Nick Patten

“He finds the lying comes easy enough, of course. Words are just noises in a certain order, and he can use them any way he wishes. Pigs grunt, ducks quack, and men tell lies: that is how it generally goes.”
― Ian McGuire, The North Water

“The rich are only defeated when running for their lives.”
― C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

“Men's memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“The Constitution was intended less to resolve arguments than to make argument itself the solution. For judicial devotees of "originalism" or "original intent," this should be a disarming insight, since it made the Constitution the foundation for an ever-shifting political dialogue that, like history itself, was an argument without end. Madison's "original intention" was to make all "original intentions" infinitely negotiable in the future.”
― Joseph J. Ellis