Dan Stapleton > Dan's Quotes

“The Japanese people were rapidly succumbing to what would later be called shoribyo, or “victory disease”—a faith that Japan was invincible, and could afford to treat its enemies with contempt. Its symptoms were overconfidence, a failure to weigh risks properly, and a basic misunderstanding of the enemy.”
― Ian W. Toll, Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942

“Nevertheless, the members of the Board of Trade were so delighted with the lamps that they decided to change Austin’s official nickname from “City of the Violet Crown” (in honor of Austin’s stunning sunsets) to “The City of Eternal Moonlight.”
― Skip Hollandsworth, The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer

“He paused, stone faced and sincere. “I like to think of the American flag, ma’am. It’s not one solid color—it’s sliced up by stripes and dotted with stars—all those different pieces crammed together onto one flag. But it is one flag, all of it bound together. And it’s our flag—yours, mine, all those who voted for you, and all those who voted against you. Those who have died before us, and those who will live on after us. You need to try to be like that flag, ma’am. Your presidency needs to be like that flag.” “Holding all those parts together,” she said. “Yes ma’am. We need you to hold us all together.” Behind”
― Bryan Devore, The Paris Protection

“Another expedition journeyed far to the east, across the Panhandle of Texas, and contacted a party of Caddoan Indians. These were Hasinai, but the Spaniards called them Tejas, from the Caddoan Teychas, meaning “allies” or “friends.” This word was spelled “Texas” frequently in old Spanish, in which the “x” was substituted for a “j” sound, and from this mistaken tribal name the land derived its name.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans

“All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream. —T. K. Whipple, Study Out the Land”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“Donald Trump is not a religious man—that’s no secret to anyone. He viewed the faith community as a political constituency.”
― Cliff Sims, Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House

“It had been there plain as day before me, but my attention had been distracted by a far more dramatic, impressive crevice that turned out to be nothing but a dry run. Funny how that works in life, both with places and with people.”
― Ben H English, Out There: Essays on the Lower Big Bend

“We were playing a story game Bucky had invented called the Last Supper. It consisted of allowing those evil, avenging creatures of God—horseflies—to light on the exposed skin of your arm or leg and take a bite. At that point, you make up an epitaph, which you deliver to the horsefly as he eats his last meal, and then you flatten the little bastard. The speeches are voted on by those in attendance, and the best speech wins a bottle of wine.”
― Jimmy Buffett, A Salty Piece of Land

“And since he was busy, he was difficult to interview. A high-pressure reporter from a Kansas City paper made the long journey to the ranch and found him sweating over a pair of post-hole diggers, the dirt a-flying. He rushed up to the Colonel, thrust out a glad hand, and breezily announced: ‘Colonel Goodnight, Brown is my name.’ Straightening from the task the Colonel drilled him with his eye, and roared: ‘What in the hell can I do about it? I didn’t name you.”
― J. Evetts Haley, Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman

“We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing!”
― Benjamin Franklin