Murray Knaus > Murray's Quotes

“Mead.
O sweet elixir,
Ye bless the lips and steal the wits.
 ”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“A mystical rain calming a boisterous night. A sensuous breeze sending leaves into flight. A beautiful flower reminding one of a more treasured hour. A wandering mind wanting for a better world.”
― Sherman Kennon, Whisk Of Dust: Too Unseen Distance

“Fame to an artist is like light to a vampire.”
― Rebecca Harlem, The Pink Cadillac

“Mary dashed the rain from her eyes with a frozen hand. Was that a knife buried in the man’s chest with the blood seeping up around it? Doesn’t that mean he’s alive? Although with the blade at that angle, it can’t be for long. Colors swam in the water coating Mary’s vision. She rubbed her face, and with every shuttering breath, even before she could see his features, she knew her son, George, the son she had never met, was dead.”
― Susan Rowland, Murder on Family Grounds

“Loving another soul and devoting life to a loved one’s happiness is the easiest way to enlightenment.”
― Raz Mihal, Just Love Her

“Valerie watched him pull away before turning to go inside. Her feelings
were a painful contradiction. On the one hand, she was deathly afraid
of a man whom she was so attracted to as to barely be able to maintain
control when she was around him, on the other hand, that very attraction
and loss of control signaled what she had longed for her whole life,
someone she could fall irretrievably in love with. She was delicately balanced
on the tightrope of some of her most basic personality traits and
her deepest desires. It was a precarious trap for her, and one she wasn’t
going to be able to easily resolve. Unfortunately, the result for Jeremy
was a seesaw of her reactions to him.
What the hell am I thinking, she asked herself as she slowly closed her
apartment door. For now, her fears were winning the battle against her
heart.”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“As well, I want our special force commandos to silently slip into Cat Bi and Gia Lam airfields and destroy the aircraft stationed there. That will deal the French forces at Dien Bien Phu a stunning blow!” (Giap, 1990)”
― Michael G. Kramer, A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume One

“Some days simply lay on you like stones.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Slow Regard of Silent Things

“Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft might win,
by fearing to attempt.”
― William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

“They thought depression was like bieng 'depressed'. They thought it was like being in a bad mood, only worse. Therefore, they tried to get him to snap out of it.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

“For more than three thousand million years, DNA has been the only replicator worth talking about in the world. But it does not necessarily hold these monopoly rights for all time. Whenever conditions arise in which a new kind of replicator can make copies of itself, the new replicators will tend to take over, and start a new kind of evolution of their own.”
― Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

“The fact would seem to be, if in my situation one may speak of facts, not only that I shall have to speak of things of which I cannot speak, but also, which is even more interesting, but also that I, which is if possible even more interesting, that I shall have to, I forget, no matter. And at the same time I am obliged to speak. I shall never be silent. Never. ”
― Samuel Beckett, Molloy / Malone Dies / The Unnamable

“That's right," said Eeyore. "Sing. Umty-tiddly, umty-too. Here we go gathering Nuts and May. Enjoy yourself."
"I am," said Pooh.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“Nine roses around the lion…God in heaven that’s the Tumbaar coat-of-arms.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Steel Blood

“To whomever swapped my tattoo cream for toothpaste........ well played.”
― R.D. Ronald

“With the thunderous boom of each firework, Isabela’s heart sank further and further. She loved Papi, and she loved Marco. She could never choose between them.”
― Margarita Barresi, A Delicate Marriage

