Eric > Eric's Quotes

“Oddly enough, because I was laid off in the afternoon on September 10th, and because the Human Resources Department all died, I was never taken off the payroll. I went back to work again—it’s not like they had to rehire me. I was never gone.”
― Garrett M. Graff, The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11

“I remember [my first meeting] like it was yesterday. A 24-year-old woman came to see me, sobbing. “Mr. Feinberg, my husband died in the World Trade Center. He was a fireman, and he left me with our two children, six and four. Now, I’ve applied to the Fund, and you have calculated that I’m going to get $2.8 million tax-free. I want it in 30 days.” I said, “Why do you need the money in 30 days?” She said, “Why 30 days? I have terminal cancer. I have 10 weeks to live. My husband was gonna survive me and take care of our two children. Now they’re gonna be orphans. I have got to get this money while I still have my faculties. I’ve gotta set up a trust. I’ve gotta find a guardian. We never anticipated this.” I ran down to the Treasury, we accelerated the processing of her claim, we got her the money, and eight weeks later she died. You think you’re ready for anything and you’re not.”
― Garrett M. Graff, The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11

“We met when we were only 16, at a high school dance. When he died, we were 50. I remember how I didn't want that day to end, terrible as it was. I didn't want to go to sleep because as long as I was awake, it was still a day that I shared with Sean. ~Beverly Eckert”
― Garrett M. Graff, The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11

“It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning.”
― John Buchan, The 39 Steps

“We have to be prepared and willing to discover what is true even at the cost of our comfort. For real security always lies on the side of truth, not on the side of comfort.”
― Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering

“Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.”
― Emil Cioran

“Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?”
― Emil Cioran, Tears and Saints

“The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live --moreover, the only one.”
― E. M. Cioran

“Tout, au monde, existe pour aboutir à un livre”
― Mallarmé Stéphane 1842-1898

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightening to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.”
― Chuck Close, Chuck Close

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.”
― Audre Lorde

“Nobody’s Ready for Marriage—Marriage Makes You Ready for Marriage”
― David Schnarch, Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships