Sam Honeycutt > Sam's Quotes

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

“Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.”
― Theodore Roethke, Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!”
― Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

“Peter was dimly aware on some level that with each swing of his arm, the purity by which his youth was defined was shattering all around him, irrevocably so, and he would no more be able to put his soul back together the way it was before than reassemble a broken pane of glass.
After tonight, he knew things would never be the same.”
― Sean J. Quirk, Catch

“She sits quietly in the passenger seat, holding Lola tightly in her arms, looking up at the starry sky and thinks about cute, big eyed, little green aliens all sitting quietly behind their desks, pencils in hand, diligently taking notes from their teacher on proper earthly etiquette.
The thought makes her smile.”
― Sean J. Quirk, Catch

“A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.”
― John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy

“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”
― Federico García Lorca, Blood Wedding and Yerma

“It is not in a woman's best interest to rule man. I don't believe any good women would want that position." - Ayn Rand”
― Brooke Bida

“No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.”
― William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

“In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on and uninhabited planet.”
― William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

“Adolf Hitler is probably the last of the great adventurer-conquerors in the tradition of Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon, and the Third Reich the last of the empires which set out on the path taken earlier by France, Rome and Macedonia. The curtain was rung down on that phase of history, at least, by the sudden invention of the hydrogen bomb, of the ballistic missile and of rockets that can be aimed to hit the moon.”
― William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”
― Rosemarie Urquico

“It would figure the best looking guy on this ward is gay...and he has a sexier than sin boyfriend...I swear to God I'm going to turn into a man. It's the only way".”
― Crystal Rose, I'll Be Your Drill, Soldier

“Because you can't argue with all the fools in the world. It's easier to let them have their way, then trick them when they're not paying attention.”
― Christopher Paolini

“Zane was starting to piss him off again. Which was good, he supposed. It meant the urge to lick him all over was passing, at least.”
― Abigail Roux, Cut & Run

“When Ty was truly hot and bothered, it could be an amazing experience, like being mauled by a lion without the fuss of needing stitches after.”
― Abigail Roux, Fish & Chips

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: Volume 2

“There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“In the first of these senses, neither Christ nor the Christian is supposed to be the world’s servant. Jesus is obedient, not to the world but to the Father. He is the servant of God, not of men, and we too are called to be servants of God.”
― Avery Dulles, Models of the Church

“But this could be interpreted primarily in terms of the ministry of word and sacrament, in accordance with the previous models of the Church, rather than in terms of caritative service.”
― Avery Dulles, Models of the Church

“The most important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. —CHARLES DUBOIS”
― David Simpson, Post-Human Trilogy

“Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.”
― June Jordan