Angele Whicker

“Jefferson needs something in that cell,” I said.
“Yes, he do,” the minister said. “You hit the nail on the head, mister. Yes, he do. But not that box.”
“And what do you suggest, Reverend Ambrose?” I asked.
“God,” the minister said. “He ain’t got but five more Fridays and a half. He needs God in that cell, and not that sin box.”
“What sin box?” I said.
“What you call that kind of music he listen to?” the minister asked. “Us standing in there trying to talk to him, and him listening to that thing till she got to reach over and turn it off—what you call it?”
“I call it company, Reverend Ambrose,” I said.
“And I call it sin company,” he said.
“And I don’t care what you call it!” I said to him.”
― Ernest J. Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying

“… the primitive comprehension that the state property represents a social one, their identification, and their equalization  could not resist the criticism of the time. The state property is not socialism. The state-monopoly property, as it was on the both sides of the Berlin Wall and which continues to be such one even after it dropped down, is not social property. There was never and nowhere any socialism! In the twentieth century, we passed through a system of utopian socialism as proof that this was not socialism that was not possible, but the utopia of the writers before Marx and after Marx. We were visited by a utopian socialism, which at the contemporary stage is simply capitalism—state, monopolistic.”
― Todor Bombov, Socialism Is Dead! Long Live Socialism!: The Marx Code-Socialism with a Human Face

“He was the worst kind of Christian, Philip realized: he embraced all of the negatives, enforced every proscription, insisted on all forms of denial, and demanded strict punishment for every offense; yet he ignored all the compassion of Christianity, denied its mercy, flagrantly disobeyed its ethic of love, and openly flouted the gentle laws of Jesus. That’s what the Pharisees were like, Philip thought; no wonder the Lord preferred to eat with publicans and sinners.”
― Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth

“I’m fucking asking you!” The man stood his ground.
From the corner of his eye Adam could see the other man getting up from his chair. It was time to go. Adam head-butted the first man who was blocking his way, and then kneed him in the groin for good measure. As the man doubled up, Adam pushed past him.”
― Max Nowaz, Get Rich or Get Lucky