Marni Rhodehamel

“The door opened.
"We're here," said Mrs. Rogers.
Aunt Myra came in.
"Now!" said Amelia Bedelia.
"Greetings, greetings, greetings,"
said the three children.
"What's that about?" said Mrs. Rogers.
"You said to greet Aunt Myra with Carols," said Amelia Bedelia.
"Here's Carol Lee, Carol Green, and Carol Lake."
"What lovely Carols," said Aunt Myra.
"Thank you.”
― Peggy Parish, Merry Christmas, Amelia Bedelia

“Off the southeast tip of Italy a young Austrian U-boat commander named Georg von Trapp, later to gain eternal renown when played by Christopher Plummer in the film The Sound of Music, fired two torpedoes into a large French cruiser, the Leon Gambetta. The ship sank in nine minutes, killing 684 sailors. “So that’s what war looks like!” von Trapp wrote in a later memoir. He told his chief officer, “We are like highway men, sneaking up on an unsuspecting ship in such a cowardly fashion.” Fighting in a trench or aboard a torpedo boat would have been better, he said. “There you hear shooting, hear your comrades fall, you hear the wounded groaning—you become filled with rage and can shoot men in self defense or fear; at an assault you can even yell! But we! Simply cold-blooded to drown a mass of men in an ambush!”
― Erik Larson, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

“Sai la favola del pipistrello?
Gli uccelli e le bestie erano in guerra. Quando stavano vincendo gli uccelli, il pipistrello diceva di essere un uccello, perché sapeva volare. Quando vincevano le bestie, il pipistrello diceva di essere una bestia, perché aveva i denti.
Per questo il pipistrello non si fa vedere di giorno. Nessuno vuole guardare le sue due facce. (Pag. 614, "Il falò delle vanità")”
― Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment