Benton Kyseth > Benton's Quotes

“An algorithm that expedites care to a stroke patient in a chaotic emergency room (ER) has a good chance of adoption. An algorithm that reads a routine scan and provides some quantification of what the physicians can already estimate won’t be in as much demand. There are good reasons for algorithms to parse patient records to look for signs of rare diseases, but there are fewer good reasons for using them to evaluate clinical symptoms. It’s cool that AI tools can make diagnoses from scratch, but for most clinical encounters doctors are already pretty good at it.”
― Ronald M. Razmi, AI Doctor: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare - A Guide for Users, Buyers, Builders, and Investors

“The summer sun bowing out threw slashes of colour between the buildings. London looked big, empty, and lonely. She stood in the doorway, like a cat trying to make up its mind.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“My Aspasia. With her, he’d discovered the sweetness in life . . . and she might like to know that. He’d tell her sometime. But he knew he’d given this lovely woman what she’d wanted most, their son’s name. He leaned over to the child. “So, you’re Little Pericles.”
― Yvonne Korshak, Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece

“Josh tasted the decaying leaves of autumn in the cold mountain air.”
― Lisa Kaniut Cobb, Down in the Valley

“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

“Choose your partners wisely. Always use protection, and always protect your heart.”
― Patricia D'Arcy Laughlin, Sacrifices Beyond Kingdoms: A Provocative Romance Torn Between Continents and Cultures

“The wish of death had been palpably hanging over this otherwise idyllic paradise for a good many years.

All business and politics is personal in the Philippines.

If it wasn't for the cheap beer and lovely girls one of us would spend an hour in this dump.

They [Jehovah's Witnesses] get some kind of frequent flyer points for each person who signs on.

I'm not lazy. I'm just motivationally challenged.

I'm not fat. I just have lots of stored energy.

You don't get it do you? What people think of you matters more than the reality. Marilyn.

Despite standing firm at the final hurdle Marilyn was always ready to run the race.

After answering the question the woman bent down behind the stand out of sight of all, and crossed herself.

It is amazing what you can learn in prison. Merely through casual conversation Rick had acquired the fundamentals of embezzlement, fraud and armed hold up.

He wondered at the price of honesty in a grey world whose half tones changed faster than the weather.

The banality of truth somehow always surprises the news media before they tart it up.

You've ridden jeepneys in peak hour. Where else can you feel up a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl without even trying? [Ralph Winton on the Philippines finer points]

Life has no bottom. No matter how bad things are or how far one has sunk things can always get worse.

You could call the Oval Office an information rain shadow.

In the Philippines, a whole layer of criminals exists who consider that it is their right to rob you unhindered. If you thwart their wicked desires, to their way of thinking you have stolen from them and are evil.

There's honest and dishonest corruption in this country.

Don't enjoy it too much for it's what we love that usually kills us.

The good guys don't always win wars but the winners always make sure that they go down in history as the good guys.

The Philippines is like a woman. You love her and hate her at the same time.

I never believed in all my born days that ideas of truth and justice were only pretty words to brighten a much darker and more ubiquitous reality.
The girl was experiencing the first flushes of love while Rick was at least feeling the methadone equivalent.

Although selfishness and greed are more ephemeral than the real values of life their effects on the world often outlive their origins.

Miriam's a meteor job. Somewhere out there in space there must be a meteor with her name on it.

Tsismis or rumours grow in this land like tropical weeds.

Surprises are so common here that nothing is surprising.

A crooked leader who can lead is better than a crooked one who can't.

Although I always followed the politics of Hitler I emulate the drinking habits of Churchill.

It [Australia] is the country that does the least with the most.

Rereading the brief lines that told the story in the manner of Fox News reporting the death of a leftist Rick's dark imagination took hold.

Didn't your mother ever tell you never to trust a man who doesn't drink?

She must have been around twenty years old, was tall for a Filipina and possessed long black hair framing her smooth olive face. This specter of loveliness walked with the assurance of the knowingly beautiful. Her crisp and starched white uniform dazzled in the late-afternoon light and highlighted the natural tan of her skin. Everything about her was in perfect order. In short, she was dressed up like a pox doctor’s clerk. Suddenly, she stopped, turned her head to one side and spat comprehensively into the street. The tiny putrescent puddle contrasted strongly with the studied aplomb of its all-too-recent owner, suggesting all manner of disease and decay.”
― John Richard Spencer

“My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

“There's no one thing that's true. It's all true.”
― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

“I am glad I will not be young in a future without wilderness.”
― Aldo Leopold

“Be thankful for these walls.”
― James Dashner, The Maze Runner

“At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“We had old architects and were working with what we had on hand. You’ve hired this new, young architect now, and, Pericles, I’m going to build you a statue of Athena—all gold and ivory, think of that, Pericles—and taller than our city walls.” Pericles raised his eyes toward the birds.”
― Yvonne Korshak, Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece

“Killing War

I had no desire to alter the viable occupations of humanity, but I was determined to do something about the level of regional bloodshed.
Education was my weapon of choice, based on a simple hypothesis: that the advance troops of physical carnage are the propaganda and lies that justify murder, making the real battleground that of ideas.
I was determined to address a situation where so many people were ready to kill, driven by the conviction that others are either evil incarnate or will murder them first if they don’t kill them first if they don’t …
Entire nations were buried in twisted truths submerged by hate, covered with vengeance. Voices of remorse, forgiveness, justice and reconciliation were drowned out by the din of screams for death or revenge.
The best defense system against the cycle of violence was something that is impervious to any tool of destruction ever spawned. That something is knowledge.”
― Nancy Omeara, The Most Popular President Who Ever Lived [So Far]

“But this Scroll too has magical properties. From the moment I first saw it, the paper warmed to my touch. I know it came alive as I held it. Did you know there’s a serpent on the back? Some say it’s a dragon. It winked at me. Its lashes are gold.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“I don't want to be caught with my pants down.”
― March Lions, The Last Sunset

“Dancer and Waif sprinted toward the edge. Picking up speed. Bad Ass on his one real leg doing a great job of keeping up. Kind of.”
― William Kely McClung, LOOP

“We Are brothers, tied by blood, in our veins, what we spill. But it is a deadly secret that will forever bind us.”
― Tina Traverse, Destiny of the Vampire

“I’m thankful that everything sweet is sweet because it is finite.”
― Anthony Doerr, Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World

“All the way up the river she's been holding back somehow, waiting. Now you'll both have to wait. I'm not going to disappoint her, Kit. When I take you on board the Witch, it's going to be for keeps.”
― Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond

“When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“The More Important Your Cheese Is To You The More You Want To Hold On To It.”
― Spencer Johnson, Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life...

“It'll be all right." Julia's gentleness makes it worse. "In the end, Jace."
"It doesn't feel very all right."
"That's because it's not the end.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green