Rhonda > Rhonda's Quotes

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.”
― Milan Kundera

“Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made. ”
― Roger Caras

“Dogs are minor angels, and I don't mean that facetiously. They love unconditionally, forgive immediately, are the truest of friends, willing to do anything that makes us happy, etcetera. If we attributed some of those qualities to a person we would say they are special. If they had ALL of them, we would call them angelic. But because it's "only" a dog, we dismiss them as sweet or funny but little more. However when you think about it, what are the things that we most like in another human being? Many times those qualities are seen in our dogs every single day-- we're just so used to them that we pay no attention.”
― Jonathan Carroll

“There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I’m tempted to say that I have a struggle with depression, because that’s the commonly used phrase, but it’s really more of an ongoing partnership than a struggle. Depression just hangs out with me like a lax babysitter who is ambivalent about my bedtime. Depression is a text conversation that ebbs and flows; every once in a while, Depression texts, “Have you seen this meme? It’s going to psychologically wreck you for six months. Brunch soon?” Depression is like Jiminy Cricket riding around on my shoulder, but instead of acting as my conscience, it just mumbles, “You’re bad, things are bad, and nothing will improve.” And at this point I’m just like, “…Okay.” Like, we get it, girl. Thanks!”
― R. Eric Thomas, Congratulations, The Best Is Over!: Essays

“In every office I’ve worked, word of complimentary cake races through the ranks of the cubicle class like it’s a rumor about the Wells Fargo wagon showing up in River City, Iowa. Free break room cake is a blessing, a gift from some benevolent force that asks nothing of you in return. Free break room cake offers you an opportunity to share a portion of some other person’s joy, both literally and figuratively. In a space built on capitalist power structures, free break room cake reminds you that you don’t need to produce anything to be deserving of a little sweetness.”
― R. Eric Thomas, Congratulations, The Best Is Over!: Essays

“I don’t romanticize the city; I have experienced the harsh edge of city living enough times to know that no place is perfect but not enough times to make me a cable news commentator whose beat is “racially coded comments about lawlessness.” A city is a promise to society that is broken more times than it’s upheld. But it’s a promise I believe in with all my heart.”
― R. Eric Thomas, Congratulations, The Best Is Over!: Essays

“Often, it feels like so many of us who are considered “other” don’t have narrative or political value beyond the worst parts of our lives. But I know that we are more than that. I know that we can choose to share what is hard or choose to share some piece of our joy and hope, and the work is worthy either way.”
― R. Eric Thomas, Congratulations, The Best Is Over!: Essays

“The ‘kind’ slave owners in India, or anywhere, were always the ones who had the greatest difficulty seeing the injustice of slavery. Their kindness, their generosity compared to cruel slave owners, made them blind to the unfairness of a system of slavery that they created, they maintained, and that favored them. It’s like the British bragging about the railways, the colleges, the hospitals they left us—their ‘kindness’! As though that justified robbing us of the right to self-rule for two centuries! As though we should thank them for what they stole! Would Britain or Holland or Spain or Portugal or France be what they are now without what they earned by enslaving others? During the war, the British loved telling us how well they treated us compared to how the Japanese would treat us if they invaded. But should any nation rule over another nation? Such things only happen when one group thinks the other is inferior by birth, by skin color, by history. Inferior, and therefore deserving less.”
― Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water

“If you are making a rich person happy, or a regular person feel rich, aka better than other people, the money rolls. If it’s lowlifes you’re looking after, not so much. And if it’s kids, good luck, because anything to do with improving the life of a child is on the bottom.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

“Perhaps it's just me, but I am wary of any persons whose belief system is the only thing standing between them and repulsive behavior.”
― Frans de Waal, The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates

“People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.”
― James Baldwin