“All you have to do [to win a Pulitzer Prize] is spend your life running from one awful place to another, write about every horrible thing you see. The civilized world reads about it, then forgets it, but pats you on the head for doing it and gives you a reward as appreciation for changing nothing.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“It's my experience that most folk who ride trains could care less where they're going. For them it's the journey itself and the people they meet along the way. You see, at every stop this train makes, a little bit of America, a little bit of your country, gets on and says hello.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“It's not getting from A to B. It's not the beginning or the destination that counts. It's the ride in between...This train is alive with things that should be seen and heard. It's a living, breathing something -- you just have to want to learn its rhythm.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“It's not the beginning or the destination that counts. It's the ride in between.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“Two people can care for each other but not want the same things.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“Things might look bad now,but in matters of the heart you'd be surprised how quickly things change.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“It’s been my experience that most folk who ride trains could care less where they’re going. For them it’s the journey itself and the people they meet along the way. You see, at every stop this train makes, a little bit of America, a little bit of your country, gets on and says hello. That’s why trains are so popular at Christmas. People get on to meet their country over the holidays. They’re looking for some friendship, a warm body to talk to. People don’t rush on a train, because that’s not what trains are for. How do you put a dollar value on that? What accounting line does that go on?”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“It's often said that God works in mysterious ways. You have to really think about what He's trying to do. You can't be lazy and believe in God; He doesn't make it that easy. It takes spirit and faith and passion to really believe. Like most things worthwhile in life, you get back what you put into it. Only with faith, you get back a lot more.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“He'd been given an assignment to write about teen beauty pageants [...], which he'd accepted because he enjoyed blood sports as much as the next person.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“If you really love each other, you'd be surprised what you can accomplish.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“...love is like a good piece of wood: It just gets stronger and stronger as the years go by.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“Why are trains so popular at Christmas? People get on to meet their country over the holidays.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“It had always bothered Tom that women thought they could win an argument with a man simply by appealing to his baser instincts, by holding out the mere possibility of award-winning carnal knowledge. It was the gender equivalent of a preemptive nuclear strike. He thought it unfair and, quite frankly, disrespectful of the entire male population.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“In his trip to Bethlehem Mark Twain had reported that all sects of Christians, except Protestants, had chapels under the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. However, he also observed that one group dared not trespass on the other’s territory, proving beyond doubt, he noted, that even the grave of the Savior couldn’t inspire peaceful worship among different beliefs.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“hob-gob of folks. And sometimes it’s”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“I’m not saying that riding the train will change your life, or that passenger rail will be a big moneymaker one day. But no matter how fast we feel we have to go, shouldn’t there be room for a train, where you can just sit back, take a breath, and be human for a little while? Just for a little while? Is that so bad?”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“It’s not the beginning or the destination that counts. It’s the ride in between.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“Twain had found Palestine to be very tiny, writing that he “could not conceive of a small country having so large a history.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“For Tom the vision of Agnes Joe crammed inside the cockpit of a two-seater Cessna, her hammy fingers curled around the yoke, her enormous feet on the rudder pedals, wavered right on hallucinatory.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“пътищата Божии са неведоми. Постарай се да проумееш какво се опитва да направи той. Никой мързеливец не вярва в Господ, то това не е лесна работа. Нужен е силен дух и вяра, и желание да повярваш. Както и при всичко важно в живота, получаваш толкова, колкото и даваш. Само че когато имаш вяра, получаваш много повече.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“about three thousand miles separating them. She”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“It had always bothered Tom that women thought they could win an argument with a man simply by appealing to his baser instincts, by holding out the mere possibility of award-winning carnal knowledge. It was the gender-battle equivalent of a preemptive nuclear strike. He thought it unfair and, quite frankly, disrespectful of the entire male population.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Christmas Train
“We were never short on passion. We couldn’t keep our hands off of each other. Adrenaline raced over the fatigue that had settled into my bones after another sleepless night. I could fuck the woman until I was blind, and it wouldn’t be enough. She’d promised me a lifetime, and I had every intention of loving her well every day this life would give me.”
― Meredith Wild, quote from Hard Limit
“On this particular day her father, the vicar of a parish on the sea-swept outskirts of Lower Wessex, and a widower, was suffering from an attack of gout. After finishing her household supervision Elfride became restless, and several times left the room, ascended the staircase, and knocked at her father's chamber-door.
'Come in!' was always answered in a heart out-of-door voice from the inside.
'Papa,' she said on one occasion to the fine, red-faced, handsome man of forty, who, puffing and fizzing like a bursting bottle, lay on the bed wrapped in a dressing-gown, and every now and then enunciating, in spite of himself, about one letter of some word or words that were almost oaths; 'papa, will you not come downstairs this evening?' She spoke distinctly: he was rather deaf.
'Afraid not - eh-h-h! - very much afraid I shall not, Elfride. Piph-ph-ph! I can't bear even a handkerchief upon this deuced toe of mine, much less a stocking or slipper - piph-ph-ph! There 'tis again! No, I shan't get up till tomorrow.'
'Then I hope this London man won't come; for I don't know what I should do, papa.'
'Well, it would be awkward, certainly.'
'I should hardly think he would come today.'
'Why?'
'Because the wind blows so.'
'Wind! What ideas you have, Elfride! Who ever heard of wind stopping a man from doing his business? The idea of this toe of mine coming on so suddenly!... If he should come, you must send him up to me, I suppose, and then give him some food and put him to bed in some way. Dear me, what a nuisance all this is!'
'Must he have dinner?'
'Too heavy for a tired man at the end of a tedious journey.'
'Tea, then?'
'Not substantial enough.'
'High tea, then? There is cold fowl, rabbit-pie, some pasties, and things of that kind.'
'Yes, high tea.'
'Must I pour out his tea, papa?'
'Of course; you are the mistress of the house.'
'What! sit there all the time with a stranger, just as if I knew him, and not anybody to introduce us?'
'Nonsense, child, about introducing; you know better than that. A practical professional man, tired and hungry, who has been travelling ever since daylight this morning, will hardly be inclined to talk and air courtesies tonight. He wants food and shelter, and you must see that he has it, simply because I am suddenly laid up and cannot. There is nothing so dreadful in that, I hope? You get all kinds of stuff into your head from reading so many of those novels.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“There are times when visible poverty has its advantages.”
― Heinrich Harrer, quote from Seven Years in Tibet (Paladin Books)
“Ni en la guerra debe haber muertos inutiles. Usted me entiende, vaya al colegio y trate en el futuro de que la muerte del cadete Arana sirve para algo.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, quote from The Time of the Hero
“They were men linked more to one another, their schools, their own social class and their own concerns than they were linked to the country. Indeed, about one of them, Averell Harriman, there would always be a certain taint, as if somehow Averell were a little too partisan and too ambitious (Averell had wanted to be President whereas the rest of them knew that the real power lay in letting the President come to them; the President could take care of rail strikes, minimum wages and farm prices, and they would take care of national security).”
― David Halberstam, quote from The Best and the Brightest
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