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J Quotes

Browse famous quotes beginning with J. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.

All J Quotes

“Jim Jones started out as a civil rights crusader in Indianapolis. As a young preacher in the mid-50s, he used members of his congregation to integrate lunch counters and all-white churches in rich neighborhoods; they'd just march in and sit down at the pews and see what happened. Often they were received with racist insults, and once with a bomb threat. But the fact that you had this charismatic, white man, aggressively promoting racial equality, was a huge draw for African Americans, many of whom felt the Civil Rights Movement had stalled by the late 60s.”

“Jim Jones wanted his people to believe the establishment was trying to kill him because whites were threatened by his message of racial equality. He used the incident to close ranks and turn anyone who disagreed with him into a menace. He warned his congregation that a would be assassin might try to infiltrate their church, so they had to prove their loyalty to him by never questioning his orders. Dissenters became traitors.”

“Jim Morrison: I’ve always been attracted to ideas that were about revolt against authority. I like ideas about the breaking away or overthrowing of established order. I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos—especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom. External revolt is a way to bring about internal freedom. Rather than starting inside, I start outside—reach the mental through the physical.”

“Jim Pagliaroni joined the club tonight and is going to be a welcome addition. He was describing a girl that one of the ballplayers had been out with and said, “It's hard to say exactly what she looked like. She was kind of Joe Torre with tits.” This joke can only be explained with a picture of Joe Torre. But I'm not sure any exist. He dissolves camera lenses.”

“Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn’t sell them, they’d get an Ab’litionist to go and steal them. It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn’t ever dared to talk such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the old saying, “Give a nigger an inch and he’ll take an ell.” Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children – children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t ever done me no harm. I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him.”

“Jim watched them eat, his eyes fixed on every morsel that entered their mouth. When the oldest of the four soldiers had finished he scraped some burnt rice and fish scales from the side of the cooking pot. A first-class private of some forty years, with slow, careful hands, he beckoned Jim forward and handed him his mess tin. As they smoked their cigarettes the Japanese smiled to themselves, watching Jim devour the shreds of fatty rice. It was his first hot food since he had left he hospital, and the heat and greasy flavour stung his gums. Tears swam in his eyes. The Japanese soldier who had taken pity on Jim, recognising that this small boy was starving, began to laugh good-naturedly, and pulled the rubber plug from his metal water-bottle. Jim drank the clear, chlorine-flavoured liquid, so unlike the stagnant water in the taps of the Columbia Road. He choked, carefully swallowed his vomit, and tittered into his hands, grinning at the Japanese. Soon they were all laughing together, sitting back in the deep grass beside the drained swimming-pool.”

“Jimena sensed their fear. That brought a smile to her face. Her reputation was still so big that even tough enimigas wouldn't face her down. She strutted past them, her heels snapping loudly on the sidewalk. She enjoyed the feel of their admiring eyes, their sideways glances and the wonder she saw on their faces. Jimena wasn't choloed out in khakis, a tight T, and long, boyfriend-borrowed Pendletons. She wore a slinky dress and ankle-breaking high-heels. The rain made the dress cling to her body, so they knew she wasn't strapping. No gun. Still, they were afraid to confront her. This time she stopped for the red light, pausing to let the chicas know she didn't fear them. It felt good to be the toughest chola en el condado de Los Angeles. She was still down for Ninth Street, her old gang, but at age fifteen, already a veterana. A leyenda, her homegirls told her with pride. Jimena had been a real badass before she understood her destiny. She glanced at the scars and tattoos on her hand. What would the klika-girls do if they knew her true identity?”

“Jimi Hendrix came on TV on this documentary and it was this African-American soulful black guy, playing an electric guitar, which I'd just started. And it just blew my head off. I had like an afro at the time, too. It was a bit all over the place. And it wasn't a thing to have an afro. No, that's kind of quite old school. You're supposed to have like a neatly cut shaped up haircut.”