#assassin

The Three of them were beautiful, in the way all girls of that age are beautiful. It can't be helped, that sort of beauty, nor can it be conserved; it's a freshness, a plumpness of the cells, that's unearned and temporary, and that nothing can replicate. None of them was satisfied with it, however; already they were making attempts to alter themselves into some impossible, imaginary mould, plucking and pencilling away at their faces. I didn't blame them, having done the same once myself. ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#makeup #margaret-atwood #the-blind-assassin #young-girls #youth

In Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada has at last produced a political leader worthy of assassination. ↗

— Irving Layton

#canada #elliott #last #leader #pierre

We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive; love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly on the dead; we'll open their letters, we'll read their journals, we'll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us--who've left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we'd supposed. ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#knowledge #margaret-atwood #snooping #the-blind-assassin #love

In 1914, Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian imperial heir, was shot and killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo. Do you know the motive behind the act? It was in retaliation for the subjugation of the Sebs in Austria. It was not.Franz Ferdinand had stated his intention to introduce reforms favorable to the Serbs in his empire. Had he survived to ascend the throne, he would have made a revolution unnecessary. In plain terms, he was killed because he was going to give the rebels what they were shouting for. They needed a despot in the palace in order to seize it. What's good for reform is bad for the reformers ↗

— Loren D. Estleman

#history #reform #sarajevo #world-war-i #motivational

I feared my own kind more than anything the natural world could ever threaten me with. ↗

— Robin Hobb

#fear #fitz #mankind #nature #robin-hobb

The first thing that I really understood politically and was old enough to get was the failed assassination attempt on Reagan. ↗

— Ben Affleck

#attempt #enough #failed #first #first thing

The American Dream has run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. No more. It's over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now: the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Vietnam. ↗

— J. G. Ballard

#american dream #assassination #car #dream #dreams

The people were simpler, more peaceable and friendly in their manners and dispositions; and assassinations, which give the southern provinces so ill a reputation, were almost unknown. ↗

— Henry Walter Bates

#assassinations #dispositions #friendly #give #ill

And Hale was devoted to President Kennedy, and there was some talk following the assassination that Hale had warned the President not to go to Dallas, and the connotation was that it would be physically dangerous for him to do so. ↗

— Lindy Boggs

#connotation #dallas #dangerous #devoted #following