Ten Quotes - page 78
A genuine taradiddle of the gross and palpable kind never fails for want of vouchers. Hundreds know it to be true-hundreds more were all but eye-witnesses of the fact related-some actually were; all can attest it on their personal responsibility. Upon that point everybody has a reputation for veracity to stake-though the same stake had been forfeited fifty times; and everybody can contribute to the original story an unquestionable incident of his own coinage "to make assurance doubly sure." So it goes round, until the first projector hardly recognizes his own lie; and ends by believing ten times more absurdity than he had palmed upon others.
Samuel Laman Blanchard
I've been watching politics for 35 or 40 years and you just never know. You can have one person win the Iowa caucus and then the whole picture changes ten minutes later. The same thing can happen again after New Hampshire. I have no idea what's going to happen with our country in the future.
Jackie Mason
There is a widespread public misperception, particularly among the New Age sector, that the Chinese word for "crisis” is composed of elements that signify "danger” and "opportunity.” I first encountered this curious specimen of alleged oriental wisdom about ten years ago at an altitude of 35,000 feet sitting next to an American executive. ... While it is true that wēijī does indeed mean "crisis” and that the wēi syllable of wēijī does convey the notion of "danger,” the jī syllable of wēijī most definitely does not signify "opportunity.” ... The jī of wēijī, in fact, means something like "incipient moment; crucial point (when something begins or changes).” Thus, a wēijī is indeed a genuine crisis, a dangerous moment, a time when things start to go awry. A wēijī indicates a perilous situation when one should be especially wary.
Victor H. Mair
"My dad, he didn't even have the eyes to see me after all of his tall, blue-eyed sons were dead. He started bellowing from the hilltop to hilltop like a madman, saying that God had forsaken him, and he had nothing more to live for, because all his sons were gone!” Tears streamed down my dad's face. "I was about nine or ten, the same ag.
Victor Villaseñor
Look at me closely, amigo,” said my dad. "Here is a hundred-dollar bill just to start with. Thirty dollars of this is for you to put in your own pocket right now. Capiche?” The bartender's whole attitude changed. Suddenly he wasn't tired anymore. "Yes, mi general, entiendo!” he said. "Good, and give another twenty to the chef in back and ten to the dishwasher. That leaves forty for my son and me to drink and eat a little something.” "But of course!” said the barkeeper. "The whole place is open for you! Which tequila would you like?” he added anxiously. "Herradura, and a couple of Modelo cervezas.” "I like Dos Equis,” I said. "The dark one.” "Okay,” said my dad, "one Modelo and one dark Dos Equis.” The bartender was flying, moving, truly enjoying the whole show. My dad winked at me. "Like I always say, to tip after the meal is stupid. Tip first and big, and the whole world changes.
Victor Villaseñor
All I knew was that I'd flunked the third grade twice because I couldn't learn to read, had a terrible time all through grammar school and high school. Then after ten years of writing, I was finally able to sell my first book to a leading mass-market paperback publisher in New York.
Victor Villaseñor
This morning I came, I saw, and I was conquered, as everyone would be who sees for the first time this great feat of mankind... Ten years ago the place where we gathered was an unpeopled, forbidding desert. In the bottom of the gloomy canyon whose precipitous walls rose to height of more than a thousand feet, flowed a turbulent, dangerous river... The site of Boulder City was a cactus-covered waste. And the transformation wrought here in these years is a twentieth century marvel.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Ten ancient capitals of Europe are behind the Iron Curtain. A large part of this continent is held in bondage. They have escaped from Nazism only to fall into the other extreme of Communism. It is like making a long and agonizing journey to leave the North Pole only to find out that, as a result, you have woken up in the South Pole. All around are only ice and snow and bitter piercing winds.
Winston Churchill
