Lyn Jensen > Lyn's Quotes

“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”
― Bertolt Brecht

“Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”
― Mark Twain

“Conservatism, by its very nature, has a much narrower definition than liberalism does. Be that as it may, seen from an ample viewpoint, most modern day conservatives are "liberals" in an economic sense, since they are usually fervent defenders of free market trade and bitter enemies of any sort of government intervention in the workings of the markets.”
― Roberto Vivo, War: A Crime Against Humanity

“When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It’ll settle you.'
'I don’t want to make somebody else. I want to make myself.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed the collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americans have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians and all other neighbors or inferiors, that American men are the world's most direct and virile, that American women are pure. Negroes know far more about white Americans than that; it can almost be said, in fact, that they know about white Americans what parents—or, anyway, mothers—know about their children, and that they very often regard white Americans that way. And perhaps this attitude, held in spite of what they know and have endured, helps to explain why Negroes, on the whole, and until lately, have allowed themselves to feel so little hatred. The tendency has really been, insofar as this was possible, to dismiss white people as the slightly mad victims of their own brainwashing.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“how can one respect, let alone adopt, the values of a people who do not, on any level whatever, live the way they say they do, or the way they say they should?”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“When the white man came to Africa, the white man had the Bible and the African had the land, but now it is the white man who is being, reluctantly and bloodily, separated from the land, and the African who is still attempting to digest or to vomit up the Bible.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“She shook my hand, loosely, like Indians do, using only her fingers. Not like those tight grips that white people use to prove something. She touched my hand like she was glad to see me, not like she wanted to break bones.”
― Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

“People can do things completely against their nature, completely. It’s like some tiny earthquake comes roaring through your body and soul, and it’s the only earthquake you’ll ever feel. But it damages so much, cracks the foundations of your life forever. So”
― Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

“While in junior high school, I became aware of social castes and realized they were weightier than racial categories. In the seventh grade, for the first time in my life, I was subjected to condescension by children of wealth, most of whom I considered jerks. It was frustrating because normal remedies did not apply: punching them out, earning better grades, consigning them to the bench in sports--nothing seemed to weaken the mind-set that assigned me an intrinsically inferior status: I still lived in Oildale and they summered in La Cresta; I summered at a packing shed, they summered at a country club.”
― Gerald Haslam

“Lynn's parents refused to accept Sean Casey's Indian blood and, in fact, exhibited a kind of denial that was nearly pathological in its intensity.”
― Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

“Her forefathers had been Vikings, savage chieftains who bore no cross and brooked no hindrance to their will.”
― Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage: Filibooks Classics

“My mother's mother's family moved north from Mexico after having migrated from Spain, from Portugal, from Ireland, and likely from an Indian village somewhere.”
― Gerald Haslam

“After her [Grandma's] death in the great flu epidemic of 1918, Grandpa had remarried a woman remembered without warmth by everyone in the family.”
― Gerald Haslam

“I have opened all the doors in my head.
I have opened all the pores in my body.
But only the tide rolls in.”
― Marilyn French, The Women's Room

“What is a man, anyway? Everything I see around me in popular culture tells me a man is he who screws and kills. But everything I see around me in life tells me a man is he who makes money.”
― Marilyn French, The Women's Room

“You said you like to write. . . . All you need are some couplets and a refrain. You just tell a story with words, about who screwed over whom, who broke whose heart, and how long they've been crying ever since. You know, just like real life.”
― Danielle Steel, Country

“My mother's mother's family moved north from Mexico having migrated from Spain, from Portugal, from Ireland, and likely from an Indian village somewhere.”
― Gerald W. Haslam, Coming Of Age In California: Personal Essays

“In any competitive society, woman is necessarily condemned to a position of inferiority by the burdens of maternity.”
― Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism (Classic Reprint) by Upton Sinclair

“In the south, you see, a "lady" takes for granted the slave-psychology in those she regards as her "social inferiors." Not merely does she expect immediate obedience from all members of the colored race; she feels the same way about policemen in uniform--it would never occur to her to think of a policeman as anything but a servant, prepared to behave as such.”
― Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism / The Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic Interpretation / The Book of Life

“Love of children--ah, yes, all scandal-bureaus know what that means!”
― Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism

“In England where the radicals were allowed to gather in Hyde Park and say what they chose, crimes of political violence were practically unknown. On the other hand, in America, where it was customary for the police to arrest radicals and club and jail them, such crimes were common.”
― Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism

“I am neither an accountant nor a lawyer, and I am not sure that I would be able to make sense of all this even if I were. After talking with each of the Crickets, with Petty, with the Holleys and Maria Elena and others who were close to the situation, it is my own judgement that Holly and the Crickets never received much of what was rightfully theirs--although they may well have been paid all that was legally due to them. In the entertainment industry, even more than in other businesses, what is fair and what is legal are often worlds apart. This is just my opinion and others may conclude differently.”
― John Goldrosen and John Beecher, Remembering Buddy: The Definitive Biography Of Buddy Holly

“I recently read that moving is right up there in stress level and freak-out factor with public speaking and being on a crashing airplane. No wonder my anxiety bucket is approaching capacity.”
― Rick Springfield, Late, Late at Night

“It's a natural progression, for any country in the world worth living in, that travelers from across the seas bring with them their own magic but slowly erase some of the original identity of the new land they are now a part of. I see it in Australia these days, too. It's not a bad thing; it's just change. Inexorable change.”
― Rick Springfield, Late, Late at Night

“I hear the word "tolerance" -- that some people are trying to teach people to be tolerant of gays. I'm not satisfied with that word. I am gay, and I am not seeking to be "tolerated." One tolerates a toothache, rush-hour traffic, an annoying neighbor with a cluttered yard. I am not a negative to be tolerated.”
― Chely Wright, Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer