Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by BenG

The bailout of the 2008 crash, which served as the model for the two that followed it, was calculated by historians at somewhere between 5 and 15 trillion dollars. One careful guess said it was 7.7 trillion dollars, another 13 trillion; both added that this was more than the cost (adjusted for inflation) of the Louisiana Purchase, the New Deal, the Marshall Plan, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the 1980s savings and loan bailout, the Iraq wars, and the entire NASA space program, combined. Conclusion: wars and land and social programs must not be very expensive. And compared to rescuing finance from itself, they’re not.
― Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by BenG

The bailout of the 2008 crash, which served as the model for the two that followed it, was calculated by historians at somewhere between 5 and 15 trillion dollars. One careful guess said it was 7.7 trillion dollars, another 13 trillion; both added that this was more than the cost (adjusted for inflation) of the Louisiana Purchase, the New Deal, the Marshall Plan, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the 1980s savings and loan bailout, the Iraq wars, and the entire NASA space program, combined. Conclusion: wars and land and social programs must not be very expensive. And compared to rescuing finance from itself, they’re not.
― Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140

[kennyc]

"One day I was counting the cats and I absent-mindedly counted myself."
- Bobbie Ann Mason

Happy Birthday Today!

[covingtoncat73]

From "American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition: A Novel" by Neil Gaiman -

"'If you are to survive, you must believe.'

'Believe what?' asked Shadow. 'What should I believe?'

He stared at Shadow, the buffalo man, and he drew himself up huge, and his eyes filled with fire. He opened his spit-flecked buffalo mouth and it was red inside with the flames that burned inside him, under the earth. 'Everything,' roared the buffalo man."

[covingtoncat73]

"Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat"
~Every (hour) wounds, the last kills. (sundial inscription)

[WT Sharpe]

"The Six was everything that a book club book should be: short at two hundred pages, highbrow because it dealt with English history, and sexy because it focused on a man who had humped his way through half the English court. It was also critically acclaimed by the right people, meaning that the New York Times loved it but the masses did not."

— from Crimes Against a Book Club by Kathy Cooperman

[astrangerhere]

Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe their husband is about to return and need his shoes.

Joan Didion - The Year of Magical Thinking

[kennyc]

Excellent Didion quote!

[Chiron scriba]

We all have to obey laws, but a lawyer is needed to understand them

— from Logos Dictionary (by Fabio Fumi)

[kennyc]

“I’m no longer a child, and I still want to be, to live with the pirates. Because I want to live forever in wonder. The difference between me as a child and me as an adult is this and only this: when I was a child, I longed to travel into, to live in wonder. Now, I know, as much as I can know anything, that to travel into wonder is to be a wonder. So it matters little whether I travel by plane, by rowboat, or by book.”
- Kathy Acker

[kennyc]

"Progress should never be impeded by a need to coddle adults who respond to the world as children."
- Kelli Jae Baeli

[kennyc]

Love Joni Mitchell!

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Anabella

right! nice that you've recognised

You really should attribute your quotes. That's a big part of the purpose of this Reading Recommendations thread.

[badgoodDeb]

Hey, I was going to finish the quote, but figured it was too redundant, too easy.

"They paved paradise,
put up a parking lot."

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Hey, I was going to finish the quote, but figured it was too redundant, too easy.

"They paved paradise,
put up a parking lot."

Don't it always see to go...