Ayana Toal

“Ngo Diem was heard to say, “I want a repressive machine controlling the whole of the country of South Vietnam from Saigon to the remotest villages. You shall apply massacres, torture, deportations, and mass imprisonment while conducting constant raids. You shall make the population so fearful of this government that no-one shall ever dare to become a revolutionary or any other kind of outlaw!”

(A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two)”
― Michael G. Kramer

“...What is the use of beauty? i have lived my life surrounded by painters, and still I do not know the answer. But i suspect, some days, that beauty helps protect the spirit of mankind, swaddle it and succor it, so that we might survive. Beauty is no end in itself, but if it makes or lives less miserable so that we might be more kind-well, then, lets have beauty, painted on our porcelain, hanging on our walls, ringing through our stories.”
― Gregory Maguire, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

“Intellectual honesty means pursuing the truth regardless of whether or not it serves your interests or goals.”
― Milan Kordestani, I'm Just Saying: A Guide to Maintaining Civil Discourse in an Increasingly Divided World

“Being magnanimous in victory usually worked, but to keep abreast of the situation he had to 
pump the girl for all she knew. Was there a pang of remorse for his actions in his mind? 
Possibly, but what choice did he have? If he wanted to survive, he had no room for weakness.”
― Max Nowaz, The Arbitrator