Jeff Lee

“I have voted in the past. My first vote as a young man was for Jimmy Carter. In time, I came to see that vote as further evidence that the thing I call my common sense is an illusion. (Carter was a good role model but not one of our most effective presidents. He served one term.) As I got older, and more aware of my mental limitations, I came to understand that my vote adds nothing to the quality of the outcome. As far as I can tell, no one else adds intelligence to the election outcome either, but most voters think they do. And that illusion is necessary to support the government. It gives the voters a sense of empowerment and buy-in. That creates national stability. The democracy illusion is probably one of the most beneficial hallucinations humankind has ever concocted. If you think democracy works, and you act as if it works, it does work.”
― Scott Adams, Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter

“妳知道嗎？滑雪的跳躍，看起來像是跳得很高，其實是往下跳喔，因為起跳點的角度是負的⋯⋯ 我認為，跳躍不只是在追求高度。”
― 東野圭吾, Khách sạn mặt nạ: Đêm trước lễ hội hóa trang

“I laid out the charges against him of subversion, conspiracy, and murder, but emphasized that he was innocent until proven guilty, which made him laugh. Your American puppet masters like to say that, but it’s stupid, he said. History, humanity, religion, this war tells us exactly the reverse. We are all guilty until proven innocent, as even the Americans have shown. Why else do they believe everyone is really Viet Cong? Why else do they shoot first and ask questions later? Because to them all yellow people are guilty until proven innocent. Americans are a confused people because they can’t admit this contradiction. They believe in a universe of divine justice where the human race is guilty of sin, but they also believe in a secular justice where human beings are presumed innocent. You can’t have both. You know how Americans deal with it? They pretend they are eternally innocent no matter how many times they lose their innocence. The problem is that those who insist on their innocence believe anything they do is just. At least we who believe in our own guilt know what dark things we can do.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen

“「革命」一詞，在中國官員嘴裏，從來缺乏嚴謹的定義，幾乎任何事都可套上一頂革命的桂冠。加以演繹，革命即是追隨領袖的同義字。”
― 江南(劉宜良), 蔣經國傳