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S Quotes

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All S Quotes

“So many problems we will get to the bottom of later, but whose spatial aspect we must grasp right away. If the space of the industrial economy dominates the social space in which the Parisian worker or intellectual develops, to what extent could residential space, cultural space, or political space be planned without it being necessary to first intervene in economic structures?...In short...: to what extent can we freely build the framework for a social life in which we might be guided by our aspirations and not by our instincts?”

“So many questions crowd my brain at once, it’s like one of the famous Portland fogs has swept up from the ocean and settled there, making it impossible to think normal, functional thoughts. We’re sitting on the floor of the living room, which is squashed up right next to the “dining room”, and I’m holding Jenny's workbook on my knees, reciting the problems to her, but my mind is on autopilot and my thoughts are a million miles away. Or rather, they’re exactly 3.4 miles away, down at the marshy edge of Back Cove.”

“So many ruins bear witness to good intentions which went astray, good intentions unenlightened by any glimmer of wisdom. To bring religion to the people is a fine and necessary undertaking, but this is not a situation in which the proposed end can be said to justify the means. The further people have drifted from the truth, the greater is the temptation to water down the truth, glossing over its less palatable aspects and, in short, allowing a policy of compromise to become one of adulteration. In this way it is hoped that the common man – if he can be found – will be encouraged to find a small corner in his busy life for religion without having to change his ways or to grapple with disturbing thoughts. It is a forlorn hope. Standing, as it were, at the pavement’s edge with his tray of goods, the priest reduces the price until he is offering his wares for nothing: divine judgement is a myth, hell a wicked superstition, prayer less important than decent behaviour, and God himself dispensable in the last resort; and still the passers-by go their way, sorry over having to ignore such a nice man but with more important matters demanding their attention. And yet these matters with which they are most urgently concerned are, for so many of them, quicksands in which they feel themselves trapped. Had they been offered a real alternative, a rock firm-planted from the beginning of time, they might have been prepared to pay a high price.”

“So many sing out of tune and need a little help from their friends, but this may not suffice. Everyone should, thus, leave their ivory tower, now and then, and roll up their sleeves to help the sheeple to break the mold, those who have been doomed to remain unconstructed and unfit to experience revivifying awareness and gratifying conditions. (“Bread and Satellite”)”

“So many sins against the poor cry out to high heaven! One of the most deadly sins is to deprive the laborer of his hire. There is another: to instill in him paltry desires so compulsive that he is willing to sell his liberty and his honor to satisfy them. We are all guilty of concupiscence, but newspapers, radios, television, and battalions of advertising men (woe to that generation!) deliberately stimulate our desires, the satisfaction of which so often means the degradation of the family.”

“So many socks. After the pair the undertaker asks for (I picture them black beneath the fold in your open casket, your toes still cold) what else to do,. Body bags of old suits, shirts still pressed, long johns, the unworn, unwashed wreckage of your closet, too many coats to keep, though I will save so many. How can I give away the last of your scent? And still, father, you have errands, errant dry cleaning to pick up-- yellow tags whose ghostly carbon tells a story where to look. One place closed for good, the tag old. One place with none of your clothes, just stares as if no one ever dies, as if you are naked somewhere, & I suppose you are. Nothing here. The last place knows exactly what I mean, brings me shirts hanging like a head. Starched collars your beard had worn. One man saying sorry, older lady in the back saying how funny you were, how you joked with her weekly. Sorry— & a fellow black man hands your clothes back for free, don’t worry. I’ve learned death has few kindnesses left. Such is charity—so rare & so rarely free— that on the way back to your emptying house I weep. Then drive everything, swaying, straight to Goodwill— open late—to live on another body & day.”

“So many state Republican governors and legislators are defunding Planned Parenthood and shutting down clinics that not only provide a safe abortion but HIV testing, cancer screenings, and so much else that women have every right to access, which is harder if you are unemployed or you are a low-income woman that's part of the real service that Planned Parenthood provides.”

“So many television marriages - that playing out of lives against a background of the tube. Instead of two lives filing the room, There are their two lives and the eleven o'clock news with Constant commercial interruption. Instead of what you say and what I say. You don't laugh with me; I don't laugh with you. All the wit comes pouring out of the tube. And we laugh at it together. The more we avoid talking the more passive the relationship becomes. Television permits us to walk through life with minor speaking parts. And the more we fail to speak, the more difficult speaking becomes”