“On the end of my bed. He’s short, round and bald, with a tartan loin cloth, and what looks like a spout on the top of his head,’ Bryony said. ‘You flatter me,’ came the snide male voice. ‘But it’s a valve.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“As well, they used their B-52 bombers to drop thousands of tons of bombs which included napalm and cluster bombs. In a particularly vile attack, they used poisonous chemicals on our base regions of Xuyen Moc, the Minh Dam and the Nui Thi Vai mountains. They sprayed their defoliants over jungle, and productive farmland alike. They even bull-dozed bare, both sides along the communication routes and more than a kilometre into the jungle adjacent to our base areas.
This caused the Ba Ria-Long Khanh Province Unit to send out a directive to D445 and D440 Battalions that as of 01/November/1969, the rations of both battalions would be set at 27 litres of rice per man per month when on operations. And 25 litres when in base or training.
So it was that as the American forces withdrew, their arms and lavish base facilities were transferred across to the RVN. The the forces of the South Vietnamese Government were with thereby more resources but this also created any severe maintenance, logistic and training problems.
The Australian Army felt that a complete Australian withdrawal was desirable with the departure of the Task Force (1ATF), but the conservative government of Australia thought that there were political advantages in keeping a small force in south Vietnam.
Before his election, in 1964, Johnston used a line which promised peace, but also had a policy of war. The very same tactic was used by Nixon. Nixon had as early as 1950 called for direction intervention by American Forces which were to be on the side of the French colonialists.
The defoliants were sprayed upon several millions of hectares, and it can best be described as virtual biocide. According to the figure from the Americans themselves, between the years of 1965 to 1973, ten million Vietnamese people were forced to leave their villages ad move to cities because of what the Americans and their allies had done.
The Americans intensified the bombing of whole regions of Laos which were controlled by Lao patriotic forces. They used up to six hundred sorties per day with many types of aircraft including B52s.
On 07/January/1979, the Vietnamese Army using Russian built T-54 and T-59 tanks, assisted by some Cambodian patriots liberated Phnom Penh while the Pol Pot Government and its agencies fled into the jungle. A new government under Hun Sen was installed and the Khmer Rouge’s navy was sunk nine days later in a battle with the Vietnamese Navy which resulted in twenty-two Kampuchean ships being sunk.”
― Michael G. Kramer, A Gracious Enemy

“Now give me some advice about how to take full advantage of this city. I’m always looking to improve my odds.”

“Just what I’d expect from a horny actuary.”

“I’m serious.”

Carlos reflected for a moment on the problem at hand. He actually had never needed or tried to take full advantage of the city in order to meet women, but he thought about all of his friends who regularly did. His face lit up as he thought of some helpful advice: “Get into the arts.”

“The arts?”

“Yeah.”

“But I’m not artistic.”

“It doesn’t matter. Many women are into the arts. Theater. Painting. Dance. They love that stuff.”

“You want me to get into dance? Earthquakes have better rhythm than me…And can you really picture me in those tights?”

“Take an art history class. Learn photography. Get involved in a play or an independent film production. Get artsy, Sammy. I’m telling you, the senoritas dig that stuff.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You need to sign up for a bunch of artistic activities. But you can’t let on that it’s all just a pretext to meet women. You have to take a real interest in the subject or they’ll quickly sniff out your game.”

“I don’t know…It’s all so foreign to me…I don’t know the first thing about being artistic.”

“Heeb, this is the time to expand your horizons. And you’re in the perfect city to do it. New York is all about reinventing yourself. Get out of your comfort zones. Become more of a Renaissance man. That’s much more interesting to women.”
― Zack Love, Sex in the Title: A Comedy about Dating, Sex, and Romance in NYC

“There was only the enormous, empty prairie, with grasses blowing in waves of light and shadow across it, and the great blue sky above it, and birds flying up from it and singing with joy because the sun was rising. And on the whole enormous prairie there was no sign that any other human being had ever been there.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie

“After all, what is happiness? Love, they tell me. But love doesn't bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, it's a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we're doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello

“Christmas and Easter Christian.”
― John Patrick Kennedy, I Am Titanium

“It is a kiss that, once begun, never really ends. Interrupted, yes. Paused, certainly. But from that very moment onward, Vera sees the whole of her life as only a breath away from kissing him again. On that night in the park, they begin the delicate task of binding their souls together, creating a whole comprising their separate halves.”
― Kristin Hannah, Winter Garden

“what a luxury it was for people to be
able to hold their loved ones whenever they wanted.”
― Cecelia Ahern, P.S. I Love You