Porscha > Porscha's Quotes

“Awareness of the settler-colonialist context of US history writing is essential if one is to avoid the laziness of the default position and the trap of a mythological unconscious belief in manifest destiny. The”
― Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

“as an ideology involves much more than skin color, although skin color has been and continues to be a key component of racism in the United States. White supremacy can be traced to the colonizing ventures of the Christian Crusades in Muslim-controlled territories and to the Protestant colonization of Ireland.”
― Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

“But Mike was not a Layercake device; Beria had misdirected his scientific staff. In time this led to Beria’s ultimate dilemma.”
― Thomas C. Reed, The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and Its Proliferation

“He can’t be a baby forever. He’s a Stark, and near four.” Robb sighed. “Well, Mother will be home soon. And I’ll bring back Father, I promise.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire, 5-Book Boxed Set: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons

“A large wave now approaches the base of the cliff, and a gigantic bua tree, covered with fragrant blossoms, springs up from Avaiki (nether world) to receive on its far-reaching branches human spirits, who are mysteriously impelled to cluster on its limbs. When at length the mystic tree is covered with human spirits, it goes down with its living freight to the nether world. Akaanga, the slave of fearful Miru, mistress of the invisible world, infallibly catches all these unhappy spirits in his net and laves them to and fro in a lake. In these waters the captive ghosts exhaust themselves by wriggling about like fishes, in the vain hope of escape. The net is pulled up, and the half-drowned spirits enter into the presence of dread Miru, who is ugliness personified. The secret of Miru’s power over her intended victims is the ‘kava’ root (Piper mythisticum). A”
― Moncure D. Conway, Demonology and Devil-lore

“In many ways you can say that the prison serves as an institution that consolidates the state’s inability and refusal to address the most pressing social problems of this era.”
― Angela Y. Davis, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

“In the next few chapters I will lay out five primal myths that underlie America’s conspiracy folklore. By using the word myths, I don’t mean to suggest that these stories are never true. I mean that they’re culturally resonant ideas that appear again and again when Americans communicate with one another: archetypes that can absorb all kinds of allegations, true or not, and arrange them into a familiar form. One is the Enemy Outside, who plots outside the community’s gates, and one is the Enemy Within, comprising villainous neighbors who can’t easily be distinguished from friends. There is the Enemy Above, hiding at the top of the social pyramid, and there is the Enemy Below, lurking at the bottom. And then there is the Benevolent Conspiracy, which isn’t an enemy at all: a secret force working behind the scenes to improve people’s lives.”
― Jesse Walker, The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory

“If we’re looking at supposed subversives who can’t easily be distinguished from other Americans, who are rumored to recruit young people into an underground society, who gather in forbidden places and communicate through code, there’s one more subculture we should discuss before leaving the Enemy Within behind. Even its members have been known to describe their lives with metaphors of conspiracy. “Occasionally two homosexuals might meet in the great world,” Gore Vidal wrote in The City and the Pillar. “When they did, by a quick glance they acknowledged one another and, like amused conspirators, observed the effect each was having. It was a form of freemasonry.”73”
― Jesse Walker, The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory

“It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat; and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see. He”
― H.P. Lovecraft, Complete Collection of H.P. Lovecraft - 150 eBooks with 100+ Audio Books Included

“Inevitably, pressure increases on intimate relationships as they take on all-encompassing importance in a contracting world. The stress has a polarizing effect of either cannibalizing the relationship or canonizing it. It becomes the scapegoat or panacea for all the escalating and destabilizing frustration of exile.”
― Joshua V. Scher, Here & There

“Reagan’s Drugs Czar, Carlton Turner, said that kids deserved to die as a punishment for smoking poisoned weed, to teach them a lesson. Two years later, he called for the death penalty for all drug users. On”
― Shaun Attwood, Pablo Escobar: Beyond Narcos

“To be a person of relative power and privilege viewing a person of less power and privilege is a political act. The gaze of the powerful is neither neutral nor benign; misrecognition hinders the ability of black people to act as citizens. Indeed, hooks asserts, challenging white people’s assumptions about what they see when they view black people is a critical step toward liberation and equality.21”
― Melissa V. Harris-Perry, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America

“Few indeed are those who get a choice. We do as we are told. We stand or fall beside those who were born near to us, who look as we do, who speak the same words, and all the while we know as little of the reasons why as does the dust we return to.’ Her”
― Joe Abercrombie, Before They Are Hanged

“Sisters can sometimes get their way by confirming the expectation that they are threatening and angry, but doing so may leave them feeling that they have not truly been heard at all.”
― Melissa V. Harris-Perry, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America

“Indeed, the crown alone betokened majesty; in all else the, Scarecrow King was but a simple scarecrow—flimsy, awkward, and unsubstantial.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Complete Oz

