Dave

“We’re all honorary citizens of that primal forest, and our burdens and weaknesses always remain. They are an ineradicable part of ourselves; they are our humanity. But when we bring light, the day becomes ours and their power to determine our future is diminished. This is the way it works. The trick is, you can only brighten the forest from beneath the canopy of its trees . . . from within. To bring the light, you must first make your way through the bramble-filled darkness. Safe travels.”

Excerpt From: Born to Run”
― Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen -- Born to Run: Piano/Vocal/Chords

“Lesson: Don’t hold on to something’s going to pull you into a trap. If you’re going to let go, let go early. Better yet, don’t take the bait at all.”
― Don Winslow, City on Fire

“KIMURA Tokyo Station is packed. It’s been a while since Yuichi Kimura was here last, so he isn’t sure if it’s always this crowded. He’d believe it if someone told him there was a special event going on. The throngs of people coming and going press in on him, reminding him of the TV show he and Wataru had watched together, the one about penguins, all jammed in tight together. At least the penguins have an excuse, thinks Kimura. It’s freezing where they live. He waits for an opening in the stream of people, cuts between the souvenir shops and kiosks, quickening his pace. Up a short flight of stairs to the turnstile for the Shinkansen high-speed bullet train. As he passes through the automated ticketing gate”
― Kōtarō Isaka, Bullet Train

“What can be done to resurrect and implement the pan-African project? Cameron Duodu too, has looked back and asked what went wrong. As a Ghanian rookie reporter he witnessed the celebrations of freedom on 6 March 1957 a few years later he reported on Ghana from the crisis in the Congo. For him the Congo’s tragedy illustrates Africa's problem with the western world, whereby the Congo is still not stable and able to relieve the poverty of its people. Lamumba, writes Duodo, sadly lost power, he lost his country and in the end, his very life. The amazing thing, he adds, is that Lamumba had done absolutely nothing against the combination of forces that wanted him dead. They just saw him as a threat to their interests. Interest narrowly defined to mean “His country has got resources. We want them. He might not give them to us so let us go get him.” All this was done, Duodu observes, to achieve the selfish end of continuing to control the Congo’s rich mineral resources, but it wasn't only the Congo they wished to control they wanted to gulp down the entire African continent, Duodu add, and some so still do.”
― Susan Williams, White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa