“You were down to earth and funny - not at all what I imagined a psychiatrist would be. This office was so bright and pretty that, no matter what I was worried about, as soon as I walked in here felt better. Some days, especially in the beginning, I didn't want to leave. (1)”
― Chevy Stevens, quote from Never Knowing
“I didn't know what to do with this new reality, the horror of my conception. I wanted to bury it in the backyard, far away from anyone's eyes. My skin crawled with knowledge, with the evil that I'd looked into, that had created me. I took long showers. Nothing helped. The dirt was on the inside. (31)”
― Chevy Stevens, quote from Never Knowing
“You said my obsessions were passions, that my intensity was a powerful gift, that my determination was admirable. That what I considered my weaknesses could also be my greatest strengths.”
― Chevy Stevens, quote from Never Knowing
“-Entonces simplemente tendrás que aceptarlo, olvidarlo y seguir adelante con tu vida.
Ojalá fuese tan fácil.”
― Chevy Stevens, quote from Never Knowing
“Bien, pues esto es como caer directamente al agua helada. Tratas desesperadamente de nadar hacia la superficie, con los pulmones en llamas, todo enfocado hacia el pedazo de luz que hay encima de ti. Y cuando al final lo consigues, el hielo ha tapado el agujero.”
― Chevy Stevens, quote from Never Knowing
“You and Ethan had some kind of something?” “You’re fishing. And we didn’t have something or anything. We’re just bummed it’s Valentine’s Day and I’m spending it with you guys.” “Yeah, well, tone down the magic. You’re giving me split ends.”
― Chloe Neill, quote from Biting Bad
“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.288”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Black Rednecks and White Liberals
“Do you know what I wish for, Levi, what I hope and pray for all the time?” “What, bella mia?” “That people have one thought, one instinct: Be kind-hearted. Simply be kind of heart.”
― 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
“What exactly is the free world, anyway? I guess it would depend on what you consider the non-free world. And I can't find a clear definition of that, can you? Where is that? Russia? China? For chrissakes, Russia has a better Mafia than we do now, and China is pirating Lion King DVDs and selling dildos on the Internet. They sound pretty free to me. Here are some more jingoistic variations you need to be on the lookout for; "The greatest nation on Earth; the greatest nation in the history of the world"; and "the most powerful nation on the face of the Earth." That last one is usually thrown in just before we bomb a bunch of brown people. Which is every couple of years.”
― George Carlin, quote from When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
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