Spider Robinson · 224 pages
Rating: (9K votes)
“Some guys step on a rake in the dark, and get mad and go punch somebody. Others step on a rake in the dark and fall down laughing at themselves. I know which kind of guy I'd rather be. So do my friends.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“Just as there are laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy, so there are in fact Laws of Conservation of Pain and Joy. Neither can ever be created or destroyed. But one can be converted into the other.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“there's nothing in the human heart or mind, no place no matter how twisted or secret, that can't be endured - if you have someone to share it with.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“Shared sorrow is lessened, shared joy is increased”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“And there's this place called college! I mean, they want you to care, dig it, care about this education trip, and they don't care enough themselves to make it as attractive as the crap game across the street!”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“Progress is something with no pity, and no purpose. It just happens. It chews up all you ever knew, and spits out things you can't understand, and the only value it seems to have is to make a few people a lot of money.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“it's better than a stick in the eye”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“He smiled like a sun lamp.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“Hey Jake. I got an idea.'
'Be gentle with it,' the Doc grinned. 'It's in a strange place.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“A naked blade is reckoned to be less obscene than a naked woman.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“It's a rare hurt that can stand under the advice, help, and sympathy generated by upwards of thirty people that care. Callahan loses a lot of his regulars. After they've been coming around long enough, they find they don't need to drink any more.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“Callahan dried his big meaty hands on his apron and cleared his throat with a sound like a bulldozer in pain.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“Doc Webster's eyes rolled briefly, like loaded dice, and came up snake eyes.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“Certainly, all of us at Callahan's were heir to the tradition of the B-movie — and the A-movie for that matter — that any female who enters your life in a dramatic manner must be your fated love.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“There's a price for absolution on this planet, and it's called penance.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“She was black and a woman and scarred, and as the thought formed in our minds we realized that it was a redundancy. Her scar was visible externally, was all.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“What shocked us the most was that we had no idea why we should be so shocked. Like opening a ginger ale and finding Jamesons' inside: nothing wrong with it, but it sort of takes you by surprise.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“A surprising percentage of your own society, with all your heritage of murder, would like to believe that Life survives by going to the supermarket. So the ideal would be to train cattle to make butcher knives and take turns cutting each other up at a convenient location.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“The expense of eating is, in great part, the resistance the second life offers to being eaten.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“Corinne told us that revolution was brewing in the hills to the north, under the leadership of a man named Miranda, who with absurd inevitability had styled himself El Supremo.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
“I felt hollowed out. My mom's death was not useful. I felt a shot of rage at her, and then imagined those last bloody moments in the house, when she realized it had gone wrong, when Debby lay dying, and it was all over, her unsterling life.
My anger gave way to a strange tenderness, what a mother might feel for her child, and I thought, At least she tried. She tried, on that final day, as hard as anyone could have tried.
And I would try to find peace in that.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places
“It took her three seconds-one, two, three-to know that her destiny required her to join this man, and his gun and his wagon, and his waiting horses. She had no conception of what was being asked of her, but she knew that there could be no viable alternative. She dashed inside the orphanage and grabbed the few things that belonged to her.”
― James A. Michener, quote from Centennial
“I've lived most of my adult life outside the law, and never have I compromised with authority. But neither have I gone out and picked fights with authority. That's stupid. They’re waiting for that; they invite it; it helps keep them powerful. Authority is to be ridiculed, outwitted and avoided. And it is fairly easy to do all three. If you believe in peace, act peacefully; if you believe in love, act lovingly; if you believe every which way, then act every which way, that’s perfectly valid—but don’t go out trying to sell your beliefs to the System. You end up contradicting what you profess to believe in, and you set a bum example. If you want to change the world, change yourself.”
― Tom Robbins, quote from Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
“Herein lies the heart and soul of the nations.
Their right to be free men,
Their desire to live in peace,
Their courage to seek out truth,
Herein lies the Sword of Shannara.”
― Terry Brooks, quote from The Sword of Shannara
“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” —JESUS OF NAZARETH”
― Todd Burpo, quote from Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back
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