Charles > Charles's Quotes

“Nagumo was suddenly on his own. At this crucial time, the cost of his failure to learn the complicated factors that played into carrier operations suddenly exploded. Now, when every minute counted, it was too late to learn the complexities involved in loading different munitions on different types of planes on the hangar deck, too late to learn how the planes were organized and spotted on the flight decks, too late to learn the flight capabilities of his different types of planes, and far too late to know how to integrate all those factors into a fast-moving and efficient operation with the planes and ordnance available at that moment. Commander Genda, his brilliant operations officer, couldn’t make the decisions for him now. It was all up to Nagumo. At 0730 on June 4, 1942, years of shipbuilding, training, and strategic planning had all come to this moment. Teams of highly trained pilots, flight deck personnel, mechanics, and hundreds of other sailors were ready and awaiting his command. The entire course of the battle, of the Combined Fleet, and even perhaps of Japan were going to bear the results of his decisions, then and there.”
― Dale A. Jenkins, Diplomats & Admirals: From Failed Negotiations and Tragic Misjudgments to Powerful Leaders and Heroic Deeds, the Untold Story of the Pacific War from Pearl Harbor to Midway

“Nothing remains.  The destruction is complete: love, lives, families, friends, cities, homes – all gone now.  All our efforts to be good, to do the right thing, to act well, to be just and generous are now for naught.  Because juxtaposed against any hope for fairness is wickedness, pure and simple.  In some abstract formulation these things may exist in equal measure, which is to say that the scales balance when taking all things into consideration. But that is fantasy, the stuff of religion, hope beyond all reason. Because for those caught in the whirlwind, in the chaos of manifest evil, despair is all there is. Civilization falls away: everything is pointless now.  Survival requires reciprocity. What then if there is none?”
― John Payton Foden, Magenta

“The world was becoming a very puzzling place for me. I didn’t understand why bad people were allowed to tell good people what to do. What kind of world would allow that to happen?  ”
― Steven Decker, Child of Another Kind

“He’d seen combat and had been through two divorces, hadn’t thought of himself as a fearful man. But that was ten minutes ago.”
― William Kely McClung, LOOP

“Öyle insanlar tanıyorum ki,içlerinde büyük bir evren gizlidir,ölçülemez boyutlarda bir şey. Ama ortaya çıkarmak olası değil. Kesinlikle değil.”
― Patrick Süskind, El contrabajo

“Grandma traded at Connie’s because she had never learned to drive a car, but she held a grudge against Big Boy, who had said to her one day in front of a whole storeful of customers, “What’ll it be, tootsie?” When I moved in, she was only too happy to make me her errand girl. Daily, she folded money into my palm and sent me down the street for Tums or cornstarch or prune juice. As I headed out the door, she never failed to remind me to steer clear of both Big Boy and the dirty-magazine aisle.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“Nobody but the dead know whether all these things people talk about are worth dying for or not. And the dead can’t talk. So the words about noble deaths and sacred blood and honor and such are all put into dead lips by grave robbers and fakes who have no right to speak for the dead.”
― Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun

“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“Everyone to whom she drew close left her. Sooner or later they walked away.”
― Francine Rivers, Redeeming Love

“Llevamos nuestras vidas como el agua que corre colina abajo, más o menos en una dirección, hasta que damos con algo que nos obliga a encontrar un nuevo curso.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“Jesus’ ministry lasted 1,350 days, spanning five calendar years (AD 29–33), fifty calendar months, and 44.36 months (calculated as being of 30.5 days’ average duration). The gospels have gaps in their narratives in which Jesus disappears from the pages of history. The gaps total 770 days, which is about two years, representing fifty-seven percent of Jesus’ total ministry time. No wonder John wrote “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book” (John 20:30) and “There are many more things that Jesus did. If all of them were written down, I suppose that not even the world itself would have space for the books that would be written” (John 21:25).”
― James Allen Moseley

“Maybe she decided to hitchhike, which sounds a bit weird these days, but in those days we used to hitchhike quite a lot. I wasn’t really concerned about her; you hadn’t yet had your Ivan Milats and the sort of people who mean a hell of a lot less people hitchhike these days.”
― Nicole Morris, Vanished: True Stories from Families of Australian Missing Persons

“He’d heard of men like that in the service. Never actually met one—one of the alpha dogs let off the leash to lead the pack—but suspected he had now.”
― William Kely McClung, Black Fire

“Emily kept telling herself this was inevitable, that it was why she’d come to Ireland: to see what her dreams led to. But seeing the man caused goosebumps to rise up on her skin, as if she were seeing a ghost. Her extremities began to tingle, and she felt the blood draining from her face.”
― Steven Decker, Projector for Sale

“One thing I have learnt is that you may do a lot of evil things, but if you are ever afforded a chance to be good, then you should take it. You will feel better about yourself.”
― Max Nowaz, The Polymorph

“What's to be believed? Or does it matter at all? When mass murder's been answered with mass murder, rape with rape, hate with hate, there's no longer much meaning in asking whose ax is the bloodier. Evil, on evil, piled on evil.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“Ole Golly: The time has come, the walrus said...
Harriet M. Welsch: To talk of many things...
Ole Golly: Of shoes and ships and ceiling wax...
Harriet M. Welsch: Of cabbages and kings...
Ole Golly: And why the sea is boiling hot...
Harriet M. Welsch: And whether pigs have wings!”
― Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy

