From early on, my father talked to me like an adult. One of the earliest things he did was teach me the Latin names of the parts of the body. He was very analytic. We had no money, but intellectual curiosity was encouraged, and my parents constantly talked with each other. This develops the brain. I remember listening and thinking, listening to voices talking, talking, talking. My father died of cancer but lived long enough to see me famous, though not long enough to read my book fully. If he were alive I wouldn't be quite so outrageous, speaking about my sex life, for instance. I don't believe in embarrassing my family.
Camille Paglia
» Camille Paglia - all quotes »
Death is not an easy thing for anyone to understand, least of all a child, but every life shall one day end. But as long as we are alive, as long as we are together, as long as two of us are left, and remember him, nothing in the world can take him from us. His body can be taken, but not him. You shall know your father better as you grow and know yourself better. He is not dead, because you are alive. Time and accident, illness and weariness took his body, but already you have given it back to him, younger and more eager than ever. I don't expect you to understand anything I'm telling you. But I know you will remember this that nothing good ever ends. If it did, there would be no people in the world no life at all, anywhere. And the world is full of people and full of wonderful life.
William Saroyan
I've been listening to a phrase, Internment Without Trial. And I keep thinking of the people that were murdered without trial. I'm not talking about the police, I'm not talking about the army. I'm talking about people that were shot dead on their doorsteps, through windows, in the presence of their children, their parents and their wives. These people in their graves are crying out for retribution and it's not going to come anymore. And there are people who are not in their graves. They're in hospitals. They're in wheelchairs. There are girls who thought they were going to grow up, and never will. And young women who thought they were going to get married, and they never will, and they'd rather they were dead. And there are people too that... they don't want to be dead because their brains are destroyed, they're vegetables and they're going to be vegetables forever. And you are morally responsible for that! Morally, you are a murderer! And not only are you a murderer, but now you add the extra dimension by saying 'I want peace' and you're a hypocrite as well!
Gerry Adams
I had by this time heard a number of his public speeches and was beginning to understand the pattern of their appeal. The first secret lay in his choice of words. Every generation develops its own vocabulary of catchwords and phrases, and these date thoughts and utterances. My own father talked like a contemporary of Bismarck, the people of my own age bore the stamp of Wilhelm II, but Hitler had caught the casual camaraderie of the trenches, and without stooping to slang, except for special effects, managed to talk like a member of his audience. In describing the difficulties of the housewife without enough money to buy the buy the food her family needed in the Viktualien Market he would produce just the phrases she would have used herself to describe her difficulties, if she had been able to formulate them. Where other national orators gave the painful impression of talking down to their audience, he had his priceless gift of expressing exactly their own thoughts.
Ernst Hanfstaengl
The death penalty, it's not a system of justice, it is a system of a so-called system of justice that perpetuates a, shall I say, a vindictive type of response, a vigilante type of aura upon it. Were talking about something that is barbaric. Were talking about something that it doesn't deter anything. I mean, if it did, then it wouldn't be so many especially in California, we're talking about over 650 individuals on death row. And if it was a deterrent, this place wouldn't be filled like this. And it's an expensive ordeal that the money, as you know, the monetary means comes out of the taxpayers' pocket.
Stanley Williams
"You're too good to us... I don't know if we deserve it, just thank you so much... We were talking -may I speak English for a-... We were talking in the back, this has to be, as far as your voices and energy... I... of all the years I think this is the greatest audience we've ever played for... es verdad... I mean no one sings the guitar parts, for Christ's sake...' - Buenos Aires/Argentina (11/25/05)
Eddie Vedder
Paglia, Camille
Pahlavi, Muhammad Reza
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