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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 6ef33b4 | Then Lyndon Johnson came to Jim Rowe's office again, to plead with him, crying real tears as he sat doubled over, his face in his hands. "He wept. 'I'm going to die. You're an old friend. I thought you were my friend and you don't care that I'm going to die. It's just selfish of you, typically selfish.' " Finally Rowe said, " 'Oh, goddamn it, all right' "--and then "as soon as Lyndon got what he wanted," Rowe was forcibly reminded why he ha.. | Robert A. Caro | ||
| e54163d | I never conceived of my biographies as merely telling the lives of famous men but rather as a means of illuminating their times and the great forces that shaped their times--particularly political power, since in a democracy political power has so great a role in shaping the lives of the citizens of that democracy. | Robert A. Caro | ||
| b5e4900 | Luther King gave people "the feeling that they could be bigger and stronger and more courageous than they thought they could be," Bayard Rustin said--in part because of the powerful new weapon, non-violent resistance, that had been forged on the Montgomery battlefield." | Robert A. Caro | ||
| 015f321 | But when I began researching Robert Moses' expressway-building, and kept reading, in textbook after textbook, some version of the phrase "the human cost of highways" with never a detailed examination of what the "human cost" truly consisted of or of how it stacked up against the benefits of highways, I found myself simply unable to go forward to the next chapter. I felt I just had to try to show--to make readers not only see but understand .. | Robert A. Caro | ||
| 06f20cb | From the earliest beginnings of Lyndon Johnson's political life--from his days at college when he had captured control of campus politics--his tactics had consistently revealed a pragmatism and a cynicism that had no discernible limits. | Robert A. Caro | ||
| 2386546 | When you come into the presence of a leader of men, you know you have come into the presence of fire; that it is best not incautiously to touch that man; that there is something that makes it dangerous to cross him. --WOODROW WILSON | Robert A. Caro | ||
| eabbfdf | Elegy for Smoking" It's not the drug I miss but all those minutes we used to steal outside the library, under restaurant awnings, out on porches, by the quiet fields. And how kind it used to make us when we'd laugh and throw our heads back and watch the dragon's breath float from our mouths, all ravenous and doomed. Which is why I quit, of course, like almost everyone, and stay inside these days staring at my phone, chewing toothpicks a.. | Patrick Phillips | ||
| 856f6fe | Everyone looked better at a distance. Everyone sounded sweetest when you did not have to hear them talk too long. | Julia Phillips | ||
| f43784d | Such a sensitive dog. Or maybe he just needs to go outside for other reasons. | Sarah Mlynowski | ||
| b3d9d68 | Do not go to that place of horror with elevated spirits, and gay hearts, for death is there! Justice and judgment are there! The power of government, displayed in its most awful form, is there . . . The person who can go and look on death merely to gratify an idle humor is destitute both of humanity and piety. | Jon Ronson | ||
| 32dc453 | I thought you said you were okay with turning forty. | Michael Thomas Ford | ||
| cad9cb3 | I think I'm in love," he said after swallowing. "I could marry that pie." "According to the anti-gay crowd, that'll be next," said Nan. "Pies and sheep." | Michael Thomas Ford | ||
| f81f734 | Astronotlarin uzayda salinip yeryuzune dondukten sonra, burasi onlara curuyen bir et gibi koktugu icin midelerinin kotu oldugunu okumustum bir yerlerde. Biz diger insanlar, her gun soludugumuz icin bu igrenc kokuyu fark etmiyoruz; hava bize normal geliyor, ama aslinda icine saldigimiz bir suru cop, kimyasal ve kirletici maddeyle dolu. Sonra, dunya birinin eski arabasiymis da, dikiz aynasina buyuk boy bir cam kokusu asiyormusuz gibi etrafa b.. | Michael Thomas Ford | ||
| e6ea08a | I've heard it argued that men aren't physically wired to be with only one person. We have a built-in biological need to scatter our seed as far and as wide as possible. Something about survival of our gene strain. It doesn't matter if you're gay or straight, they say, you just can't help yourself. Perhaps not. If left to my own devices, though, I'd also eat Ben & Jerry's brownie batter ice cream until I weighed six hundred pounds, but someh.. | Michael Thomas Ford | ||
| 2b41dfd | That's why teenage dating is so dumb, because it's doomed to fail. You'd think people would have learned that by now, but I guess they haven't. They go right on falling in love and thinking it's going to survive high school. | Michael Thomas Ford | ||
| 962667e | Byron clapped Walter on the back. 'Good work,' he said. Walter shook his head. 'You're the one who clocked her with the Stephen King hardcover. That took some of the wind out of her.' 'Thank heavens he's a wordy man,' said Byron. | funny humor | Michael Thomas Ford | |
| 0b169c7 | I didn't ask to be saved | suicide | Michael Thomas Ford | |
| 423368d | Why is it that you have to warn people about who you are? Why can't it just be something that happens? | Michael Thomas Ford | ||
| 7954f65 | In my opinion any activity during which you can enjoy a beverage is not a sport. It is a party. | Michael Thomas Ford | ||
| 6c087be | Then he asked me which one I thought was most likely to happen. I wish I knew. I really do. But I don't. You'd think that after living with these people for fifteen years I'd know a little something about them. But right now I feel like I don't know my parents at all. I guess when you get down to it, I've never really thought about them as people. They've always been my parents. Now I have to think about them as people with feelings. What a.. | life-and-death life-quotes suicide-notes understanding-oneself-and-others | Michael Thomas Ford | |
| 2fb519e | If your mother likes your drawing of a duck and hangs it on the refrigerator, that doesn't mean it's good." "Snob," Sam said." | Michael Thomas Ford | ||
| 6022e63 | I love that word. Gaydar. So clever." "I'm afraid mine is broken," Burke said. "It never occurred to me that you were gay." "It's because I'm teeming with masculinity," Gaither joked." | Michael Thomas Ford | ||
