“self respect. self reliance. self control.”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The Big Money
“They have clubbed us off the streets they are stronger they are rich they hire and fire the politicians the newspapereditors the old judges the small men with reputations the collegepresidents the wardheelers (listen businessmen collegepresidents judges America will not forget her betrayers) they hire the men with guns the uniforms the policecars the patrolwagons all right you have won you will kill the brave men our friends tonight (author's punctuation)”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The Big Money
“all right we are two nations”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The Big Money
“But the workingpeople, the common people, they won't allow it.' 'It's the common people who get most fun out of the torture and execution of great men.... If it's not going too far back I'd like to know who it was demanded the execution of our friend Jesus H. Christ.”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The Big Money
“But you just watch, little girl. I'm goin' to show 'em. In five years they'll come crawlin' to me on their bellies. I don't know what it is, but I got a kind of feel for the big money.”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The Big Money
“The pressure exerted by a gas on the walls of its container does not depend upon the individual histories of the molecules composing it,” says the French existentialist philosopher.”
― John Dos Passos, quote from The Big Money
John Dos Passos
Born place: in Chicago, The United States
Born date January 14, 1896
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“Oh! science! It has reconsidered everything. For thebody and the soul − the viaticum − we now have medicineand philosophy, old wives’ remedies and rearranged popular songs. And the diversions of princes and games they forbade! Geography, cosmography, mechanics, chemistry . . . Science, the new nobility! Progress. The world marches on! Why would it cease to turn? It is the vision of numbers. We are moving towards Spirit. What I say is certain, oracular. I understand, but not knowing how to explain myself without using pagan words, I prefer to hold my tongue.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from A Season in Hell
“That's the myth of it, the required lie that allows us to render our judgments. Parasites, criminals, dope fiends, dope peddlers, whores--when we can ride past them at Fayette and Monroe, car doors locked, our field of vision cautiously restricted to the road ahead, then the long journey into darkness is underway. Pale-skinned hillbillies and hard-faced yos, toothless white trash and gold-front gangsters--when we can glide on and feel only fear, we're well on the way. And if, after a time, we can glimpse the spectacle of the corner and manage nothing beyond loathing and contempt, then we've arrived at last at that naked place where a man finally sees the sense in stretching razor wire and building barracks and directing cattle cars into the compound.
It's a reckoning of another kind, perhaps, and one that becomes a possibility only through the arrogance and certainty that so easily accompanies a well-planned and well-tended life. We know ourselves, we believe in ourselves; from what we value most, we grant ourselves the illusion that it's not chance in circumstance, that opportunity itself isn't the defining issue. We want the high ground; we want our own worth to be acknowledged. Morality, intelligence, values--we want those things measured and counted. We want it to be about Us.
Yes, if we were down there, if we were the damned of the American cities, we would not fail. We would rise above the corner. And when we tell ourselves such things, we unthinkably assume that we would be consigned to places like Fayette Street fully equipped, with all the graces and disciplines, talents and training that we now posses. Our parents would still be our parents, our teachers still our teachers, our broker still our broker. Amid the stench of so much defeat and despair, we would kick fate in the teeth and claim our deserved victory. We would escape to live the life we were supposed to live, the life we are living now. We would be saved, and as it always is in matters of salvation, we know this as a matter of perfect, pristine faith.
Why? The truth is plain:
We were not born to be niggers.”
― David Simon, quote from The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood
“friends don't threaten friends' distributor caps”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“I believe in magic. In evil sorceresses who deep down are really beautiful princesses. I believe in immortals who live in a different world than this one, accessible by magical stone wheels.”
― Morgan Rhodes, quote from Crystal Storm
“No man has ever crawled out from under his wife’s criticism to be a better man—no matter how justified her condemnation.”
― Debi Pearl, quote from Created to be His Help Meet
Introductions
This Savage Song
The Woman Warrior
The Stolen Child
Bones of the Hills
Rock Chick RegretBookQuoters 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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