Peter Kazmaier > Peter's Quotes

“[Professor Kinnerton] Has the fact that we have about 97 percent of our DNA in common with chimpanzees escaped you? How can you still argue we are special and have a soul when we are so obviously animals? ... [Al Gleeson] With due respect sir, the 97 percent is precisely the problem. Are chimpanzees 97 percent of the way to splitting the atom? Are they 97 percent of the way to writing their first sonnet? Someone tittered at the back of the room. Are bonobos 97 percent of the way to putting the first bonobo on the moon? Is there an orangutan somewhere with a simian Mona Lisa 97 percent finished?”
― Peter Kazmaier, The Halcyon Dislocation

“Our early success, blessing that it was, made us complacent and we weren't sufficiently afraid of what came next. Sometimes having a little fear early saves one from experiencing a big fear later on. [Al Gleeson in THE HALCYON DISLOCATION]”
― Peter Kazmaier, The Halcyon Dislocation

“Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me. Amen!”
― Martin Luther, Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses

“Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“Ahhh, teaching literature. A noble calling! For we are all stories.”
― Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford

“What if everything operates by love?' I said to her, 'I mean, what if this God presence . . . is God moving through us and through everything we do? If so, why do we resist it? What if everything horrible that happens, from drive-by shootings to illness, is because we have broken this chain of love, and we don't know how to put everything right again?”
― Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford

“To that point I had not realized that in doing something I love, and at which at times I may even excel, I felt something I could only define as akin to an electric volt deep in my core. From where did this power come? Was it the presence--extension or workings or shadow--of something else in me? Or was it something else encouraging me to love through what I love?”
― Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford

“The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace–bottle after bottle of pure distilate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace

“Both Stoicism and Epicureanism—. the apathetic acceptance of defeat, and the effort to forget defeat in the arms of pleasure—were theories as to how one might yet be happy though subjugated or enslaved;”
― Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy

“There are those here who believe they are right simply because they oppose something that is evil.”
― Steven Galloway

“You can "listen to your heart" as long as you remember that it has an I.Q. of zero.”
― Ken Doggett

“The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.”
― Abigail Van Buren

“Many years ago a friend of mine, Kevin O'Niel made a very profound comment ...

The difference between the love of God and the love of man is that man loves people or things because they are precious: but God simply loves us - and by loving us makes us precious.”
― Kevin King, Transformed by Love: The Story of the Song of Solomon

“The most consequential act of state ownership in the twentieth-century western world was not the nationalization of airlines or the nationalization of railways or the nationalization of health care, but the nationalization of the family.”
― Mark Steyn, The Undocumented Mark Steyn: Don't Say You Weren't Warned

“the nationalization of the family proceeds apace, and America is as well advanced on that path as anywhere else. “The west has nationalized families over the last 60 years,” writes Vaidyanathan. “Old age, ill health, single motherhood—everything is the responsibility of the state.”
― Mark Steyn, The Undocumented Mark Steyn: Don't Say You Weren't Warned

“As with all stories, they must start somewhere; often beginning with a notable deed or achievement. With him, we will start with his first and best achievement:

He survived.”
― K. Caffee, Out of the Darkness

“Why tell me to be reasonable when you should be telling me to be courageous?" [Arlana to Dave in The Battle for Halcyon]”
― Peter Kazmaier, The Battle for Halcyon

“All human wisdom is contained in these two words - Wait and Hope”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Of course it's alright for librarians to smell of drink.”
― Barbara Pym, Less Than Angels

“When I was growing up I always wanted to be someone. Now I realize I should have been more specific.”
― Lily Tomlin

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech.”
― William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

“Duty is heavy as a mountain, death is light as a feather.”
― Robert Jordan

“I'm not a clever man, but I'm willing to listen to people who are, and I think you are. Just don't try poking me in the direction you want me to go. I don't like that Master Balwer.”
― Robert Jordan (Crossroads of Twilight, Wheel of Time #10)

“When you ask questions, Lini used to say, then you have to listen to the answers whether you want to or not.”
― Robert Jordan (Crossroads of Twilight, Wheel of Time #10)

“Larine had a bright future ahead of her, but she had to learn to obey the rules before she could begin learning which could be broken and when.”
― Robert Jordan (Crossroads of Twilight, Wheel of Time #10)

“There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.”
― Pierre Dos Utt, Tanstaafl: A Plan for a New Economic World Order

“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
― T.S. Eliot

“If you want to find out what a man is to the bottom, give him power. Any man can stand adversity — only a great man can stand prosperity. It is the glory of Abraham Lincoln that he never abused power only on the side of mercy”
― Robert Ingersoll

“All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate…I choose love.”
― Johnny Cash