Randy Pav > Randy's Quotes

“Running out the anchor line, the pirates babbled to one another, and in the tangle of their barbaric language, Aspasia listened for one word—Athens. It lit up the darkness in her mind, like the single glint her eyes fixed on above the distant gray-green hills.”
― Yvonne Korshak, Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece

“Every morning when I wake up, I ask myself, "Why was I born?" Then I answer myself, "You were born to be successful." If you can learn to define your own success and not let others dictate it, you can find      fulfilment.”
― Max Nowaz, The Polymorph

“For a moment I felt the quiet hungering thing that comes inside when you return to the place of your origins, and then the ache of mis-belonging.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Invention of Wings

“Deuxième maxime. - La taxe ou portion d'impôt que chaque individu est tenu de payer doit être certaine, et non arbitraire.”
― Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

“Puff, puff, chug, chug, went the Little Blue Engine. “I think I can - I think I can - I think I can - I think I can - I think I can - I think I can - I think I can - I think I can - I think I can.”

[…]

“I thought I could. I thought I could. I thought I could.

I thought I could.

I thought I could.

I thought I could.”
― Watty Piper, The Little Engine That Could

“The law does not require that to be proved which is apparent to the court.’ ”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“I believe the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“...and then the threw the sword as far into the water as he might; and there came an arm and a hand above the water and met it, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and then vanished away the hand with the sword in the water.”
― Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table

“We’re here on this planet not to build personal empires of control, but to evolve.”
― James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy

“From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines.”
― Walt Whitman

“As the political scientist Michael Wolfe puts it, “Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are unlikely to do it very well.” He adds, “As a way of governing, conservatism is another name for disaster.”30”
― Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

“the women who honour Duna most seem to be blessed more often with young ones. The Great Earth Mother smiles on those who appreciate Her Gifts.”
― Jean M. Auel, The Valley of Horses

“I am me, a unique individual who aspires to be happier than she already is.”
― L.C. Conn

“If any of them fail me, I will flush them from an airlock into the pit of space, like an unwanted turd. Do I make myself clear?”
― A.R. Merrydew, Inara

“The violence of nature masks the beauty and joy that hide just beneath the surface.”
― Jack Borden, The Lost City: An Epic YA Fantasy Novel

“Helen slowly became aware of an unnerving red light. She lifted her head and looked around. The glow bounced off the cold stone walls and intensified quickly. It filled her with thoughts of despair and hopelessness. She tried to shake them off.
You have what’s mine! Where is it? I want it!
Helen shuddered violently. She recalled the inner voice that urged
her to use the stone to keep Prince Harnak from dying. That voice was
comforting and encouraging. This voice was oppressive and angry and
beat on her relentlessly.
“No!” she muttered. “Go away. I have nothing for you or anyone
else, not even me.”
The red light flickered out. Only the numbing cold and her utter
isolation, cheerless companions, remained.”
― Candace L. Talmadge, Stoneslayer: Book One Scandal

“Fairness isn’t about charity. It’s smart business.”
― Hanna Hasl-Kelchner, Seeking Fairness at Work: Cracking the New Code of Greater Employee Engagement, Retention & Satisfaction

“The sunset bled into the edges of the village. Smoke curled out of the cottage chimney like a crooked finger.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air - there's the rub, the task.”
― Virgil

“Those for whom things came easily usually made less of an effort, not more.”
― David McCullough, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris

“She adjusted her body weight and caught his eyes, her gaze shiny and with a tinge of sadness. “My grandmother told me once that the world is filled with ghosts. The longer we live the more ghosts will haunt us.” She paused glancing at her palms. “But they’re here to remind us we are alive. That our hearts beat, blood runs through our veins, we breath air into our lungs.”
― Simon W. Clark, The Russian Ink

“I saw and heard all sorts of things in my fever; I was riding a merry-go-round, I wanted to get off but I couldn’t. I was one of many little children sitting in fire engines and hollowed-out swans, on dogs, cats, pigs, and stags, riding round and round. I wanted to get off but I wasn’t allowed to. All the little children were crying, like me they wanted to get out of the fire engines and hollowed-out swans, down from the backs of the cats, dogs, pigs, and stags, they didn’t want to ride on the merry-go-round any more, but they weren’t allowed to get off. The Heavenly Father was standing beside the merry-go-round and every time it stopped, he paid for another turn. And we prayed: “Oh, our Father who art in heaven, we know you have lots of loose change, we know you like to treat us to rides on the merry-go-round, we know you like to prove to us that this world is round. Please put your pocket-book away, say stop, finished, fertig, basta, stoi, closing time—we poor little children are dizzy, they’ve brought us, four thousand of us, to K"asemark on the Vistula, but we can’t get across, because your merry-go-round, your merry-go-round…”
But God our Father, the merry-go-round owner, smiled in his most benevolent manner and another coin came sailing out of his purse to make the merry-go-round keep on turning, carrying four thousand children with Oskar in their midst, in fire engines and hollowed-out swans, on cats, dogs, pigs, and stags, round and round in a ring, and every time my stag—I’m still quite sure it was a stag—carried us past our Father in heaven, the merry-go-round owner, he had a different face: He was Rasputin, laughing and biting the coin for the next ride with his faith healer’s teeth; and then he was Goethe, the poet prince, holding a beautifully embroidered purse, and the coins he took out of it were all stamped with his father-in-heaven profile; and then again Rasputin, tipsy, and again Herr von Goethe, sober. A bit of madness with Rasputin and a bit of rationality with Goethe. The extremists with Rasputin, the forces of order with Goethe.”
― Grass Gunter

“You never fail until you quit trying.”
― Tom Sechrist

“I'm a Southerner, born and bred, but that doesn't mean I approve of all that goes on here. And there are a lot of other white people who feel the same'
'If you and so many others feel that way,' said Uncle Hammer with a wry sneer, 'then how come them Wallaces ain't in jail.'
'Hammer,' Big Ma started.
'Because,' answered Mr. Jamison candidly. 'There aren't enough of those same white people who would admit how they feel, or even if they did, would hang a white man for killing a black one. It's as simple as that.”
― Mildred D. Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

“Puzzlement radiated from them, thought Mary, as if not recognizing that the beings staring at back at them were human.”
― Susan Rowland, The Swan Lake Murders

“Feed the soil, not your plants.”
― Charles Dowding, Charles Dowding's Skills for Growing

“Time is a luxury we don’t have. Each passing second raises the probability that someone else just took their last breath.”
― S.E. Stitcher, The Doomsday Butcher

“Acceptance can be so freeing. Before you know it, you’ll move toward forgiveness, which leads to wholeness.”
― Arelis Calkins, Rising Above Adversity: Healing and Nurturing your Inner Child

“The warm, resonant tones drifted through the wreckage, full-bodied and alive, a memory in every octave.”
― Marcia Breece, The Last Bottle

“But when friends and colleagues ask me if I plan to stop practicing law, I always respond, ‘No. I am just getting started.”
― Mark C. Zauderer, Counsel, the Courtroom Is Open: Lessons from More Than a Half-Century in Law and Life