| 99b33fb | If they had a pill that would fix every dysfunctional family in the world, don't you think they'd be selling it?" "I don't think the world is ready for that kind of happiness." | Michael Thomas Ford | ||
| c8113e4 | how much do you have to hate yourself to want to just wipe yourself out? | Michael Thomas Ford | ||
| 1e121cc | Who uses crunchy peanut butter?" he asked the room. "You might as well eat squirrel shit." | Michael Thomas Ford | ||
| 3bf5331 | Asi pues, tanto las sociedades como los grupos humanos mas pequenos pueden tomar decisiones catastroficas por toda una serie secuenciada de razones: la imposibilidad de prever un problema, la imposibilidad de percibirlo una vez que se ha producido, la incapacidad para disponerse a resolverlo una vez que se ha percibido y el fracaso en las tentativas de resolverlos | Jared Diamond | ||
| 8a90851 | Thus, Norse society's structure created a conflict between the short-term interests of those in power, and the long-term interests of the society as a whole. | Jared Diamond | ||
| 49a015e | Naturally, what makes patriotic and religious fanatics such dangerous opponents is not the deaths of the fanatics themselves, but their willingness to accept the deaths of a fraction of their number in order to annihilate or crush their infidel enemy. | Jared Diamond | ||
| d7a6276 | invokes the supposed stimulatory effects of their homeland's cold climate and the inhibitory effects of hot, humid, tropical climates on human creativity and energy. Perhaps the seasonally variable climate at hight latitudes poses more diverses challenges that does a seasonally constant tropical climate | Jared Diamond | ||
| 6f89da0 | four suggested explanations are ideological, rather than economic or organizational: (1) Risk-taking behavior, essential for efforts at innovation, is more widespread in some societies than in others. (2) The scientific outlook is a unique feature of post-Renaissance European society that has contributed heavily to its modern technological preeminence. (3) Tolerance of diverse views and of heretics fosters innovation, whereas a strongly tra.. | Jared Diamond | ||
| e46aa0a | African and European skulls of half a million years ago were sufficiently similar to skulls of us moderns that they are classified in our species, Homo sapiens, instead | Jared Diamond | ||
| 1358e2c | Britain never regained its naval and economic dominance over the world, and it remains notoriously conflicted ("Brexit") about its role in Europe. But Britain is still among the world's six richest nations, is still a parliamentary democracy under a figurehead monarch, is still a world leader in science and technology, and still maintains as its currency the pound sterling rather than the euro" | identity | Jared Diamond | |
| 57495ef | Pizarro captured Atahuallpa within a few minutes after the two leaders first set eyes on each other. Pizarro proceeded to hold his prisoner for eight months, while extracting history's largest ransom in return for a promise to free him. After the ransom--enough gold to fill a room 22 feet long by 17 feet wide to a height of over 8 feet--was delivered, Pizarro reneged on his promise and executed Atahuallpa. | Jared Diamond | ||
| e9acbdf | half of its carbon 14 content decays into nitrogen 14 every 5,700 years, until | Jared Diamond | ||
| 7e8b88e | Still another factor is compatibility with vested interests. This book, like probably every other typed document you have ever read, was typed with a QWERTY keyboard, named for the left-most six letters in its upper row. Unbelievable as it may now sound, that keyboard layout was designed in 1873 as a feat of anti-engineering. It employs a whole series of perverse tricks designed to force typists to type as slowly as possible, such as scatte.. | Jared Diamond | ||
| a038c5a | literary studies share with Moravec a major blind spot when it comes to the significance of embodiment.3 This blind spot is most evident, perhaps, when literary and cultural critics confront the fields of evolutionary biology. From an evolutionary biologist's point of view, modern humans, for all their technological prowess, represent an eye blink in the history of life, a species far too recent to have significant evolutionary impact on hu.. | N. Katherine Hayles | ||
| 07645ef | tests of cognitive ability (like IQ tests) tend to measure cultural learning and not pure innate intelligence, whatever that is. | Jared Diamond | ||
| 8bca40e | Rigidity or inflexibility can be the result of a previous history of abuse or trauma, or of an upbringing that offered a child no permission to experiment or to deviate from the family norms. Flexibility can come from the freedom of having been allowed to make one's own choices as one was growing up. | flexibility | Jared Diamond | |
| a39a349 | Nations and individuals accept national and individual responsibility to take action to solve the problem, or else deny responsibility by self-pity, blaming others, and assuming the role of victim. | self-pity | Jared Diamond | |
| ea6a1a4 | Almost all studies of child development emphasize the role of childhood stimulation and activity in promoting mental development, and stress the irreversible mental stunting associated with reduced childhood stimulation. | Jared Diamond | ||
| bf4643d | Montana would have been better off in the long run if it had never mined copper at all but had just imported it from Chile, leaving the resulting problems to the Chileans! It | Jared Diamond | ||
| f61a65f | Recent discoveries about apes suggest, however, that a gorilla or common chimp stands at least as good a chance of being murdered as the average human. | Jared Diamond | ||
| 818de30 | The sad thing was that Lindsey had incurred the Internet's wrath because she was impudent and playful and foolhardy and outspoken. And now here she was, working with Farukh to reduce herself to safe banalities - to cats and ice cream and Top 40 chart music. We were creating a world where the smartest way to survive is to be bland. * | Jon Ronson | ||
| 2402969 | The idea of Donald Trump and Alex Jones and Roger Stone and Stephen Bannon having power over us -- that is terrifying. | Jon Ronson |