Joe > Joe's Quotes

“Every woman deserves the simple dignity of dying in a bed with clean sheets and an electric light at hand.'

-spoken by Sara, the missionary doctor, during a moment of indignation.”
― Joe Niemczura, The Sacrament of the Goddess

“He looked at her face and hesitated. He looked up at the canyon walls. Here on the sandbar, it was eerily quiet except for the tinkle of water over the rocks. A large bird made lazy soaring circles way up in the sky, almost invisible due to the angle of the sun. God forgive me, he thought. Then he touched Ranjit’s lighter to the small sheaf of dried grass and threw it on the pyre. He was surprised at the flash when it caught fire. It wouldn’t be long, he thought. I will move on, but I will never forget this place.

(from The Sacrament of the Goddess)”
― Joe Niemczura

“She knew the old rule about crowd events in Nepal. If it was a religious event, those with the most fervor would be at the center of the crowd, and to take in the flavor of the event, you wished to get closest to that group; but if it was a political event or a bandh, locate the group with the most fervor and get as far away from them as you possibly can.”
― Joe Niemczura, The Sacrament of the Goddess

“That night, Sushila went to the puja room when she arrived home. Her house was small, with only a few rooms, but there had always been a puja room as long as she could remember. It was in the northeast corner of the house, and Sushila once asked her mother why they did not have a fancier bigger puja room.
“We are small people and we will be happy with small gods. It is not the size of the space used for worship that matters,” said her mother. “It is the size of your heart that matters. You can learn the lessons of Buddha and the Goddess in a prison, you do not need even this humble puja room. There are people in this town who are happy with much less than what we have.”
― Joe Niemczura, The Sacrament of the Goddess

“And this is a Buddhist country?” said Matt, “This is a country of lovingkindness and compassion? Hah. I think the Americans would call this ‘tough love.’ ”
“That is the paradox of Buddhism,” said Ranjit, “As a young doctor I would see these violent things and wonder why they happened, knowing that it was not something that Buddhists should do. Then I realized we are not born Buddhist. All the focus on channeling anger and dealing with hardship did not emanate from these people…. It was a lesson to these people. We are a land of Buddhists because we need to hear the lessons of Buddha, not because we follow Buddha.”

-spoken by Ranjit, the surgeon, after an episode of violence....”
― Joe Niemczura, The Sacrament of the Goddess

“(For awhile there I was trying to remember the chain of events that precisely landed me doing this activity in this place on this planet at this time but couldn’t…. That was scary. I am just *existing* at times, having dropped all extraneous ruminations as to how or why. It seems natural to be on the bus smiling as the two Hindu women chat away while we share butter crackers and look at the rice paddies in the valley below. Goats scatter as the bus slams to a creep. Doesn’t everyone do this?)

from wordpress blog:
http://joeniemczura.wordpress.com/201...”
― Joe Niemczura

“Close your eyes, Matt, and focus on third eye, the second chakra of your being. Open third eye and you will feel energy of other river as it flows. And energy of Goddess.”

He closed his eyes. He could sense the energy of the woman next to him and the power of desire. He felt warmth and a sense of belonging here. But that was all.”
― Joe Niemczura, The Sacrament of the Goddess

“Now, it is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be more than sufficient to get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“Write the book you want to read, the one you cannot find.”
― Carol Shields

“Truth is not anchored to the ground by driven piles. It can float and take to the air; it is light and lovely and delicate. It is feminine as well as masculine. It is often gentle, and sometimes it can even make a fool of itself—but when it does it calls down God (who protects weak creatures), and suddenly its foolishness becomes a blazing, piercing light.”
― Mark Helprin, Ellis Island And Other Stories: Prize-Winning Short Stories and Novella – Literary Masterpiece

“My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Understanding Our Mind: 50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology

“The true miracle is not walking on water or walking in air, but simply walking on this earth.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh

“Mac Rebennack, better known as Dr. John, once told me that when a brass band plays at a small club back up in one of the neighborhoods, it's as if the audience--dancing, singing to the refrains, laughing--is part of the band. They are two parts of the same thing. The dancers interpret, or it might be better to say literally embody, the sounds of the band, answering the instruments. Since everyone is listening to different parts of the music--she to the trumpet melody, he to the bass drum, she to the trombone--the audience is a working model in three dimensions of the music, a synesthesic transformation of materials. And of course the band is also watching the dancers, and getting ideas from the dancers' gestures. The relationship between band and audience is in that sense like the relationship between two lovers making love, where cause and effect becomes very hard to see, even impossible to call by its right name; one is literally getting down, as in particle physics, to some root stratum where one is freed from the lockstop of time itself, where time might even run backward, or sideways, and something eternal and transcendent is accessed.”
― Tom Piazza, Why New Orleans Matters

“Boston is a great center of learning. That surgeon was a tantric Buddha,” said Ram in admiration, “The smell of cautery is the finest incense. It sharpens the mind.”
― Joe Niemczura

“Exactly. I think the original tantric Buddhists took notice of was some very wise old people who never studied in their youth, but took part in a range of risk-taking adventures when they were younger, and finally became wise when they reflected upon their lives in old age. There is only one problem.”

“Which is?”

“Risk-taking is a way to die young. It is dangerous and you may forfeit the opportunity to grow old. An early death is not a sure path to wisdom in old age,” Ranjit said, running his finger around the inside of the pipe bowl, “and if you survive without reflecting, then you simply become an old degenerate.”
― Joe Niemczura, The Sacrament of the Goddess

“I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen 200 limping, exhausted men come out of line—the survivors of a regiment of 1,000 that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

“An army, great in space, may offer opposition in a brief span of time. One man, brief in space, must spread his opposition across a period of many years if he is to have a chance of succeeding.”
― Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

“You meet someone and you’re sure you were lovers in a past life. After two weeks with them, you realize why you haven’t kept in touch for the last two thousand years.”
― Al Cleathen

“All you have to do [to win a Pulitzer Prize] is spend your life running from one awful place to another, write about every horrible thing you see. The civilized world reads about it, then forgets it, but pats you on the head for doing it and gives you a reward as appreciation for changing nothing.”
― David Baldacci, The Christmas Train

“Assimilate ubiquitously. Doublethink.
To deliberately believe in lies, while knowing they're false.
Examples of this in everyday life: "oh, I need to be pretty to be happy. I need surgery to be pretty. I need to be thin, famous, fashionable.". Our young men today are being told that women are **, **, things to be **, beaten, **, and shamed. This is a marketing holocaust. Twenty-fours hours a day for the rest of our lives, the powers that be are hard at work dumbing us to death.
So to defend ourselves, and fight against assimilating this dullness into our thought processes, we must learn to read. To stimulate our own imagination, to cultivate our own consciousness, our own belief systems. We all need skills to defend, to preserve, our own minds.”
― Henry Barthes