Taters > Taters's Quotes

“My name's Jean Tannen, and I'm the ambush.”
― Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora

“The kingdom of God is for the broken hearted”
― Fred Rogers

“It’s not a question of whether you will hurt, or of how much you will hurt; it’s a question of what you will do, and how well you will do it, while pain has her wanton way with you.”
― Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

“There are no words for so much loss, not right after it happens.”
― Brian Francis Slattery, Lost Everything

“There must be something better than this world, and the world must be better than this.”
― Brian Francis Slattery, Lost Everything

“They could read it on each other, their faces wrinkled pages. Words hiding in the folds of their clothes. She was made of letters then, as all of us are now.”
― Brian Francis Slattery, Lost Everything

“They always wanted to hang out with me because I had grass: when you’re a teenager, drugs can be an important bonding tool.”
― Cherie Currie, Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway

“Nothing of it spoken between them. They could read it on each other, their faces wrinkled pages. Words hiding in the folds of their clothes. She was made of letters then, as all of us are now. Here, in these words. Us and the city and the towns and river, and everything else, too. All that we know, and everything—everyone—we wish we knew.”
― Brian Francis Slattery, Lost Everything

“I have been to so many funerals now. We bury them in the gray soil, stand over the mounds, lean on our shovels. Say the same words again and again. But there are pregnancies too, children coming. A woman like a great egg. Another just conceived. They help us dig, then turn and spit into the earth. They will not say it, but they cannot keep it all in either. For their coming children are their hopes embodied, their faith made flesh, that all that is ending is beginning again. For the world will not be fallen to their children. It will only be the world, new as they are. And perhaps if we tell them enough, if we say the right thing, they will see a way out, and know what to do.”
― Brian Francis Slattery, Lost Everything

“She imagined sometimes that kindness would come as an annihilating flood. Drown the war and us with it, recede just when we were on the edge of death. Leave us lying faceup on the ground, staring into the brilliant sky. Thankful for every breath.”
― Brian Francis Slattery, Lost Everything

“Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshiped.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

“He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?” He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.”

LOG ENTRY: SOL 61 How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

“He wanted to love himself and his machine and the job and his weapons.”
― Jason Sheehan, A Private Little War

“Sometimes we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.”
― John le Carré, A Perfect Spy

“Hell is the absence of the people you long for.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

“This is my soul and the world unwinding, this is my heart in the still winter air. Finally whispering the same two words over and over: “Keep walking. Keep walking. Keep walking.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

“I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life. Everybody'd think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone . . . I'd cook all my own food, and later on, if I wanted to get married or something, I'd meet this beautiful girl that was also a deaf-mute and we'd get married. She'd come and live in my cabin with me, and if she wanted to say anything to me, she'd have to write it on a piece of paper, like everybody else”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“The explosive development of technology was analogous to the growth of cancer cells, and the results would be identical:”
― Liu Cixin, The Three-Body Problem

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

[Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]”
― John Rogers

“I was young, and, despite dread, full of animal spirits; it was impossible for me to take a dark view too long.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“It’s the same with people who say, ‘Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ Even people who say this must realize that the exact opposite is true. What doesn’t kill you maims you, cripples you, leaves you weak, makes you whiny and full of yourself at the same time. The more pain, the more pompous you get. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you incredibly annoying.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“After months of incubation in their thousand petri dishes, the songs that would comprise Paul’s Boutique reached maturity in surprisingly short order.”
― Dan LeRoy, The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique

“Nostalgia is a longing for home,” Svedana Boym writes, “that no longer exists or has never existed.” In the 20th century, that longing, she adds, quoting historians Jean Starobinski and Michael Roth, had “shrunk to the longing for one’s childhood.”
― Dan LeRoy, The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique

“According to Russell Simmons, producer Eric B once claimed he could have created fifteen albums with the ideas from Paul’s Boutique. Even the late Miles Davis reportedly once said he never tired of the record.”
― Dan LeRoy, The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique

“Hydromedusa tectifera are, like post-war Nazis, native to Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil.”
― Mary Roach, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

“Medical journals from 1905 to 1915 are rife with articles on “vibratory massage” and the many things it cures. Weakened hearts and floating kidneys. Hysterical cramp of the esophagus and catarrh of the inner ear. Deafness, cancer, bad eyesight. And lots and lots of prostate problems. A Dr. Courtney W. Shropshire, writing in 1912, was impressed to note that by means of “a special prostatic applicator, well lubricated, attached to the vibrator, introduced to the rectum” he was “able to empty the seminal vesicles of their secretions.” Indeedy. Shropshire’s patients returned every other day for treatment, no doubt also developing a relationship with the vibration machine.”
― Mary Roach, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

“our life is the instrument we use to experiment with the truth.”
― Eliot Pattison, The Skull Mantra

“Curiously, for instance, the drop in violent crime is most pronounced in cities with high immigrant populations.”
― Matt Taibbi, The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap

“Wall Street crime, in part, is a confidence game in which the criminal justice system itself is the mark.”
― Matt Taibbi, The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap