“Bravery is measured by how hard you try, not by whether you actually succeed.”
― Nancy Straight, quote from Blood Debt
“Mortality is one of the greatest gifts ever bestowed. After a long and fruitful life, we are able to rest.”
― Nancy Straight, quote from Blood Debt
“You know, I saw that on the news last week. People walking down the street, minding their own business, and BAM their lips turn elastic and wrap themselves around a friend's man. Happens all the time. It's a side-effect from the 'Stupid Pill'. Must have refilled your prescription before you left town.”
― Nancy Straight, quote from Blood Debt
“I can't see the future. But when I dreamed of the future, he was the one I was tied to.”
― Nancy Straight, quote from Blood Debt
“That’s the wonderful thing about family: the bigger it is, the larger your heart grows.”
― Nancy Straight, quote from Blood Debt
Nancy Straight
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“I’ve been lost, Elsie. Lost and drowning since I was a kid … Then I saw you. I saw you and you brought me back to me … Elsie, you brought me life.”
― Tillie Cole, quote from Sweet Soul
“Then, just as we were to leave on a whirlwind honeymoon in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, a call came from Australia. Steve’s friend John Stainton had word that a big croc had been frequenting areas too close to civilization, and someone had been taking potshots at him.
“It’s a big one, Stevo, maybe fourteen or fifteen feet,” John said over the phone. “I hate to catch you right at this moment, but they’re going to kill him unless he gets relocated.”
John was one of Australia’s award-winning documentary filmmakers. He and Steve had met in the late 1980s, when Steve would help John shoot commercials that required a zoo animal like a lizard or a turtle. But their friendship did not really take off until 1990, when an Australian beer company hired John to film a tricky shot involving a crocodile.
He called Steve. “They want a bloke to toss a coldie to another bloke, but a croc comes out of the water and snatches at it. The guy grabs the beer right in front of the croc’s jaws. You think that’s doable?”
“Sure, mate, no problem at all,” Steve said with his usual confidence. “Only one thing, it has to be my hand in front of the croc.”
John agreed. He journeyed up to the zoo to film the commercial. It was the first time he had seen Steve on his own turf, and he was impressed. He was even more impressed when the croc shoot went off flawlessly.
Monty, the saltwater crocodile, lay partially submerged in his pool. An actor fetched a coldie from the esky and tossed it toward Steve. As Steve’s hand went above Monty’s head, the crocodile lunged upward in a food response. On film it looked like the croc was about to snatch the can--which Steve caught right in front of his jaws. John was extremely impressed. As he left the zoo after completing the commercial shoot, Steve gave him a collection of VHS tapes.
Steve had shot the videotapes himself. The raw footage came from Steve simply propping his camera in a tree, or jamming it into the mud, and filming himself single-handedly catching crocs.
John watched the tapes when he got home to Brisbane. He told me later that what he saw was unbelievable. “It was three hours of captivating film and I watched it straight through, twice,” John recalled to me. “It was Steve. The camera loved him.”
He rang up his contacts in television and explained that he had a hot property. The programmers couldn’t use Steve’s original VHS footage, but one of them had a better idea. He gave John the green light to shoot his own documentary of Steve.
That led to John Stainton’s call to Oregon on the eve of our honeymoon.
“I know it’s not the best timing, mate,” John said, “but we could take a crew and film a documentary of you rescuing this crocodile.”
Steve turned to me. Honeymoon or crocodile? For him, it wasn’t much of a quandary. But what about me?”
“Let’s go,” I replied.”
― Terri Irwin, quote from Steve & Me
“I think the warning labels on alcoholic beverages are too bland. They should be more vivid. Here is one I would suggest: "Alcohol will turn you into the same asshole your father was.”
― George Carlin, quote from When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
“Paul said, 'You always had some contempt for me.'
'Yes.'
'And love too.'
'Yes.' A flicker over her stare was the facial equivalent of a shrug. 'Now you have a wife to give you both.”
― Shirley Hazzard, quote from The Transit of Venus
“The loveliest creations of men are persistently painful. What would be the description of happiness?”
― André Gide, quote from The Immoralist
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God's SmugglerBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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