“The young man walks by himself, fast but not fast enough, far but not far enough (faces slide out of sight, talk trails into tattered scraps, footsteps tap fainter in alleys); he must catch the last subway, the streetcar, the bus, run up the gangplanks of all the steamboats, register at all the hotels, work in the cities, answer the wantads, learn the trades, take up the jobs, live in all the boardinghouses, sleep in all the beds. One bed is not enough, one job is not enough, one life is not enough. At night, head swimming with wants, he walks by himself alone.”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The 42nd Parallel
“The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armour of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error." -John Dos Passos”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The 42nd Parallel
“While there is a lower class I am of it, while there is a criminal class I am of it, while there is a soul in prison I am not free.”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The 42nd Parallel
“Luther Burbank was born in a brick farmhouse in Lancaster Mass,
he walked through the woods one winter
crunching through the shinycrusted snow
stumbling into a little dell where a warm spring was
and found the grass green and weeds sprouting
and skunk cabbage pushing up a potent thumb,
He went home and sat by the stove and read Darwin
Struggle for Existence Origin of Species Natural
Selection that wasn't what they taught in church,
so Luther Burbank ceased to believe moved to Lunenburg,
found a seedball in a potato plant
sowed the seed and cashed in on Darwin’s Natural Selection
on Spencer and Huxley
with the Burbank potato.
Young man go west;
Luther Burbank went to Santa Rosa
full of his dream of green grass in winter ever-
blooming flowers ever-
bearing berries; Luther Burbank
could cash in on Natural Selection Luther Burbank
carried his apocalyptic dream of green grass in winter
and seedless berries and stoneless plums and thornless roses brambles cactus—
winters were bleak in that bleak
brick farmhouse in bleak Massachusetts—
out to sunny Santa Rosa;
and he was a sunny old man
where roses bloomed all year
everblooming everbearing
hybrids.
America was hybrid
America could cash in on Natural Selection.
He was an infidel he believed in Darwin and Natural
Selection and the influence of the mighty dead
and a good firm shipper’s fruit
suitable for canning.
He was one of the grand old men until the churches
and the congregations
got wind that he was an infidel and believed
in Darwin.
Luther Burbank had never a thought of evil,
selected improved hybrids for America
those sunny years in Santa Rosa.
But he brushed down a wasp’s nest that time;
he wouldn’t give up Darwin and Natural Selection
and they stung him and he died
puzzled.
They buried him under a cedartree.
His favorite photograph
was of a little tot
standing beside a bed of hybrid
everblooming double Shasta daisies
with never a thought of evil
And Mount Shasta
in the background, used to be a volcano
but they don’t have volcanos
any more.”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The 42nd Parallel
“One phrase stuck in Fainy’s mind, and he repeated it to himself after he had gone to bed that night: It is time for all honest men to band together to resist the ravages of greedy privilege.”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The 42nd Parallel
“...and the Sunday the bishop came you couldn't see Halley's Comet any more and you saw the others being confirmed and it lasted for hours because there were a lot of little girls being confirmed too and all you could hear was mumble mumble this thy child mumble mumble this thy child and you wondered if you'd be alive next time Halley's Comet came round”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The 42nd Parallel
“Too goddam many lawyers mixed up in this. Run the sonsobitches out. If they resists shoot ’em, that’s what I says to the Governor, but they’re all these sonsobitches a lawyers fussin’ everythin’ up all the time with warrants and habeas corpus and longwinded rigmarole. My ass to habeas corpus.”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The 42nd Parallel
“but on account of the flag and prosperity and making the world safe for democracy, they were afraid to be with him, or to think much about him for fear they might believe him; for he said: While there is a lower class I am of it, while there is a criminal class I am of it, while there is a soul in prison I am not free.”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The 42nd Parallel
“The twentieth century will be American. American thought will dominate it. American progress will give it color and direction. American deeds will make it illustrious. Civilization will never lose its hold on Shanghai. Civilization will never depart from Hongkong. The gates of Peking will never again be closed to the methods of modern man. The regeneration of the world, physical as well as moral, has begun, and revolutions never move backwards.”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The 42nd Parallel
“U. S. A. is the slice of a continent. U. S. A. is a group of holding companies, some aggregations of trade unions, a set of laws bound in calf, a radio network, a chain of moving picture theatres, a column of stockquotations rubbed out and written in by a Western Union boy on a blackboard, a public-library full of old newspapers and dogeared historybooks with protests scrawled on the margins in pencil. U. S. A. is the world’s greatest rivervalley fringed with mountains and hills, U. S. A. is a set of bigmouthed officials with too many bankaccounts. U. S. A. is a lot of men buried in their uniforms in Arlington Cemetery. U. S. A. is the letters at the end of an address when you”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The 42nd Parallel
John Dos Passos
Born place: in Chicago, The United States
Born date January 14, 1896
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“He looked like he always did. Jeans and a black Foo Fighters t-shirt, his hair lay over his forehead and around his ears. I pushed my hand through it.
"It's perfect. It's you."
He grinned, shaking his head.
"Zeke told me to wear leather, lots of it."
"And you're rebelling?" I said through a laugh.
"I'm telling him to subtly screw himself.”
― Shelly Crane, quote from Accordance
“ ""You don't think that I'd say this to your face? I will. You're a self-centered jerk, Rafe Martinez. You've got everyone convinced that you sacrificed yourself for Maya and Daniel, but that's crap. You didn't let go. You slipped. Maya wanted to believe there was more to it, so she convinced Daniel—"
"She didn't convince me of anything," Daniel said, his voice low. "I was there, too, Sam. He let go."
"So? He's not actually dead, is he?"
Rafe sputtered a laugh. She glowered at him, then at Corey, who'd joined them, grinning as he heard. Even Daniel had to wipe away a smile.
"What?" she said. "He isn't."
"The, uh, fact that he survived his heroic sacrifice really shouldn't be held against him," Daniel said. "Look, I'm fine with Rafe—"
"No, you're not. Heroic sacrifice or not, he's still a jerk. He waltzed into Salmon Creek and stole Maya."
"Stole?" I said.
"It's not your fault. You two are both skin-walkers. It's animal magnetism. You can't help yourself." She glared at Corey, who was cracking up behind Rafe. "Stop that. You know it's true. Maya's too smart to fall for an arrogant, self-centered—"
"Enough," Derek said.
Sam sighed. "I know you're trying to be fair, Daniel, but you need to stand up for yourself, not let this smirking bad boy wannabe waltz in and—"
"Enough!" Daniel's roar made everyone stumble back. He climbed the steps and stopped in front of Sam. "I don't know what your problem is, Sam, but you've now insulted everyone here except Corey."
"Oh, she already zinged me," Corey said. "I started rubbing my temples and she suggested I don't really get headaches. It just hurts me to think." ”
― Kelley Armstrong, quote from The Calling
“There are those,” he said gently, “who must first learn loss, despair, and grief. Of all paths to wisdom, this is the cruelest and longest. Are you one who must follow such a way? This even I cannot know. If you are, take heart nonetheless. Those who reach the end do more than gain wisdom. As rough wool becomes cloth, and crude clay a vessel, so do they change and fashion wisdom for others, and what they give back is greater than what they won.”
― Lloyd Alexander, quote from The Chronicles of Prydain Boxed Set
“There are no nudists in cold places.”
― Tsugumi Ohba, quote from Death Note, Vol. 12: Finis
“they would make her own short body look like a dwarf dragging a curtain.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, quote from Paladin of Souls
The Guns of August
The Grim Grotto
Erak's Ransom
Austenland
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