Tough Quotes - page 60
A physical book is like a shark. Sharks are old: there were sharks in the ocean before the dinosaurs. And the reason there are still sharks around is that sharks are better at being sharks than anything else is. Physical books are tough, hard to destroy, bath-resistant, solar-operated, feel good in your hand: they are good at being books, and there will always be a place for them.
Douglas Adams
This family has no outsiders. Everyone is an insider. When Jesus said, "I, if I am lifted up, will draw..." Did he say, "I will draw some"? "I will draw some, and tough luck for the others"? He said, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all." All! All! All! – Black, white, yellow; rich, poor; clever, not so clever; beautiful, not so beautiful. All! All! It is radical. All! Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Bush – all! All! All are to be held in this incredible embrace. Gay, lesbian, so-called "straight;" all! All! All are to be held in the incredible embrace of the love that won't let us go.
Desmond Tutu
I save about twenty drafts - that's ten meg of disc space - and the last one contains all the final alterations. Once it has been printed out and received by the publishers, there's a cry here of 'Tough shit, literary researchers of the future, try getting a proper job!' and the rest are wiped.
Terry Pratchett
In spite of all the training you get and precautions you take to keep yourself alive, it's largely a matter of luck that decided whether or not you get killed. It doesn't make any difference who you are, how tough you are, how nice a guy you might be, or how much you may know, if you happen to be at a certain spot at a certain time, you get it. I've seen guys out of one hole to a better one and get it the next minute, whereas if they'd stayed still they wouldn't have been touched. I've seen guys decide to stay in a hole instead of moving and get it. I've seen guys move and watch the hole they were in get blown up a minute later. And I've seen guys stay and watch the place to which they had intended to move get blown up. It's all luck.
James Jones
You know, shortly after I graduated in '68, Kent State, 17 kids shot dead. And so, the younger generation now tells me how tough things are-give me a break! No, no, I have no empathy for it. Give me a break. Because here's the deal, guys-we decided we were going to change the world, and we did. We did. We finished the civil rights movement to the first stage. The women's movement came into being. So my message is "Get involved."
Joe Biden
"I'll bet you Harry Dalton would trade half his ballclub for Clemente,” Don Leppert, the Pirates' first-base coach, said. "He'd probably split the clubhouse down the middle, and give us a choice of either side, to get that guy into an Oriole uniform.” Leppert's only regret is that Clemente didn't have the chance to truly excel in the field. Other than his eye-popping throw to the plate in the sixth game, Clemente was required to field no more than ordinary chances. "Brooks Robinson had that great Series with the glove in 1970,” Leppert said, "but you've got to be lucky to field like he did. By that, I mean you've got to get the tough chances, and if Roberto had had some in this Series, he really would have shown them something.”.
Roberto Clemente
What, in the name of common-sense, had I to do with any better society than I had always lived in? It had satisfied me well enough. My pleasant bachelor-parlor, sunny and shadowy, curtained and carpeted, with the bedchamber adjoining... my evening at the billiard club, the concert, the theatre, or at somebody's party, if I pleased - what could be better than all this? Was it better to hoe, to mow, to toil and moil amidst the accumulations of a barnyard; to be the chambermaid of two yoke of oxen and a dozen cows; to eat salt beef, and earn it with the sweat of my brow, and thereby take the tough morsel out of some wretch's mouth, into whose vocation I had thrust myself?
Nathaniel Hawthorne
There was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that you will be ‘necklaced' here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions...I do not except myself from this criticism...What we are talking about here-whether one wants to recognize it or not, or call it by its proper name or not-is a form of self-censorship. I worry that patriotism run amok will trample the very values that the country seeks to defend.
Dan Rather
In every generation there comes a moment to choose, and for too long we've chosen the soft option. And it's brought us pretty low. There are some signs now that our people are prepared to make the tough choice and to follow the harder road. We're still the same people that have fought for freedom, and won, and the spirit of adventure, the inventiveness, the determination are still strands in our character. We may suffer from a British sickness now, but we have a British constitution and it's still sound, and we have British hearts and a British will to win through. I believe in Britain. I believe in the British people. I believe in our future.
Margaret Thatcher
I believe that we must develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to actually change behavior - for if we want a lasting peace, then the words of the international community must mean something. Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions must exact a real price. Intransigence must be met with increased pressure - and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one.
Barack Obama
That's what Hillary Clinton understands - this fighter, this stateswoman, this mother and grandmother, this public servant, this patriot - that's the America she's fighting for.
And that is why I have confidence, as I leave this stage tonight, that the Democratic Party is in good hands. My time in this office, it hasn't fixed everything. As much as we've done, there's still so much I want to do. But for all the tough lessons I've had to learn, for all the places where I've fallen short - I've told Hillary, and I'll tell you, what's picked me back up every single time: It's been you. The American people.
Barack Obama
My heart was beat, beat, beating. No one, except my mother, had ever looked at me or spoken to me like this. "You are the most sensitive and beautiful man I've ever met,” she said with tears coming to her eyes. I took a big, deep breath. This was just too much. I couldn't believe it. I'd been called stupid and ugly for so long that this was really tough to hear. Once, I'll never forget, two seniors at the Academy had stopped me and ordered me to attention, and I'd snapped to, as we underclassmen were supposed to do. They'd walked around me, carefully inspecting my uniform, and one of them then said, "Is this the cadet?” "Yes,” said the other one. "I agree with you; you're right,” said the first one. "This is the ugliest cadet in the school!”.
Victor Villaseñor
Jesus recognized the need for blending opposites. He knew that his disciples would face a difficult and hostile world, where they would confront the recalcitrance of political officials and the intransigence of the protectors of the old order. He knew that they would meet cold and arrogant men whose hearts had been hardened by the long winter of traditionalism. ... And he gave them a formula for action, "Be ye therefore as wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." ... We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Undoubtedly the most unattractive women in the world are the Indian women, undoubtedly... The most sexless, nothing, these people. I mean, people say, what about the Black Africans? Well, you can see something, the vitality there, I mean they have a little animallike charm, but God, those Indians, ack, pathetic. Uch... To me, they turn me off. How the hell do they turn other people on, Henry? Tell me. [...] They turn me off. They are repulsive and it's just easy to be tough with them.
Richard Nixon
