1999 Quotes

“In every state of the Union, Fundamentalists still fight to ban all the science they dislike and prosecute all who teach it. To them, 'traditional family values' denotes their right to keep their children as ignorant as their grandparents (and to hate the same folks grand-dad hated.)”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons

“Шуме су крчене да на планету стане што више људи и да они, упркос свему, све бедније живе”
― Borislav Pekić, 1999

“I want to make it perfectly clear that although I believe in the continuity of existence, I do not hold to the simplistic theory that upon death a vaporous ghost containing our soul floats out of our dead body and goes to some cosmic waiting room while a karmic committee tallies up our unfulfilled needs and desires and matches us up with two unsuspecting fools who deserve the hell that we will put them through as much as we deserve the hell they will put us through. I am very confident, however, in the cycles of nature, and I do not see any reason to believe that the same cyclic behavior we observe in the universe around us cannot apply to consciousness and the continuity of our existence. Perhaps, because of the fragile nature of time, we are living all our "incarnations" simultaneously.”
― Lon Milo DuQuette, My Life With the Spirits: The Adventures of a Modern Magician

“It wasn't as if crack was getting great press in the South Bronx in 1999, but it took a particular kind of idiot to wake up one day and say, 'Angel dust is a product I've heard nothing but good about, and it's about time I was involved.”
― Edward Conlon, Blue Blood by Conlon, Edward (2004) Paperback

“Што мора бити није за страх. За страх је само што не мора бити, а ипак се догађа.”
― Borislav Pekić, 1999

“The O.T.O. is an initiatory order similar to freemasonry. It doesn't provide educational monographs or standardized tests. Rather, it offers members the opportunity to experience a series of dramatic and magical initiations artfully designed to awaken and unfold the candidates' spiritual potentialities. If a member did nothing else with the O.T.O. career but undergo these degree experiences, they would be immeasurably rewarded. Serious members know, however, that there is much more to the O.T.O.'s magick than a two-hour ceremony performed once or twice a year. So profound are the Order's inner mysteries that to penetrate them requires not only a rich magical and spiritual education, but also a high level of meditative attainment. Members who wish to truly affiliate at this level are expected to seize responsibility for their own magical education and eventually rend the veil of the Order's mysteries for themselves.”
― Lon Milo DuQuette, My Life With the Spirits: The Adventures of a Modern Magician

“Would that cricketers had better lines, or at least that their most famous were not also their tritest or most banal. 'This thing can be done,' said Fred Spofforth in 1882. 'We'll get 'em in singles,' George Hirst did not say twenty years later. 'You guys are history,' growled Devon Malcolm in 1994. 'You've just dropped the World Cup,' Steve Waugh may have crowed in 1999. At least two of these could have been put into the mouth of Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
― Rodney Ulyate, Masterly Batting: 100 Great Test Innings

“A veces, cuando me levanto y me miro en el espejo, me parece estar viendo a otra persona. Si no ando con cuidado, esa persona me va a ir dejando atrás.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“I write them to improve my productivity as a programmer. Making the quality assurance department happy is just a side effect. Unit tests are highly localized. Each test class works within a single package. It tests the interfaces to other packages, but beyond that it assumes the rest just works.

Functional tests are a different animal. They are written to ensure the software as a whole works. They provide quality assurance to the customer and don't care about programmer productivity. They should be developed by a different team, one who delights in finding bugs.”
― Martin Fowler, Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code

“Чим је схватио своју моћ, човек се према природи почео понашати као према случајној и несносној рогобатности у уредном поретку вештачик ствари, у свету властитих производа, који би, иначе, без природе био савршен.”
― Borislav Pekić, 1999

“— Zar ovako nešto usred Evrope, na samom pragu XXI veka? — zapamtio sam ovaj podrumski vapaj, koji se horski ponavljao narednih nedelja. Mnogi su ljudi pogrešno verovali da XXI vek počinje 1. januara 2000. godine. Mnogi su ljudi verovali da smo mi, stvarno, usred Evrope.”
― Stefan Janjić, Ništa se nije desilo

“Доследна жудња за прошлошћу, повратак у првобину срећу, враћање у рај, морало би се продужити у агонију, морало би обухватити и смрт из које се све, па и човек, рађа. Рађа, враћајући се. Али, човек се из тог окружења искључио. Он се рађа, но на рођењу не враћа. Он заиста умире. Зато се смрти и плаши. Једино живо биће које од смрти зазире. Јер само за њега смрт је коначан нестанак.”
― Borislav Pekić, 1999

“Доследна жудња за прошлошћу, повратак у првобитну срећу, враћање у рај, морало би се продужити у агонију, морало би обухватити и смрт из које се све, па и човек, рађа. Рађа, враћајући се. Али, човек се из тог окружења искључио. Он се рађа, но на рођењу не враћа. Он заиста умире. Зато се смрти и плаши. Једино живо биће које од смрти зазире. Јер само за њега смрт је коначан нестанак”
― Borislav Pekić, 1999

“За дуго времена соларни систем неће бити способан, ако икад и буде, да роди врсту живота која већ самим постојањем угрожава све остале.”
― Borislav Pekić, 1999

“Un jour, maman faisait la manche avec Maria dans ses bras. Les policiers lui ont demande de partir et, comme ils voyaent qu'elle avait du mal a se lever, ils l'ont aidee, a leur maniere. Ils l'ont fait monter dans leur voiture et sont partis a plusieurs kilometres de la, la laissant en pleine foret, son enfant dans les bras.”
― Anina Ciuciu

“She had read enough about teenagers to understand you couldn't confront them directly. You couldn't even agree with them. The best strategy was to feign indifference to whatever wrong direction they were headed in, then plop in little facts, like Alka-Seltzers, round innocuous comments, let those sink in, take slow, antidotal effect . . .”
― Melissa Pritchard, Disappearing Ingenue

“Till the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, most American men wore hats to work. What happened? Did our guys—suddenly scouting overhead for worse Sunday raids—come to fear their hatbrims' interference?”
― Allan Gurganus, Prize Stories 2000: The O. Henry Awards

“You are the author of your own plot, success and will, and thus, your future.”
― R.J. Intindola

“1999 was a good year; pre-9/11, pre-Bush, bangin’ economy, the send-off to a pretty amazing decade and century.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo