Andy Bruce > Andy's Quotes

“Granddad once told me that to truly love this life, you need to know its darkest corners. But if you can bring a bit of sunshine to the sunless, it can only be for the good. I mean, what else are we really here for on this earth? Think about it some day, when the spring mornings look so golden and green.”
― Gareth Thompson, Sunshine to the Sunless

“But beware of this about callings: they may not lead us where we intended to go or even where we want to go. If we choose to follow, we may have to be willing to let go of the life we already planned and accept whatever is waiting for us. And if the calling is true, though we may not have gone where we intended, we will surely end up where we need to be.”
― Steve Goodier

“The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent. Trivia dominates our conversations and increasingly our airwaves. And war is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. And those who have the least meaning in their lives, the impoverished refugees in Gaza, the disenfranchised North African immigrants in France, even the legions of young who live in the splendid indolence and safety of the industrialized world, are all susceptible to war's appeal.”
― Chris Hedges, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

“My first sight of the fabled warrior was a surprise. He was not a mighty-thewed giant, like Ajax. His body was not broad and powerful, as Odysseos'. He seemed small, almost boyish, his bare arms and legs slim and virtually hairless. His chin was shaved clean, and the ringlets of his long black hair were tied up in a silver chain. He wore a splendid white silk tunic, bordered with a purple key design, cinched at the waist with a belt of interlocking gold crescents... His face was the greatest shock. Ugly, almost to the point of being grotesque. Narrow beady eyes, lips curled in a perpetual snarl, a sharp hook of a nose, skin pocked and cratered... A small ugly boy born to be a king... A young man possessed with fire to silence the laughter, to stifle the taunting. His slim arms and legs were iron-hard, knotted with muscle. His dark eyes were absolutely humourless. There was no doubt in my mind that he could outfight Odysseos or even powerful Ajax on sheer willpower alone.”
― Ben Bova

“Weight and body oppression is oppressive to everyone. When you live in a society that says that one kind of body is bad and and other is good, those with “good” bodies constantly fear that their bodies will go “bad”, and those with “bad” bodies are expected feel shame and do everything they can to have “good” bodies. In the process, we torture our bodies, and do everything from engage in disordered eating to invasive surgery to make ourselves okay. Nobody wins in this kind of struggle.”
― Golda Poretsky

“We do children an enormous disservice when we assume that they cannot appreciate anything beyond drive through fare and nutritionally marginal, kid-targeted convenience foods. Our children are capable of consuming something that grew in a garden or on a tree and never saw a deep fryer. They are capable of making it through diner at a sit-down restaurant with tablecloths and no climbing equipment. Children deserve quality nourishment.”
― Victoria Moran, Lit From Within: Tending Your Soul For Lifelong Beauty

“Kennedy's issue didn't seem to be that she had been in jail, but that she had put on weight in jail. The food had been crappy, she'd told me, and it has been high on the carbohydrate count.
"But I'm an emotional eater," she'd said, as if that were a terrible thing.
"And I was real emotional in jail.”
― Charlaine Harris, Dead in the Family

“That eating should be foremost about bodily health is a relatively new and, I think, destructive idea-destructive not just the pleasure of eating, which would be bad enough, but paradoxically of our health as well. Indeed, no people on earth worry more about the health consequences of their food choices than we Americans-and no people suffer from as many diet-related problems. We are becoming a nation of orthorexics: people with an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating.”
― Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

“Associated with this weight gain are increased risks
in adulthood for joint problems, angina, high blood pressure, heart
attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes and, ultimately, premature death.
Outside of the human costs, health experts estimate that treating
adult obesity-related ailments will cost the American economy
nearly $150 billion in 2009.”
― Jeff Schweitzer, Calorie Wars: Fat, Fact and Fiction

“Adult obesity and overweight statistics have increased by about 50 percent since the Dietary Goals were announced. [by the federal government, in 1977] That bears repeating: a 50 percent increase in obesity/overweight correlated with a 10 percent decrease in fat content in the diet.”
― Larry McCleary MD, Feed Your Brain, Lose Your Belly

“The slightest nudge can send a fruit pyramid collapsing into ruin. Perhaps this is why there is so little ancient architecture and art left in the world. Perhaps ancient fat people bumped into buildings and statues and made them fall. Perhaps this is the real reason Rome fell”
― Becky Siame

“My message is, as it alway has been, moderation: meat as a main course on three days a week, eggs on one, fish on one other and some form of vegetarian meal on the rest constitute a perfectly acceptable, interesting and varied diet.”
― Delia Smith, One Is Fun!

“A healthy man watched what he ate. An intelligent man watched what he watched.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“That we need help is easy to see every time we walk down the street.
The experts confirm what the obscured view in front of us tells us.
They estimate that 64% of adults in the United States are obese and
that this percentage is growing. Even our children are being affected,
as nearly every one in three American children under the age of 18
is overweight.”
― Jeff Schweitzer, Calorie Wars: Fat, Fact and Fiction

“A Spiritual Samaritan lives knowing that if we were to leave this world tomorrow, we were the best humans we could be and we touched the lives of as many souls as possible. We are not asked to be perfect. We are asked to make a difference.”
― Molly Friedenfeld