“Each and every one of these leaders was a Negro citizen of the United States. They had earned the right to guide us, help us, not because their colored forebears helped free us and defend us in the Revolutionary War, in the War of 1812, in the Union Army of Lincoln and Grant, in the First and Second World Wars, in Korea, but because they were part of our whole, part of each of us, with the same stakes and goals.”
“For the middle majority of us all, knowledge of Negroes firsthand is probably limited—limited to the colored cleaning woman, who comes twice a week, limited to the colored baseball player who saves or loses a home game, limited to the garage mechanic, or dime-store clerk, or blues singer seen and heard on a Saturday night. To this white majority, the black man is as unknown as once was the heart of the Dark Continent of Africa.”
“She reached her waiting chair and shorthand pad, beside Leach, as a far-off erratic voice came indistinctly over the loudspeaker, and then suddenly broke out loudly and clearly. "—calling from Frankfurt am Main, this is Signal Corps Captain Foss calling from Frankfurt am Main. Do we have the White House in Washington?" Calmly Secretary of State Eaton addressed the microphone box. "This is the White House, Captain. This is the Secretary of State. We are assembled and ready for the conference call." "All right, sir. The President is waiting to speak to you." A muffled crossing of voices slapped against the loudspeaker, and then a jagged arrow of static, and at once T. C.'s hurried, bouncy, unceremonious voice was upon them in the Cabinet Room. "Arthur, are you there?”
“Those poor people know Communism gives them bread, while democracy gives them a vote and a Letter to the Editor.”
“The immediate future is not in the hands of our first Negro President. It is in our hands, for better or for worse.”
“How could she be a helpmate to a public figure already so successful, the foremost member of the President's Cabinet? How could she be of any use to a public figure who already possessed everything?”
“Perhaps the Negro musicians had not been able to give enough because they were inhibited by her Southern-supremacy origins.”
“Our own domestic Negro situation is another thing.”
“tell you," he muttered, "those reporters out there sure downright bugged me. Trying to make me out a Bilbo or worse. Anything for a story. They sure can be mighty rough boys.”
“All man's honors are small beside the greatest prize to which he may and must aspire--the finding of his soul, his spirit, his divine strength and worth--the knowledge that he can and must live in freedom and dignity--the final realization that life is not a daily dying, not a pointless end, not ashes-to-ashes and dust-to-dust, but a soaring and blinding gift snatched from eternity.”
“Psalms 127:1." Slowly, Eaton leafed through the book, and then he said, "Is this it? 'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”
“Home is the place that expects the most of you, but still welcomes you at your worst. And she has always been my home, my Merminia.”
“Justice is not only about the right way to distribute things. It is also about the right way to value things.”
“Incited. That was it, the guidingprinciple of her life in Copenhagen. She was incited to make an impression, a voluptous impression. She was incited to inflame attention and admiration. She was dressed for it, subtly schooled for it. And after a little while she gave herself up wholly to the fascinating business of being seen, gaped at, desired.”
“George Vida braced his hands on the table before taking his seat, his gaze strafing the room with the discernment of a leathery old goat sniffing for something to nibble on.”
“Sometimes we make decisions and we think that the decisions we make are to our benefit. Other times, we make decisions and at the time we make them, they seem to be what makes sense, and later we find out they weren’t such a good idea. Being able to discern the good decisions from the bad decisions, in advance, would be priceless.”
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