#rant

For a country boy, poor as I was, whose constant worry was to be able to have enough to eat, the Army guaranteed one's survival. ↗

— Mo Yan

#army #boy #constant #country #country boy

When I was writing my column, I would almost always be recognized when I was in a restaurant, even if I was reviewing it and had booked under a fake name, so free stuff would start coming out of the kitchen on a conveyer belt, fantastic wines would be opened at my table. Now I can't even get a reservation on the pizza joint on the corner. ↗

— Toby Young

#always #belt #booked #column #coming

Luck is merely an illusion, trusted by the ignorant and chased by the foolish. ↗

— Timothy Zahn

#foolish #ignorant #illusion #luck #merely

It's true that the war in Iraq opened a distance in relations between part of Europe and the U.S. government, but our basic ties are stronger than that. We share democracy, free markets and a commitment to Western security. We differ on how to guarantee that security. ↗

— Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero

#between #commitment #democracy #differ #distance

Awareness requires a rupture with the world we take for granted; then old categories of experience are called into question and revised. ↗

— Shoshana Zuboff

#called #categories #experience #granted #into

Poles understand perhaps better than anyone the consequences of making toothless warnings to brutal tyrants and terrorist regimes. ↗

— Paul Wolfowitz

#better #brutal #consequences #making #perhaps

Sam grinned. He even laughed. "What's funny?" She demanded. "I figured something out before Astrid the Genius. I am totally enjoying that. I'm just going to gloat here for a minute." "Enjoy it, it may never happen again," Astrid said. ↗

— Michael Grant

#gone-series #michael-grant #funny

Cary Grant was wonderful to work with on stage. He would move downstage, so that as he looked at me the audience had to look at me, too. He knew a lot about the theater and how to move around. He was very secure. ↗

— Fay Wray

#around #audience #cary #cary grant #grant

I'm very inspired by him-it was my father who taught us that an immigrant must work twice as hard as anybody else, that he must never give up. ↗

— Zinedine Zidane

#else #father #give #hard #i

She remembers her name. She remembers the name of the president. She remembers the name of the president’s dog. She remembers what city she lives in. And on which street. And in which house. The one with the big olive tree where the road takes a turn. She remembers what year it is. She remembers the season. She remembers the day on which you were born. She remembers the daughter who was born before you – She had your father’s nose, that was the first thing I noticed about her – but she does not remember that daughter’s name. She remembers the name of the man she did not marry – Frank – and she keeps his letters in a drawer by her bed. She remembers that you once had a husband, but she refuses to remember your ex-husband’s name. That man, she calls him. She does not remember how she got the bruises on her arms or going for a walk with you earlier this morning. She does not remember bending over, during that walk, and plucking a flower from a neighbour’s front yard and slipping it into her hair. Maybe your father will kiss me now. She does not remember what she ate for dinner last night, or when she last took her medicine. She does not remember to drink enough water. She does not remember to comb her hair. She remembers the rows of dried persimmons that once hung from the eaves of her mother’s house in Berkeley. They were the most beautiful shade of orange. She remembers that your father loves peaches. She remembers that every Sunday morning, at ten, he takes her for a drive down to the sea in the brown car. She remembers that every evening, right before the eight o’clock news, he sets two fortune cookies on a paper plate and announces to her that they are having a party. She remembers that on Mondays he comes home from the college at four, and if he is even five minutes late she goes out to the gate and begins to wait for him. She remembers which bedroom is hers and which is his. She remembers that the bedroom that is now hers was once yours. She remembers that it wasn’t always like this... ↗

— Julie Otsuka

#beauty