“She was thirty-five, and she did not look a minute younger.”
― Cherie Priest, quote from Boneshaker
“In California there were nuggets the size of walnuts lying on the ground—or so it was said, and truth travels slowly when rumors have wings of gold.”
― Cherie Priest, quote from Boneshaker
“The sound came again. There was a whistle to it, and a moan. It was almost a hiss, and it could’ve been a strangled gasp. Above all, it was quiet, and it seemed to have no source.
It whispered.”
― Cherie Priest, quote from Boneshaker
“Even down here, money has plenty to say.”
― Cherie Priest, quote from Boneshaker
“He stayed close, and he stayed quiet. It was easy to do, almost; the silence above was so alarmingly complete that it was easier to keep it than to break it.”
― Cherie Priest, quote from Boneshaker
“Sure he’s dead, and it’s a good thing for us. It’s hard to argue with a dead man. A dead man can’t change his mind or make new rules, or behave like a bastard so no one will listen to him anymore. A dead man stays a saint.”
― Cherie Priest, quote from Boneshaker
“Sometimes, everyone is right. Not always and not even usually, but once in a while, everyone is right.”
― Cherie Priest, quote from Boneshaker
“So here's the rules - keep quiet, keep close, and if we're spotted, climb like a goddamned monkey…If I get picked off, you don't come back for me. If I see you get picked off, I aint coming back for you. Life's hard. Death's easy”
― Cherie Priest, quote from Boneshaker
“Boys disobey their parents with such great regularity that it’s barely worth a comment; and if yours is talented enough to rebel in such grand fashion, then you ought to consider it a point of pride that he’s such a sharp lad.”
― Cherie Priest, quote from Boneshaker
“He hadn’t found what he’d meant to find, but his need to swipe and hoard something had been appeased for now.”
― Cherie Priest, quote from Boneshaker
“I’ve got a lot of wishes about it, but you know what they say. ‘If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.’”
“I’ve never heard that before in my life, and I’m not sure I even know what it means.”
“It means that you could spit in one hand and wish in the other, and we all know which hand’ll fill up quicker.”
― Cherie Priest, quote from Boneshaker
“Galling as it may be to be helpless to redress the crying injustices of the past, symbolic expiation in the present can only create new injustices among the living and new problems for the future, when newborn babies enter the world with pre-packaged grievances against other babies born the same day. Both have their future jeopardized, not only by their internal strife but also by the increased vulnerability of disunited society to external dangers from nations and from international terrorist networks.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Black Rednecks and White Liberals
“You are the timid one, the gentle brother – inside and out. You are the one to carry his heart on his sleeve. You are the one who watches silently from afar and loves with all his soul.”
― 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
“Personally, if I were trying to discourage people from smoking, my sign would be a little different. In fact, I might even go too far in the opposite direction. My sign would say something like, "Smoke if you wish. But if you do, be prepared for the following series of events: First, we will confiscate your cigarette and extinguish it somewhere on the surface of your skin. We will then run you nicotine-stained fingers through a paper shredder and throw them into the street, where wild dogs will swallow them and then regurgitate them into the sewers, so that infected rats can further soil them before they're flushed out to sea with the rest of the city's filth. After such time, we will sysematically seek out your friends and loved one and destroy their lives."
Wouldn't you like to see a sign like that?”
― George Carlin, quote from When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
“Her eyes were enlarged and faded with discovering what, by common human agreement, is better undivulged.”
― Shirley Hazzard, quote from The Transit of Venus
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