Emilio Pretzel > Emilio's Quotes

“If one does not react to gossip, the informer hushes more quickly.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“I was just stunned; Aunt Kathy had actually moved on to another dimension! It finally happened! That lady was damn near invincible! She had survived assaults, coronaries, fevers, famines, flus, floods, plagues, pandemics, strokes, andglobal warming for almost 100 years. I’m willing to bet she outlived the Ice Age, but there’s no way to confirm it. If anyone told the devil “You’re a Lie,” it was Aunt Kathy. She just had a way of coming back and back like a sequel to a never-ending horror story. Whenever she fell ill, she reappeared as a new being more hostile than the previous entity.”
― Harold Phifer, My Bully, My Aunt, & Her Final Gift

“Various large trees— willowy peppers and especially the pines—seem to be reaching down to hold your hand.”
― Tom Hillman, Digging for God

“Whether you are on day one of being a Christian or day fifteen thousand, you should always have a teachable heart before God.”
― Kathryn Krick, The Secret of the Anointing: Accessing the Power of God to Walk in Miracles

“My people are taught from a young age to try to remember their dreams, to learn from them, and to aspire to achieve their dreams in the physical world.”
― Steven Decker, Projector for Sale

“We think that the word 'boy' or the the word 'girl' says something about who a person is, who they will be. But that difference is much less dictated by the body they're born in than created by what we expect of them and how we treat each other.”
― Sara Pascoe

“Out of the bedroom window, Tara watches the silver moon in the night sky cast a faint glow on the pine trees.  Ian was right.  It’s time to move on.  Not to forget, but to forge ahead.”
― Dawn Chalker

“Oskar Scultetus said, “Two of my men have been ordered to cut two of the guy wires holding the transmission tower in place, and they are already doing so  using  oxy-acetylene torches. When they have done it, the tower will fall!”
― Michael G. Kramer, His Forefathers and Mick

“Conclusion: I don't need the water reclaimer at all. I'll drink as needed and dump my waste outdoors. Yeah, that's right, Mars, I'm gonna piss and shit on you. That's what you get for trying to kill me all the time.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

“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

“He spoke grudgingly about his exploits. He did not belong to that species of persons who do things in order to talk about them (like me).”
― Primo Levi, The Periodic Table

“If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death
Perhaps the world can teach us
as when everything seems dead
but later proves to be alive.”
― pablo neruda

“In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick array, something like those in the finest Italian line engravings. But these marks do not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford the ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“The arms of love encompass you with your present, your past, your future, the arms of love gather you together.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry