Tim

“So this pickup group, these exiles and horny kids, sullen civilians called up in their middle age, men fattening despite their hunger, flatulent because of it, pre-ulcerous, hoarse, runny-nosed, red-eyed, sore-throated, piss-swollen men suffering from acute lower backs and all-day hangovers, wishing death on officers they truly hate, men you have seen on foot and smileless in the cities and forgot, men who don't remember you either, knowing they ought to be grabbing a little sleep, not out here performing for strangers, give you this evensong, climaxing now with its rising fragment of some ancient scale, voices overlapping three and fourfold, filling the entire hollow of the church - no counterfeit baby, no announcement of the Kingdom, not even a try at warming or lighting this terrible night, only, damn us, our scruffy obligatory little cry, our maximum reach outward - praise be to God! - for you to take back to your war-address, your war-identity, across the snow's footprints and tire tracks finally to the path you must create by yourself, alone in the dark. Whether you want it or not, whatever seas you have crossed, the way home...”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

“You've got to choose some line of action and live by it. Otherwise nothing matters at all. You probably end with a gas oven. I've chosen certain people who've had the lean portion for some centuries now."

"But your people are betrayed all the time."

"It doesn't matter. You might say it's the only job left for anyone--sticking to a job. It's no good taking a moral line--my people commit atrocities like the others. I suppose if I believed in a God it would be simpler."

"Do you believe," she said, "that your leaders are any better than L.'s?" She swallowed her brandy and began to tap the counter nervously with the little metal bullet.

"No. Of course not. But I still prefer the people they lead--even if they lead them all wrong."

"The poor, right or wrong," she scoffed.

"It's no worse, is it, than my country right or wrong? You choose your side once for all--of course it may be the wrong side. Only history can tell that.”
― Graham Greene, The Confidential Agent

“This is Trump’s radical proposed revision to the traditional presidency: not only that the president doesn’t need to be honest, but that he can be known to everyone as a “fucking liar”—not an occasional liar, not a calculating liar, but a pervasive, constant liar and bullshitter on all subjects at all times.”
― Susan Hennessey, Unmaking the Presidency: Donald Trump's War on the World's Most Powerful Office

“That project, the State Water Project, more than anything else, is the symbol of California's immense wealth, determination, and grandiose vision -- a demonstration that it can take its rightful place in the company of nations rather than mere states. It has also offered one of the country's foremost examples of socialism for the rich.”
― Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water