Sigrid Shoults > Sigrid's Quotes

“There is a reason why it used to be that politics, religion, and sex were not topics for polite conversation. It is because our grandparents knew that while everyone is legally entitled to vote, pray, and fuck, the vast majority of people aren’t competent to do any one of the three properly.”
― J.K. Franko

“She gripped the wheel and squared her shoulders. She didn’t have to do any of this alone. All she had to do was notify the society and put out an All Points Bulletin on Adam and she’d know everything there was to know about the man within 24 hours.”
― Kirsten Fullmer

“Jerry Laws, former smokejumper and now high school district superintendent: “We’re making changes in this district. Teachers teaching, not proselytizing, preparing students for life. No social promotions. Good order in every classroom. They must earn what they seek.”
― John M. Vermillion, Pack's Posse

“Farmers in the South, West, and Midwest, however, were still building a major movement to escape from the control of banks and merchants lending them supplies at usurious rates; agricultural cooperatives—cooperative buying of supplies and machinery and marketing of produce—as well as cooperative stores, were the remedy to these conditions of virtual serfdom. While the movement was not dedicated to the formation of worker co-ops, in its own way it was at least as ambitious as the Knights of Labor had been. In the late 1880s and early 1890s it swept through southern and western states like a brushfire, even, in some places, bringing black and white farmers together in a unity of interest. Eventually this Farmers’ Alliance decided it had to enter politics in order to break the power of the banks; it formed a third party, the People’s Party, in 1892. The great depression of 1893 only spurred the movement on, and it won governorships in Kansas and Colorado. But in 1896 its leaders made a terrible strategic blunder in allying themselves with William Jennings Bryan of the Democratic party in his campaign for president. Bryan lost the election, and Populism lost its independent identity. The party fell apart; the Farmers’ Alliance collapsed; the movement died, and many of its cooperative associations disappeared. Thus, once again, the capitalists had managed to stomp out a threat to their rule.171 They were unable to get rid of all agricultural cooperatives, however, even with the help of the Sherman “Anti-Trust” Act of 1890.172 Nor, in fact, did big business desire to combat many of them, for instance the independent co-ops that coordinated buying and selling. Small farmers needed cooperatives in order to survive, whether their co-ops were independent or were affiliated with a movement like the Farmers’ Alliance or the Grange. The independent co-ops, moreover, were not necessarily opposed to the capitalist system, fitting into it quite well by cooperatively buying and selling, marketing, and reducing production costs. By 1921 there were 7374 agricultural co-ops, most of them in regional federations. According to the census of 1919, over 600,000 farmers were engaged in cooperative marketing or purchasing—and these figures did not include the many farmers who obtained insurance, irrigation, telephone, or other business services from cooperatives.173”
― Chris Wright, Worker Cooperatives and Revolution: History and Possibilities in the United States

“I slammed the door, floored the throttle, and reversed down the road as fast as the old car would go, which was not very. Then I spun the wheel and hit the brakes, backing off the road. I crunched the transfer lever into four-wheel drive and trundled off toward the water. Behind us, the pickup was backing and filling, trying to turn around on the narrow road.”
― Grahame Shannon, Tiger and the Robot

“She never spoke about Jewish people as white. She spoke about them as Jews, which made them somehow different.”
― James McBride, The Color of Water

“It’s so easy to be easy—if you let it.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

“We’re told that to be great is to be bold, to be happy is to be sociable.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“You have to choose your future regrets.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Most of us knew in our bones that things with the world weren’t right, long before it became a crisis.”
― Pernell Plath Meier, In Our Bones

“Turn your emotions into your ally, or they will get the better of you. Always remember that!” --Hunter’s Dad”
― Darin C. Brown, The Taste of Despair

“I look to my right and see a sign that reads, "THE MOST BEAUTIFUL HIGHWAY IN THE WORLD." The officer smiles with relief, as we leave the city limits. "David Pelzer," he says, "you're free.”
― Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It"

“I saw in details while she saw in scope. Not seeing the scope is why I am here and she is not. I took each element separately and never looked to see that they never did fit together properly”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“When a person can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.”
― Viktor E. Frankl

“Creative scientists and saints expect revelation and do not fear it. Neither do children. But as we grow up and we are hurt, we learned not to trust.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“She had a way of embroidering life with stars.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Chronicles of Avonlea

“Never be sorry for smiling!”
― M.L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

“Ah. So he's forgotten the most important rule of warfare.

Which is...

That nothing ever goes to plan.”
― Scott Westerfeld, Goliath

“Nearly seven years after Moore originally filed suit, the Supreme Court of California ruled against him in what became the definitive statement on this issue: When tissues are removed from your body, with or without your consent, any claim you might have had to owning them vanishes. When you leave tissues in a doctor’s office or a lab, you abandon them as waste, and anyone can take your garbage and sell it. Since Moore had abandoned his cells, they were no longer a product of his body, the ruling said. They had been “transformed” into an invention and were now the product of Golde’s “human ingenuity” and “inventive effort.”
― Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“I wish I knew how to quit you.”
― Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

“Whatever you worship will consume you, Dong-Sing wrote one week. Bob Wright worships money. Wyatt Earp worships justice. Eddie Foy worships applause. Doc worships home and family, as I do. How will this consume us?”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc

“Each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes. Fervently, for a year she had prayed. Although somewhat discouraged, she was not without hope. To have something as wonderful as that would take a long, long time.”
― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

“What's possible?' she asked.
'Anything,' he said absently. 'But that’s not what I was talking about. Oh, hello, Claire. You’re in good time. I need an extra pair of hands.'
'As long as I keep them attached,' she said, which earned her a startled stare.
The things you say to me, you’d think I was some sort of monster.”
― Rachel Caine, Bite Club

“The fire on the mountain.” That was Anna. “Alchemy,” she said. “I feel it singing in my bones.”
“Singing?” Mary would never understand Anna. The young woman turned away.
Wiseman’s reply was tinged with respect.
“That great pair of alchemists, Francis Ransome and Roberta Le More, believed the work they did affected the world’s spirit, the anima mundi. The Native Americans they met believed they too could and should interact with the Great Spirit. They lived with reverence for the land and all its peoples, the ancestors, the animals, the rocks, the trees, mountains.” 
Mary’s jaw dropped; Caroline glowed; Anna pretended not to listen. Wiseman nodded, then continued.
“You mean…?” began Mary.
“Yes, it could have been so different, a meeting of like-minded earth-based spiritualities. Just imagine, what could have been?”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“You can’t escape me, I’m coming for you soon,” shrieked his hellish voice. Whether the beast was a man in a mask or a demon of his imagination, made little difference to Adam, He was petrified.”
― Max Nowaz, The Three Witches and the Master

“He will tell you what's wrong in your society, who's to blame, and make you afraid of it, but he won't tell you how to fix it.”
― March Lions, The Last Sunset

“She was hot. You could take a poll, write a book, break down all the reasons, the intellectual and physical gifts that shaped her personality, and whatever that intangible part was. Write poems about it, document it all in photos and movies, try to stay woke, but the reality was, what it all came back to, she was hot.”
― William Kely McClung, LOOP

“We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We’ll leave much unfinished for the next generation.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone