1997 Quotes

“I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me, 'I love you.' ... There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”
― Maya Angelou

“I am the sea and nobody owns me”
― Pippi Longstocking

“You can't have occupation and human rights.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Shoot the bitch and write a book. That's what I did.”
― William S. Burroughs

“Nobody knows how many North Koreans have died or are dying in the famine—some estimates by foreign-aid groups run as high as three million in the period from 1995 to 1998 alone—but the rotund, jowly face of Kim Il Sung still beams down contentedly from every wall, and the 58-year-old son looks as chubby as ever, even as his slenderized subjects are mustered to applaud him.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays

“There's a marvelous peace in not publishing, there's a stillness. When you publish, the world thinks you owe something. If you don't publish, they don't know what you're doing. You can keep it for yourself.”
― J.D. Salinger

“The sad thing is that so many people, in the belief that the universe is organized to suit and influence them, are willing to sacrifice even the slight cranial capacity with which evolution has equipped us.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“I'm just an actor. My performance is not more important than your life. Stop watching. We're false images designed to sell you products by exploiting your insecurities. To make you spectators in life, not participants.”
― Grant Morrison, The Invisibles, Vol. 5: Counting to None

“Unless a reincarnationist is willing to say there was a 'first generation' of souls created with the first humans, he is exposed to absurdity by the recency of human life on the planet.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“reality has too many heads”
― Bob Dylan, Lyrics, 1962-2001

“Don't write in to ask whether I would prefer Gingrich to Clinton. Ask, rather, whether Clinton prefers Gingrich to you. Go triangulate yourself.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“It never was any better, it never will be any better. It will only be richer or poorer, sadder but not wiser, until the very last day.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

“The oldest profession [prostitution] is the most honest, for it exposes the bare bones of what civilization is all about. It's the root of all professions.”
― Daniel Suelo, The Man Who Quit Money

“So that to give a commentary on the text, such as we are attempting here, is to reinforce the illusion that a present meaning exists–that a text can be presented.

When I try to present a commentary (as I am doing here), I necessarily resist the suction of the play of meanings which attempts to suck any such attempt–which it produces–back into a void. If I try to explain the text, I forget that the production of my explanation is already related to its dissolution, its disappearance into a textual void, a void between any two readings, a void which is always already producing another reading, and its dissolution.”
― James N. Powell, Derrida for Beginners

“In the incongruous role of the insurgent party-builder, he made crystal clear the whole host of inferences we have drawn from the experiences of Monroe and Polk: that innovation, however orthodox, is inherently destabilizing; that the purely constructive leadership project is an illusion; that the affiliated leader cannot assume independent ground without ultimately embracing the role of the heretic; that the only way ever to be president in your own right is to become yourself a great repudiator and set yourself directly against the bulwark of received power; that political disruption parallels presidential significance. Roosevelt's insight was not simply that new achievements do not rest securely on old foundations, but that to save the handiwork of his presidency he would have to reconstruct its political base.”
― Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton

“I'm the Starbucks poster child.”
― Robin Williams

“(Fragmento de Plata Quemada, Ricardo Piglia, 1997)
Entre la banda de chongos y bufarrones que andan por Plaza Zavala en Montevideo hay a menudo algunas muchachas perdidas. Son muy jóvenes, por lo general prematuramente endurecidas. Están enteradas de todo lo que se refiere de los muchachos con quienes lo hacen y con quienes a veces viven: que esos muchachos buscan a otros hombres y a veces les pagan o se hacen pagar. Y aunque lo saben, no les importa. A veces una de las chicas va al parque con un bufa y se sientan juntos hasta que él encuentra un levante y entonces como por acuerdo tácito se separan: el muchacho se va con el cliente, la chica se va al café de la esquina, donde lo espera.”
― Ezequiel De Rosso, Relatos de Montevideo

“Quant aux toilettes, elles etainet tout simplement inexistantes. Pour faire ses besoins, il fallait aller plus loin, au bout du terrain, derriere les tas d'ordures. L'odeur y etait insupportable, des relents de pourri, de rance; une puanteur qui penetrait partout et qui restait en vous.”
― Anina Ciuciu

“Do you use 'True Will' as an excuse to do nothing?

Have you declared yourself enlightened?

Damn your weak philosophies; a pox and a pestilence your despicable sloth and arrogance.”
― Peter J. Carroll, Psybermagick: Advanced Ideas in Chaos Magic

“In truth, there will never be enough power in the presidency for an incumbent to make good on a purely constructive leadership project, and it is unlikely that there will ever be another president stretched so thinly by a determination to use great power to do just that. Lyndon Johnson was a full-service president who had at his disposal an alignment of political resources, economic resources, international resources, and military resources unmatched in the annals of presidential history. The problem is that in a full-service presidency, where no interest of political significance is denied a modicum of legitimacy, resources turn fickle; the exercise of power consumes authority. Committed to a wholly affirmative result, Johnson could not rest content to let anyone carry the brunt of change.”
― Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton

“The primary elections are the cornerstones of the plebiscitary presidency. They strip away the veneer of party unity and expose the individuality of each candidate. As contemporary selection procedures force party leaders to compete with one another in the open, they prompt them to differentiate themselves publicly and to boast of their independence of mind. Pitting potential party spokespersons against one another in public combat, these procedures undercut the credibility of the candidate's affiliation with anything other than him- or herself.”
― Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton

“The special skill of esoteric Buddhism is transmutation by right view and pure perception, using all appropriate means for training. For example, eating food is not itself a Buddhist practice, but if one uses it as a means of training, it becomes a Buddhist training in transforming one's daily life as Buddhist practice.”
― Tulku Thondup, Hidden Teachings of Tibet

“Ten ma (bsTan Ma [བསྟན་མ་]). Twelve local female spirits of Tibet who have taken the vow from Guru Padmasambhava to protect the Dharma and its followers: the Four Ten mas of the Dud mo [bDud Mo] type: 1) Tshe ring ma (Tshe Ring Ma [ཚེ་རིང་མ་] or Kun Grags Ma [ཀུན་གྲགས་མ་]), 2) Dor je Ya ma kyong (rDo rje gYa Ma sKyong [རྡོ་རྗེ་གཡ་མ་སྐྱོང་]), 3) Kun zang mo (Kun bZang Mo [ཀུན་བཟང་མོ་] and 4) Geg gyi tso (bGegs Kyi gTso [བགེགས་ཀྱི་གཙོ་]; The Four Ten mas of the Nod jin mo (S. Yakṣasi, T. gNod sByin Mo [གནོད་སྦྱིན་མོ་]) type: 1) Chen chig ma (sPyan gChig Ma [སྤྱན་གཅིག་མ་]), 2) Kha ding Lu mo gyal (mKha' lDing Klu Mo rGyal [མཁའ་ལྡིང་ཀླུ་མོ་རྒྱལ་]), 3) Dor je Khyung tsun ma (rDo rje Khyung bTsun Ma [རྡོ་རྗེ་ཁྱུང་བཙུན་མ་]), and 4) Trag mo gyal (Drag Mo rGyal [དྲག་མོ་རྒྱལ་]); The Four Men Mo (sMan Mo [སྨེན་མོ་]): 1) Pod kham kyong (Bod Khams sKyong [བོད་ཁམས་སྐྱོང་]), 2) Men chig ma (sMan gChig Ma [སྨན་གཅིག་མ་]), 3) Yar mo sil (gYar Mo bSil [གཡར་མོ་བསིལ་]), and 4) Dor je Zu le men (rDo rje Zu Le sMan [རྡོ་རྗེ་གཟུགས་ལེགས་སྨན་]).”
― Tulku Thondup, Hidden Teachings of Tibet

“We are in a state of transition here. In fact, everyone in Hong Kong is obsessed with one single date: 1 July 1997. The whole city is in a state of violent change, moving from one regime we are used to loathing, to another one we are loath to get used to.”
― Kit Fan, Diamond Hill

“I wondered how there could be a custody battle when Hong Kong was already a fully grown adult and all she wanted was exactly what her parents did, the wealth of the entire globe.”
― Kit Fan, Diamond Hill