He had been jealous of Drago since they had met in the ruins of Belgrade and he refused to accept that there could be anything between them beyond the relationship of mistress and servant. This was a tacit acceptance that it was much more than that.”
― Holly Green, A Call to Home

“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

“I haven’t got a clue why his bones disintegrated, but look at the bright side,” laughed Adam. “We won’t have to dispose of the body. I’ll get a pan and brush in a minute and flush him down the toilet.”
― Max Nowaz, The Three Witches and the Master

“Jack, this is Vance McGruder. I couldn’t find your cell number so I’m taking a chance on reaching you at the cottage. It’s Monday afternoon and I need you here as soon as possible. I’ve arranged for a one-way, first-class ticket on Delta Air Lines on their 3:15pm flight tomorrow afternoon to Atlanta and connecting on to LAX. I’ll have a car and driver at LAX to pick you up. Call me as soon as you get this message.”
― Behcet Kaya, Body In The Woods

“He signed up to eliminate madmen and terrorists, not to orphan children to obtain political leverage.”
― Diane L. Kowalyshyn, Catch .22

“Yes Siddhartha,' he said. 'Is this what you mean: that the river is in all places at once, at its source and where it flows into the sea, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the ocean, in the mountains, everywhere at once, so for the river there is only the present moment and not the shadow of the future?'

'It is,' Siddhartha said.'And once I learned this I considered my life, and it too was a river, and the boy Siddhartha was separated from the man Siddhartha and the graybeard Siddhartha only by shadows, not by real things. ... Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has being and presence.”
― Herman Hesse

“When you rape, beat, maim, mutilate, burn, bury, and terrorize women, you destroy the essential life energy on the planet.”
― Eve Ensler, The Vagina Monologues

“Разум дан человеку, чтобы он понял: жить одним разумом нельзя.”
― Эрих Мария Ремарк

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

“Great and terrible was the year of Our Lord 1918, of the Revolution the second. Its summer abundant with warmth and sun, its winter and snow, highest in its heaven stood two stars: the shepherds' star, eventide Venus; and Mars- quivering, red. But in days of blood and of peace the years fly like an arrow and the thick frost of a hoary white December, season of Christmas trees, Santa Claus, joy and glittering snow, overtook the young Turbins unawares. For the reigning head of the family, their adored mother, was no longer with them.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The White Guard