“Why do you have to be the same as the others? ...Most of them are stupid.”
“Why was it, Lloyd wondered, that the people who wanted to destroy everything good about their country were the quickest to wave the national flag?”
“And here's my advice to you. If you get the chance of the mad kind of love, grab it with both hands, and to hell with the consequences.”
“The Führer's judgement will be proved right - again.'
'Of course it will, Erik.'
'He has never yet been wrong!'
'A man thought he could fly, so he jumped off the top of a ten-storey building, and as he fell past the fifth floor, flapping his arms uselessly in the air, he was heard to say: So far, so good!”
“Most rich people have a gangster in their ancestry somewhere.”
“Ethel said: "Lloyd, there's someone here you may remember-"
Daisy could not restrain herself. She ran to Lloyd and threw herself into his arms. She hugged him. She looked into his green eyes, then kissed his brown cheeks and his broken nose and then his mouth. "I love you, Lloyd," she sad madly. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
"I love you, too, Daisy," he said.
Behind her, Daisy heard Ethel's wry voice. "You do remember, I see.”
“Americans talked about voters the same way Russians talked about Stalin. They had to be obeyed.”
“You’re a queer?”
“That’s exactly what I am. I didn’t choose to be.”
After a while Woody put his arm around Chuck’s shoulders.
“Well, what the hell,” he said. “At least you’re not a Republican.”
“Why is it that those who want to destroy everything good about their country are the quickest to waive the national flag?”
“Erik was one of those inadequate people who were so scared by life that they preferred to live under harsh authority, to be told what to do and what to think by a government that allowed no dissent. They were foolish and dangerous, but there were an awful lot of them.”
“She had believed that love was something she could bestow upon whomever she liked, and that her main responsibility was to choose cleverly.”
“You don’t give up on democracy every time you lose a vote”, Ethel said crisply.”
“This is amazing,” Volodya said. “He’s the President, yet he has to make excuses all the time for what he does!”
“Something like that,” Woody said. “We call it democracy.”
“He was looking forward to letting Joanne know, in a casual way, that he had read these books.”
“man thought he could fly, so he jumped off the top of a ten-story building, and as he fell past the fifth floor, flapping his arms uselessly in the air, he was heard to say: ‘So far, so good.”
“After the Battle of Midway it was clear that the Pacific war would be won by planes launched from ships. Both Japan and the United States began crash programs to build aircraft carriers as fast as possible. During 1943 and 1944, Japan produced seven of these huge, costly vessels. In the same period, the United States produced ninety.”
“At last it faded away, and the mushroom cloud began to disperse. Greg heard Frank Oppenheimer say: “It worked.” Oppie said: “Yes, it worked.” The two brothers shook hands. And the world is still here, Greg thought. But it has been forever changed.”
“No candidate is perfect' said Lloyd. 'It's how you deal with your weaknesses that matters”
“If you don’t take an interest, then what happens is your fault.”
“Greg heard Frank Oppenheimer say: “It worked.” Oppie said: “Yes, it worked.” The two brothers shook hands. And the world is still here, Greg thought. But it has been forever changed.”
“Everything is ultimately the Prime Minister's fault', said Lloyd. 'That's what it means to be the leader”
“politicians often had the knack of seeming to know everyone intimately. Either they had remarkable memories, or their secretaries reminded them efficiently.”
“In the dynamics of the main family of the story, a rising socialist in England's postwar government expects his grandparents to be pleased that the local aristocrat's garden is commandeered to allow the people to get coal underneath. Instead, the grandparents grieve because the garden represents something more than a resource to be divided. It is a symbol of community and beauty.”
“A man thought he could fly, so he jumped off the top of a ten-storey building, and as he fell past the fifth floor, flapping his arms uselessly in the air, he was heard to say: So far, so good.”
“Carla had never before realized how much she had been protected by politicians, newspapermen, and lawyers. Without them, she saw now, the government could do anything it liked, even kill people.”
“Desperate men are dangerous. And I do know that the United States is not ready to go to war against Japan. Our navy isn’t ready and our air force isn’t ready.”
“She had always liked what Scarlett O'Hara said in Gone with the Wind: I'll think about it tomorrow. Not anymore.”
“Weißt du denn nicht, dass du die Seele verlierst, wenn du die Wahrheit über dich selbst abstreitest?”
“You’d be surprised. Look, most Republicans are decent men who simply have a view of the world that is different from ours. But there is a hard core of fucking nutcases.”
“And he goes round with a fat roll of dollar bills, and got this nice farm, and all them fancy machines, and man let his family starve.’ - Louisa Mae Cardinal”
“Her hair was totally Indian Woolworth perfume clerk. You know - sweet but dumb - she'll marry her way out of the trailer park some day soon. But the dress was early '60s Aeroflot stewardess - you know - that really sad blue the Russians used before they all started wanting to buy Sonys and having Guy Laroche design their Politburo caps. And such make-up! Perfect '70s Mary Quant, with these little PVC floral appliqué earrings that looked like antiskid bathtub stickers from a gay Hollywood tub circa 1956. She really caught the sadness - she was the hippest person there. Totally.' TRACEY, 27”
“Perrin suspected Lini was one of those women who saw her “place” as being in charge. Come to think of it, most women did. That was the way of the world, it seemed, not just the Two Rivers.”
“Six months isn't such a long time. That's how long it's been since I came to see you in May, but the fact is it's been much longer than that. We've spent years living inside each other.”
“Father once told me that would-be lovers were similar to mountains. Two peaks, wonderfully akin and compatible in every way, may rise to the clouds but never witness each other's majesty because of the space between them. Like a man and a woman from different cities, they would never find each other. Or, if the peaks were blessed, as my parents had been, they might be two mountains of the same range and could bask in each other's company forever.”
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