Karie Plotkin > Karie's Quotes

“You can be a natural athlete with terrible work habits, and that ends up wasting your gifts.”
― Vernon Davis, Playing Ball: Life Lessons from My Journey to the Super Bowl and Beyond

“Buying loyalty can be as effective as fear when one’s rival is poorer than oneself.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“While an elderly man in his mid-eighties looks curiously at a porno site, his grandson asks him from afar, “‘What are you reading, grandpa?’” “‘It’s history, my boy.’” “The grandson comes nearer and exclaims, “‘But this is a porno site, grandpa, naked chicks, sex . . . a lot of sex!’” “‘Well, it’s sex for you, my son, but for me it’s history,’ the old man says with a sigh.” All of people in the cabin burst into laughter. “A stale joke, but a cool one,” added William More, the man who just told the joke. The navigator skillfully guided the flying disc among the dense orange-yellow blanket of clouds in the upper atmosphere that they had just entered. Some of the clouds were touched with a brownish hue at the edges. The rest of the pilots gazed curiously and intently outwards while taking their seats. The flying saucer descended slowly, the navigator’s actions exhibiting confidence. He glanced over at the readings on the monitors below the transparent console: Atmosphere: Dense, 370 miles thick, 98.4% nitrogen, 1.4% methane Temperature on the surface: ‒179°C / ‒290°F Density: 1.88 g/cm³ Gravity: 86% of Earth’s Diameter of the cosmic body: 3200 miles / 5150 km.”
― Todor Bombov, Homo Cosmicus 2: Titan: A Science Fiction Novel

“But when people talk about it they call it The Zombie Room.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room

“Although enemy forces had overrun the mortar and some gun positions, they did not have everything their own way.”
― Michael G. Kramer, A Gracious Enemy

“Private Detective, John Ballou, opened his glove compartment and took out his Colt 45 thinking an ex-con might be setting him up to settle an old score. He checked the bullet clip and slipped the powerful pistol into his coat pocket.”
― Shafter Bailey, James Ed Hoskins and the One-Room Schoolhouse: The Unprosecuted Crime Against Children

“My journey through the Congo had its ow unique category. It did not quite do it justice to call it adventure travel, and it certainly wasn't pleasure travel. My Congo journey deserved its own category: ordeal travel. At every turn I faced challenges, difficulties and threats when in the Congo. The challenge was to assess and choose the option best suited to making progress. But there were moments when there were no alternatives, or shortcuts or clever ideas. At these times, ordeal travel became really no ordeal at all.”
― Tim Butcher, Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart

“Los regalos se hacen por el gusto del que regala, no por mérito del que recibe.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“We give all we have, lives, property, safety, skill...we fight, we die, for a simple thing. Only that a man can stand up.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“The difference from a person and an angel is easy. Most of an angel is in the inside and most of a person is on the outside." These are the words of six- year old Anna, sometimes called Mouse, Hum, or Joy. At five years, Anna knew absolutely the purpose of being, knew the meaning of love, and was a personal friend and helper of Mister God. At six, Anna was a theologian, mathematician, philosopher, poet, and gardener. If you asked her a question you would always get ananswer in due course. On some occasions the answer would be delayed for weeks or months; but eventually, in her own good time, the answer would come: direct, simple, and much to the point.”
― Fynn, Mister God, This is Anna

“I’d begun to understand also that this wasn’t a trait peculiar just to Josie; that people often felt the need to prepare a side of themselves to display to passers-by – as they might in a store window – and that such a display needn’t be taken so seriously once the moment had passed.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun

“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