Kayla is trying to finish her backlog of books > Kayla's Quotes

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
― Langston Hughes

“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“... there is no shame in not knowing. The problem arises when irrational thought and attendant behavior fill the vacuum left by ignorance.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections

“The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.”
― Walt Disney Company, Mulan

“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

“I dream my painting and I paint my dream.”
― Vincent Willem van Gogh

“Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
― Jane Goodall

“It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.”
― Frank Zappa

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
― Barack Obama

“Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.”
― Barack Obama

“To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.”
― Barack Obama

“And so it is to the printing press--to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news--that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.”
― John F. Kennedy

“Please feel free to use any of my arguments against any conservatives in your life. Free of charge (well, free of additional charge). Indeed, I’ve tried to use as little legal jargon as possible to explain why conservatives are almost always entirely full of shit (full of shit being a term of art derived from the Latin: Borkium shittialis).”
― Elie Mystal, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution

“Hiram Revels, Blanche K. Bruce, Edward Brooke, Carol Moseley Braun, Barack Obama, Roland W. Burris, Tim Scott, William “Mo” Cowan, Cory A. Booker, Kamala D. Harris, Raphael Warnock: that is the full and complete list of African Americans to serve in the United States Senate in the history of this country.”
― Elie Mystal, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution

“The supposed rights of the unborn hold no moral suasion in a society that is willing to consign children who are born alive to poverty, malnutrition, and toxic air and water.”
― Elie Mystal, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution

“It’s all really a game of thrones, if you will. And our founders were more Lannister than Stark: just a bunch of rich people rebelling against a “mad king,” who weren’t really interested in freeing anybody but themselves.”
― Elie Mystal, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution

“Refusing to do your job because the person paying you to do it has different beliefs than you is not a religious objection, it’s plain and simple bigotry.”
― Elie Mystal, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution

“At an NRA annual meeting in Cincinnati in 1977, Second Amendment “absolutists” took control of the NRA from previous leaders who thought the organization was really there to protect marksmen. Gun nuts call this event the Revolt at Cincinnati. Our modern epidemic of mass shootings can, more or less, be traced to these yahoos winning control of that organization. The ammosexuals reformed the NRA from the generally benign conglomeration of Bambi killers to the grotesque weapon of mass destruction we know it to be today. It was this new NRA that invented the radical rationalization of the Second Amendment as a right to armed self-defense. It was this new NRA that gained political supremacy in the Republican party. It was this new NRA that got Ronald Reagan, who once signed one of the most sweeping gun restrictions in the nation, to sign the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, an act that rolled back many of the restrictions from the Gun Control Act. The NRA’s wholesale reimagining of the Second Amendment hasn’t just lured Republican politicians, it’s become part of the gospel of Republican judges. The Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, the two outside interest groups most responsible for telling Republican judges how to rule, have fully adopted an absolutist, blood-soaked interpretation of the Second Amendment. These groups of alleged “textualists” read “well regulated militia” clear out of the text of the Amendment. Instead, they substitute self-defense as the “original purpose” of the language. There was an original purpose to the Second Amendment, but it wasn’t to keep people safe. It was to preserve white supremacy and slavery.”
― Elie Mystal, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution

“But I bring up my background in the law because hatred is a pretty big reason I’ve written this book. Not the healthiest emotion, I know, but for me it’s clarifying. What conservatives do and try to do through the Constitution and the law is disgusting. They use the law to humiliate people, to torture people, and to murder people, and tell you they’re just “following orders” from the Constitution. They frustrate legislation meant to help people, free people, or cure people, and they tell you it’s because of “doctrinal interpretative framework.” They use the very same legal arguments that have been used to justify slavery, segregation, and oppression for four hundred years on this continent and tell you it’s the only “objective” way of interpreting the law.”
― Elie Mystal, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution

“Conservatives never win when everybody gets to play.”
― Elie Mystal, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution