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M Quotes

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All M Quotes

“My shell collection Here are my shells, orderly to the eye, mysterious to the mind. Some are rough and grainy, others are soft and pearly. Mine are all empty, but out in the sea there are empty ones too – as many as there are full. When the creatures emerge, they leave part of themselves behind. That is why I think of these spirals as living though they are asleep in their forms.”

“My shift isn’t over until six,” I say glumly. “Hold on,” he says. He pulls a Blackberry from his coat pocket and taps out a text. It buzzes, and he taps out another text before stashing it back in his pocket. “I think you can take the rest of the afternoon off.” “I only have a week left, but my boss would kill me,” I say. “I’m your boss, Anna.” “What do you mean?” There’s that smile again, the one with all those teeth. “I just bought Walmart,” he says.”

“My ship – the Demeter, was a star-liner operated by the Red Star Line. I say ‘was’ because of the events you will read about in this account. This is a long letter, I know, but I had quite a long time to write it. You probably already know this, having seen the commercials running on all the major channels for the last twenty years or so, but the Red Star Line is the largest cruise operator in the known universe. Unless something has changed between now and by the time you read this, this is probably still true. In fact, customers of the Red Star Line get more quality, value for money – and smiles by Demeter than they do anywhere else. Okay, okay. It’s an old joke – corny for sure, but what the hell.”

“My shipmates and I only grasped our roles on the very superficial level we were taught. We were fighting the bad guys. They were the bad guys because we were told that they were the bad guys. We had to control, infiltrate, and shove our authority around the world because we were its greatest nation. We had the shiniest ships, the biggest guns, the deadliest weapons, and the cockiest egos. And if we thought otherwise, we were vicious traitors. The military condemns rebels, thinkers, and doubt. The military loves obedience, loyalty, and oblivion. Its core values are, after all, “Honor, Courage, and Commitment.”

“My short stories are so character-based and they're also so private. They're like a private world in each story and I'm getting more and more interested in allowing myself to investigate the big picture about this country, and about human beings, and about the planet, and about the solar system, and about the nature of the material world in general. And I felt like I needed to move into a bigger form.”

“My short-term factual memory can be like water; events are a brief disturbance on the surface and then it closes back up again, as if nothing ever touched it. But it’s a strange fact that my long-term memory remains strong, perhaps because it recorded events when my mind was unaffected. My emotional memory is intact too, perhaps because feelings are recorded and stored in a different place than facts. The things that happened deeper in the past, and deeper in the breast, are still there for me, under the water. I won 1,098 games, and eight national championships, and coached in four different decades. But what I see are not the numbers. I see their faces. 'Pat should get a tattoo!' The kids laughed. 'What kind should she get?' 'A heart. She should get a heart.' Little did they know. They are the tattoos.”

“My short-term goals are to defend and even strengthen elements of state authority which, though illegitimate in fundamental ways, are critically necessary right now to impede the dedicated efforts to "roll back" the progress that has been achieved in extending democracy and human rights. State authority is now under severe attack in the more democratic societies, but not because it conflicts with the libertarian vision. Rather the opposite: because it offers (weak) protection to some aspects of that vision. Governments have a fatal flaw: unlike the private tyrannies, the institutions of state power and authority offer to the despised public an opportunity to play some role, however limited, in managing their own affairs. That defect is intolerable to the masters, who now feel, with some justification, that changes in the international economic and political order offer the prospects of creating a kind of "utopia for the masters," with dismal prospects for most of the rest. It should be unnecessary to spell out here what I mean. The effects are all too obvious even in the rich societies, from the corridors of power to the streets, countryside, and prisons. For reasons that merit attention but that lie beyond the scope of these remarks, the rollback campaign is currently spearheaded by dominant sectors of societies in which the values under attack have been realized in some of their most advanced forms, the English-speaking world; no small irony, but no contradiction either.”

“My short time in Pretoria made me realize that it can best be described as that place where the brushstrokes of life blend the old with the new in a way that helps to create a story of a place that will forever be deeply tucked into the breathing spaces of my heart, as a place of fondness. A reminder that even when the lessons doesn’t go according to plan, there are always chances to be like the statue of President Nelson Mandela, open arms – embracing the future and using the past, especially the most difficult chapters, to help to infuse new life through the wisdom gained by being like the middle part of the Union Buildings, a space of collaboration. In the words of South African British poet William Polmer, “Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.” And when the connection is made, that place is simply called Pretoria. And if one should look a little deeper at the connection, you’ll understand that Pretoria is simply a word with a Latin origin, Praetor, that means Leader, a perfect place to house the Union Buildings, the place where our difference becomes one, and that knowledge becomes the spectrum of where the old and the new intersect, and we call that… Pretoria…Leader within.”

“My shoulders, broad and sculpted thick, were designed for two useful purposes. The one, to carry heavy loads like cedar logs and beams of steel and now and then the careful transfer of an injured friend to a bed of safety. The other purpose I consider superior, and that is to be, in all circumstances and forever, your headrest and cry pillow whereupon you may leave your heaviest burdens.”

“My shoulders sagged. Really, is it too much to ask that I be able to come home from a long day of work and relax? Oh, no. I have to come home and read a bunch of letters written to the love of my life by his fiancée, who, if I am correct, had him killed a hundred and fifty years ago. Then, as if that is not bad enough, he wants me to explain the Vietnam War.”