Quotes from Allegiance

Kermit Roosevelt III ·  402 pages

Rating: (256 votes)


“We are at war, and in time of war there is only one rule. Form your battalion and fight.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance


“I never wanted to safe... I wanted to be good.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance


“From the front row of the balcony, I look out over the Uptown Cinema. The red velvet seats are emptying, the credits scrolling up the screen. Ginger Rogers married a Nazi, but Cary Grant got her out of it. Their ship is sailing to America; sun burns away the fog and the wind blows free. Now they are gone and I am coming back to reality, breathing a harsher air. It is how I always feel when a movie ends.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance


“I have crossed over, and that childhood is as far away and strange as something that happened to someone else in a land beyond the sea. That boy is not me, though I am what he became.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance


“I feel an emptiness open in my chest, coupled with a strange downward pull in my throat. I think, this is my heart sinking.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance



“There is no suspension, no whispered prayer for silk to stop my fall. There is only the falling, and it goes on and on, in fierce silence and sharp bursts of breath.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance


“I never wanted to be safe, I wanted to be good.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance


“But for a moment I stay there, suspended above the green swell of the land as though thrown up onto the crest of a wave, seeing for the first time a break in the at horizon. For this the boats crossed the ocean, the wagons climbed the mountain pass. For this the songs were sung with desert all around. This is what is given: the promise there is still a way, if we can find it, the promise we can always be renewed.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance


“I never wanted to be safe... I wanted to be good.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance


“This is what happens to people who aren’t like you,” Clara continues. “When you get scared, of course they’re the first to feel it.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance



“The social contract imposes obligations on citizens, but it does so in exchange for rights, and the government may not deny the rights while it insists on the obligations.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance


“ ‘A republic, if you can keep it,”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance


About the author

Kermit Roosevelt III
Born place: in Washington DC, The United States
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