“I;m not going to compete with you. I'm better than you are at what I do. And you're better than I am at what you do.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

“I'm Losing Faith in My Favorite Country

Throughout my life, the United States has been my favorite country, save and except for Canada, where I was born, raised, educated, and still live for six months each year. As a child growing up in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, I aggressively bought and saved baseball cards of American and National League players, spent hours watching snowy images of American baseball and football games on black and white television and longed for the day when I could travel to that great country. Every Saturday afternoon, me and the boys would pay twelve cents to go the show and watch U.S. made movies, and particularly, the Superman serial. Then I got my chance. My father, who worked for B.F. Goodrich, took my brother and me to watch the Cleveland Indians play baseball in the Mistake on the Lake in Cleveland. At last I had made it to the big time. I thought it was an amazing stadium and it was certainly not a mistake. Amazingly, the Americans thought we were Americans.

I loved the United States, and everything about the country: its people, its movies, its comic books, its sports, and a great deal more. The country was alive and growing. No, exploding. It was the golden age of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The American dream was alive and well, but demanded hard work, honesty, and frugality. Everyone understood that. Even the politicians.

Then everything changed.”
― Stephen Douglass

“Yes, death. Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of death's house, for love is always with you, and love is stronger than death is.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost

“Truthfully, Professor Hawking? Why would we allow tourists from the future muck up the past when your contemporaries had the task well in Hand?"
Brigadier General Patrick E Buckwalder 2241C.E.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Paradox Effect: Time Travel and Purified DNA Merge to Halt the Collapse of Human Existence

“I walked past Malison, up Lower Main to Main and across the road. I didn’t need to look to know he was behind me. I entered Royal Wood, went a short way along a path and waited. It was cool and dim beneath the trees. When Malison entered the Wood, I continued eastward. 
I wanted to place his body in hallowed ground. He was born a Mearan. The least I could do was send him to Loric. The distance between us closed until he was on my heels. He chose to come, I told myself, as if that lessened the crime I planned. He chose what I have to offer.
We were almost to the cemetery before he asked where we were going. I answered with another question. “Do you like living in the High Lord’s kitchens?”
He, of course, replied, “No.”
“Well, we’re going to a better place.”
When we reached the edge of the Wood, I pushed aside a branch to see the Temple of Loric and Calec’s cottage. No smoke was coming from the chimney, and I assumed the old man was yet abed. His pony was grazing in the field of graves. The sun hid behind a bank of clouds.
Malison moved beside me. “It’s a graveyard.”
“Are you afraid of ghosts?” I asked.
“My father’s a ghost,” he whispered.
I asked if he wanted to learn how to throw a knife. He said, “Yes,” as I knew he would.  He untucked his shirt, withdrew the knife he had stolen and gave it to me. It was a thick-bladed, single-edged knife, better suited for dicing celery than slitting a young throat. But it would serve my purpose. That I also knew. I’d spent all night projecting how the morning would unfold and, except for indulging in the tea, it had happened as I had imagined. 
Damut kissed her son farewell. Malison followed me of his own free will. Without fear, he placed the instrument of his death into my hand. We were at the appointed place, at the appointed time. The stolen knife was warm from the heat of his body. I had only to use it. Yet I hesitated, and again prayed for Sythene to show me a different path.
“Aren’t you going to show me?” Malison prompted, as if to echo my prayer.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“A shaft of moonlight illuminated a row of sentinel silver birch in a phosphorescent glow, appearing almost ethereal in the relative surrounding gloom. Boris had stopped again, his silhouette a stark black juxtaposition against the background of illuminated branches.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“Maybe it won’t come as too much of a surprise that a certain amount
of alcohol was involved with this Darwin Award candidate of an idea,
and though someone must have considered it ahead of time or the parachute
and camera wouldn’t be there, it’s still pretty certain that the onset
of this little adventure was preceded by something similar to the above
mentioned collegiate death sentence:
“Hey man, watch this!”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“But when his accusers rose to speak they brought none of the charges I was expecting; they merely had several points of disagreement with him about their peculiar religion and about someone called Jesus, a dead man whom Paul alleged to be alive … Jonathan read on, fascinated by the story, there were so many interesting details. But then he paused – was it the true story it said it was?”
― Elizabeth Tebby Germaine, A MAN WHO SEEMED REAL: A story of love, lies, fear and kindness

“GLOBAL TEMPERATURES HAVE LOWERED BY ONE DEGREE. GLOBEWIDE NATURAL INGREDIENT SHORTAGE IN EFFECT AS OF THIS MESSAGE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE ”
― Adam Scott Huerta, Motive Black

“Things are sometimes faded but they will always become clear, where there seems nothing but bad look closer, you’re sure to find good.”
― Sherman Kennon, Whisk Of Dust: Too Unseen Distance

“Captain Scultetus said, “Sir, I am the commander of the Swakopmund Coast Guard. My name and rank  are Captain Oskar Scultetus! I respectfully beg you not to open fire upon my city!”
― Michael G. Kramer, His Forefathers and Mick

“Enlightenment never ends; it continues from the birth of existence until its end, touching every aspect of reality.”
― Raz Mihal, Just Love Her

“It wasn't the same. I'm pretty good at making the best of things, but it wasn't the same.”
― Lois Lowry, A Summer to Die