#ge

I was never trying to write a hit. I was just trying to write good songs and get a message out, and it was my great good fortune to be popular. ↗

— John Denver

#get #good #good fortune #good songs #great

Nothing is more dangerous than a friend without discretion; even a prudent enemy is preferable. ↗

— Jean de La Fontaine

#discretion #enemy #even #friend #more

Germany must be a country which generates political ideas and leadership, which is capable of compromise, which is sovereign and yet knows that it needs its partners on both sides of the Atlantic. ↗

— Horst Koehler

#both #both sides #capable #compromise #country

The black market was a way of getting around government controls. It was a way of enabling the free market to work. It was a way of opening up, enabling people. ↗

— Milton Friedman

#black #controls #enabling #free #free market

For centuries, no one was concerned that books weren’t girl-friendly, because no one really cared if girls read; but even so, we persisted for long enough that literature has slowly come to accommodate us. Modern boys, by contrast, are not trying to read in a culture of opposition. Nobody is telling them reading doesn’t matter, that boys don’t need to read and that actually, no prospective wife looks for literacy in a husband. Quite the opposite! Male literary culture thrives, both teachers and parents are throwing books at their sons, and the fact that the books aren’t sticking isn’t, as the nature of the complaint makes clear, because boys don’t like reading – no. The accusation is that boys don’t like reading about girls, which is a totally different matter. Because constantly, consistently, our supposedly equal society penalises boys who express an interest in anything feminine. The only time boys are discouraged from books all together is in contexts where, for whatever reason, they’ve been given the message that reading itself is girly – which is a wider extrapolation of the same problem. ↗

— Foz Meadows

#boys-reading #gender #reading #equality

Getting close to books, and spending time by myself, I was obliged to think about things I would never have thought about if I was busy romping around with a brother and sister. ↗

— Shelby Foote

#around #books #brother #brother and sister #busy

I think that everything you do helps you to write if you're a writer. Adversity and success both contribute largely to making you what you are. If you don't experience either one of those, you're being deprived of something. ↗

— Shelby Foote

#being #both #contribute #deprived #either

We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum. ↗

— Aiden Wilson Tozer

#diplomats #message #our #prophets #ultimatum

I travelled to California when I was 18 and went to Los Angeles State College. ↗

— Robert Vaughn

#california #college #i #los #los angeles

I've had an advantage; I've had a sort of open public acceptance in New York that doesn't happen to just anyone trying to make the transition you were talking about. ↗

— Steve Forbert

#acceptance #advantage #anyone #had #happen