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S Quotes

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All S Quotes

“Some notable people turned to writing in order to examine their life, assign meaning to their experiences, and by doing so shared with other people a beautiful rendering of what it means to be human. Can I temper the blows of life by recognizing loose snippets of life as chapters in an unfurling story? Should I take into consideration that suffering births all meaningful things in life? Alternatively, is the ability to experience and communicate joy what makes human life wonderful? What connective thread ties me to the broadcloth of other people’s stories? Do other people share stitches of raveled threads of loneliness and despair? Do other people know a secret verse to living joylessly and splendidly that eludes me? Do other people share my most profound ache to love?”

“Some nouns: glass, scissors, razors, acid. Some verbs: cut, scrape, cauterize, burn. These nouns and verbs create unspeakable sentences when the object is a seven year old girl with her legs forced open. The clitoris, with it's 8000 nerve endings, is always sliced up. In the most extreme forms of female genital mutilation (FGM), the labia are cut off and the vagina is sewn shut. On her wedding night, the girl's husband will penetrate her with a knife before his penis.”

“Some numbers I want them to know: fifty, the age of the man they knocked over; fifteen, my age when I met him as a child bride; twenty-five, the number of years I had been his wife; fifty thousand, the amount we had gotten for our farmland to pay for my sick parents’ hospital bills; two, the count of bottles of rat poison we had bought to end our constant worries about work and money; one. the only time I had been pregnant, and he had gone from the happiest to the saddest man I had ever known. (The Waiting)”

“Some objects and events may be photographed, others, if one is to render their true quality, should be painted or set to music, since their essence is more faithfully reproduced through imagination than by the journalistic report.”

“Some of [Donald Trump] comments can be interpreted as potentially reducing the threat of nuclear war. The major threat right now is right on the Russian border. Notice, not the Mexican border, the Russian border. And it's serious. He has made various statements moving towards reducing the tensions, accommodating Russian concerns and so on.”

“Some of America's highest profile assassins – including the likes of John Lennon’s killer Mark David Chapman and Robert Kennedy’s assassin Sirhan Sirhan – claimed they were CIA-programmed killers hypnotized by MK-Ultra. The media portrayed them as crazed lone gunmen, so naturally the public paid little attention to their claims. Kentbridge, however, knew it was possible some of these men were mind controlled soldiers, or Manchurian Candidates, carrying out assassination orders their conscious minds were not even aware of.”

“Some of Batista’s followers intimidated jailed and even killed political opponents. One of the pro-Batista paramilitary thugs was Rolando Arcadio Masferrer Rojas, who was born in Holguín on July 12, 1918. He had been a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, organized in 1936 by the Communist International during the Spanish Civil War. Returning to Cuba, Masferrer became a staunch supporter of Batista, who at that time had the backing of the Communist Party. Masferrer was by no means the average run of the mill thug and, in addition to being a lawyer, he ran for office and won a seat in the Cuban Senate. He was also a guerrilla leader, political activist, a member of the Cuban Communist Party, a newspaper publisher, and responsible for the founding of “Los Tigres de Masferrer,” a guerrilla organization he organized to support Batista militarily. He also published two newspapers, Tiempo in Havana and Libertad in Santiago de Cuba. Becoming a radical anti-communist, he was ousted from the Cuban Communist Party. Regardless, Masferrer was a dangerous man and people learned to keep their mouths shut and play it low key when he was around. As a pro-Batista political activist, he took credit for supposedly attacking Castro’s rebels in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. Actually, in most cases his group of not-so-fierce fighters stayed safely within the city limits of Santiago de Cuba, extorting money from the residents. In 1959, after Castro’s entry into Havana, Masferrer fled to the United States where he befriended American union bosses such as Jimmy Hoffa and got to know Mafia leaders such as Santo Trafficante in Tampa, Florida. Masferrer worked with Richard Bissell of the Central Intelligence Agency, planning another assassination attempt on Castro. He was seen at a ranch owned by multi-millionaire Howard Hughes, where he was training paid assassins, and he even met with President Kennedy in Washington. With money contributed by fellow Cubans living in Florida, he later planned to carry out the assassination of Fidel Castro by attacking him from a distant base in Haiti. It all ended when, on October 31, 1975, Masferrer was killed by a car bomb in Miami. Although his figures may be somewhat exaggerated, Castro claimed that Masferrer was responsible for the death of as many as 2,000 people during the Batista era.”

“Some of George W. Bush's friends say that Bush believes God called him to be president during these times of trial. But God told me that He/She/It had actually chosen Al Gore by making sure that Gore won the popular vote and, God thought, the Electoral College. 'That worked for everyone else,' God said.”

“Some of her fear must have shone through her effort to maintain a reassuring facade, for her father took one of her hands and exerted a feeble tug to bring her closer to him. “Evie,” came his faint whisper, “I’m going to your mother, y’see… she’s got ’em to leave a back door open… so I can steal into ’eaven.” She laughed quietly even as a few hot tears spilled from her eyes.”

“Some of his authors were so mulishly stubborn about altering their own work, one would think he had suggested changing text in the Bible. Amanda was easy to work with, and she did not harbor great pretensions about herself or her writing. In fact, she was relatively modest about her talents, to the extent of appearing surprised and uncomfortable when he praised her. The plot of 'Unfinished Lady' centered on a young woman who tried to live strictly according to society's rules, yet couldn't make herself accept the rigid confinement of what was considered proper. She made fatal errors in her private life- gambling, taking a lover outside of marriage, having a child out of wedlock- all due to her desire to obtain the elusive happiness she secretly longed for. Eventually she came to a sordid end, dying of venereal disease, although it was clear that society's harsh judgements had caused her demise fully as much as disease. What fascinated Jack was that Amanda, as the author, had refused to take a position on the heroine's behavior, neither applauding nor condemning it. Clearly she had sympathy for the character, and Jack suspected that the heroine's inner rebelliousness reflected some of Amanda's own feelings.”