“What can be more soul shaking than peering through a 100-inch telescope at a distant galaxy, holding a 100-million-year-old fossil or a 500,000-year-old stone tool in one’s hand, standing before the immense chasm of space and time that is the Grand Canyon, or listening to a scientist who gazed upon the face of the universe’s creation and did not blink? That is deep and sacred science.”
― Michael Shermer

“If you thought your mind had a monopoly on screwing you over, you were sorely mistaken. Your body seems to be in cahoots with the boss upstairs and has its very own contributions to that lovely beast we call anxiety. Don't worry if you are one of those lucky people who seem to have anxiety that is primarily driven by physical symptoms. You're not S.O.L. We just need to approach things a little differently.”
― Robert Duff, Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety

“It should hurt, shouldn’t it? Shouldn’t it hurt to be ripped in half? But it didn’t. It didn’t hurt the least little bit. Cold. She felt only cold. But the warm rope of her guts laying against her face felt good. Warm. She took comfort in the warmth.”
― Terry Goodkind, Stone of Tears

“The most important rule there is, the Wizard’s Sixth Rule: the only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason.”
― Terry Goodkind, Faith of the Fallen

“The woman had a voice that could unwind a good rope.”
― Terry Goodkind, The Pillars of Creation

“The ground was soaked with blood. What had been Clovis was no longer remotely recognizable. His jaw was shattered and hung completely unhinged to the side. One eye socket had been altogether caved in. Oba’s knee had broken the man’s sternum and crushed his chest. It was glorious.”
― Terry Goodkind, The Pillars of Creation

“Oh, yes, when applied correctly mighty and noble battles result! Of course I always win—the value of Prince X is a constant. It cannot be lesser than that of Monster Y—this is the Moral Superiority Hypothesis made famous five hundred years ago by my ancestor Ethelred, the Mathematician-King. We have never seen his equal, in all these centuries.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, In the Night Garden

“You came!” he whispered. “How do you always find me?” The girl smiled. “Magic,” she whispered. “After all, I am a demon.” “You always come to the window, you come to find me and carry me away—that is not what girls are supposed to do. It is what the Princes do in all the stories.” “This is not that kind of story.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, In the Night Garden

“The science of innocence is complex and technical—I shall not worry your little ears with such talk. Suffice it to say the hymen is irrelevant, as irrelevant to us as trousers. The word innocent means without harm—did you know? Your mother ought to have taught you what a dictionary was. There is some debate, when unicorns gather, as to what, exactly, the definition ought to be: one who has not been harmed, or one who has done no harm. The smell is different, of course, and everyone has their tastes. I have always held that those who do no harm are the most rarefied creatures—which is why we draw back in such horror when the huntsmen come. Suddenly the dove who opened its little wings to us is a dove no longer, but a thing which has caused harm, great harm, which has brought arrows and knives, and smells like burning crusts, scorched flour.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, In the Cities of Coin and Spice

“I do not rightly know where the first goldfish heard that this waterfall was anything but an unfortunate drop in the river table. But gossip travels among us quickly; this is the nature of fish. And some red-finned fellow had heard it whispered by the trout, who had it from the pike, who had been assured by the thorny-boned catfish, who had listened rapt to the drumfish’s clacking tongue, who knew the eel would never lie, who was in awe of the adventures of the bass. And all of these agreed, that if a goldfish could but leap over this waterfall, she would become a dragon.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, In the Cities of Coin and Spice

“Did you never wonder why the old books are so full of dragons chasing after maidens? The serpents think the girls are orphans, and long to get them away in a lair so that they may grow up strong and tall.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, In the Cities of Coin and Spice

“I did not mean to break that planet it was just in the way when I came into being and I fixed it and I said I was sorry and the planet said OK so since I’m supposed to learn from stuff like that I will tell you don’t break planets, especially the ones with living things on them, or at least fix them if you do break them. Also, don’t go in black holes, no matter how much they look like cute little Nahas. They are not cute! They are actually very bitey and kind of mean. Also just OK I do not want to talk about any of this anymore.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Awakened Kingdom

“When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

“What did it say about the movement of time, about what was about to happen, that I could understand the hummingbird spin of human voices?”
― Gregory Maguire, Mirror Mirror

“Meaning—this is perhaps the common note, the bane I am seeking. What is the Meaning of this book, this event in the book, this story . . . ? Tell me what it Means. But that’s not my job, honey. That’s your job. I know, at least in part, what my story means to me. It may well mean something quite different to you. And what it meant to me when I wrote it in 1970 may be not at all what it meant to me in 1990 or means to me in 2011. What it meant to anybody in 1995 may be quite different from what it will mean in 2022.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters