#quarter

If religion is true, one must believe. And if one chooses not to believe, one’s choice is marked under the category of a refusal, and is thus never really free: it has the duress of a recoil.” With literary belief, however, “one is always free to choose not to believe.” This, Wood argues, is the freedom of literature; it is what constitutes its “reality. ↗

— James Wood

#literature #quarterly-conversation #religion #freedom

Louisiana in September was like an obscene phone call from nature. The air--moist, sultry, secretive, and far from fresh--felt as if it were being exhaled into one's face. Sometimes it even sounded like heavy breathing. Honeysuckle, swamp flowers, magnolia, and the mystery smell of the river scented the atmosphere, amplifying the intrusion of organic sleaze. It was aphrodisiac and repressive, soft and violent at the same time. In New Orleans, in the French Quarter, miles from the barking lungs of alligators, the air maintained this quality of breath, although here it acquired a tinge of metallic halitosis, due to fumes expelled by tourist buses, trucks delivering Dixie beer, and, on Decatur Street, a mass-transit motor coach named Desire. ↗

— Tom Robbins

#decatur #dixie-beer #french-quarter #honeysuckle #louisiana

Almost a quarter of our planet is a single mountain range and we didn't enter it until after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin went to the moon. So we went to the moon, played golf up there, before we went to the largest feature on our own planet. ↗

— Robert Ballard

#almost #armstrong #before #buzz #enter

It is within the last quarter century or thirty years. And a lot of that law has turned out to be very, very protective of the press and the public's right to know. ↗

— Floyd Abrams

#know #last #law #lot #out

The Cox Committee found that the Chinese military acquired many of the technologies over the past seven years, although many of them had been targeted for acquisition for more than a quarter century. ↗

— Charles Foster Bass

#acquisition #although #been #century #chinese

Three quarters of the East Coast's refinery capability is located in the Philadelphia region. ↗

— Robert Brady

#coast #east #located #philadelphia #quarters

Somewhere along the line, between the idealisms of youth and the realities of adulthood, we become pacified by our jobs; we tolerate how we hurt the world so that we can sustain our lives. At some point, blurred in the past, we traded the greater good for ourselves. ↗

— Richard Beckham II

#quarter-life-crisis #life

Farms and ranches contend with much more than quarterly reports and profit margins - the weather can wreak havoc on their quality of life and economic viability. When natural disasters strike, we must do all we can to assist the backbone of our economy. ↗

— Ruben Hinojosa

#backbone #contend #disasters #economic #economy

Think of all the really successful men and women you know. Do you know a single one who didn't learn very young the trick of calling attention to himself in the right quarters? ↗

— Storm Jameson

#calling #do you know #himself #know #learn

It's important for us, if we're going to be a good team, to be a good defensive team in the fourth quarter. ↗

— Steve Nash

#fourth #going #good #important #quarter