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Society Quotes
"We were in a phase, through television and the movies, of living only vicariously. Even faintly sordid silliness excited us if it put us in contact with love."
29
"I can describe an axe entering a human skull in great explicit detail and no one will blink twice at it. I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it and people swearing off. To my mind this is kind of frustrating, it's madness. Ultimately, in the history of [the] world, penises entering vaginas have given a lot of people a lot of pleasure; axes entering skulls, well, not so much."
29
"No matter how 'normal' people look, living 'ordinary' lives, everyone has a story to tell. And may be, just like you, everyone else is a misfit too."
29
"Men can be teenagers until well into their twenties. That is well known."
29
"In the beginning-and neither can this be overstated-a Negro just cannot believe that white people are treating him as they do; he does not know what he has done to merit it. And when he realizes that the treatment accorded him has nothing to do with anything he has done, that the attempt of white people to destroy him-for that is what it is-is utterly gratuitous, it is not hard for him to think of white people as devils."
29
"Twenty years ago I wanted to move to a nice place so our Charley would grow up a nice boy and learn a profession. But instead we live in a jungle, so he can only be a wild animal. D'you think I picked the East Side like Columbus picked America?"
29
"I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention? To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. 'Can I interest you in the chicken?' she asks. 'Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it? To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked."
29
"The majority of Aboriginals do not want handouts because they realise that welfare is killing them."
29
"The real reason that nonviolence is considered to be a virtue in Negroes- I am not speaking now of its racial value, another matter altogether- is that white men do not want their lives, their self-image, or their property threatened. One wishes they would say so more often."
29
"In the eleven months preceding the outbreak of World War II, 211 treaties of peace were signed. Were these treaties of peace written on paper, or were they written on the hearts of men? And we must ask ourselves as we hear of treaties being written today, whether the treaties of the UN are written with the full cognizance of the fact that those who sign them are responsible before God?"
29
"He was holding his breath so as not to inhale the odor of democracy."
29
"We went into Iraq because Saddam Hussein refused to account for his weapons of mass destruction, consistently violated UN resolutions and in a post-9/11 world no American president could afford to give Saddam Hussein the benefit of the doubt."
29
"There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice."
29
"The double standard of morality will survive in this world so long as the woman whose husband has been lured away is favoured with the sympathetic tears of other women and a man whose wife has made off is laughed at by other men."
29
"The danger is not so much in the economic structure of a society but in its intellectual structure."
29
"I come from a real working class background, and I didn't know anyone sophisticated - except I saw Edie Sedgewick once at the Art Museum in Philly. She had these black leotards and little black pumps and this big ermine cape and all these white dogs and black sunglasses and black eyes. She was classy!"
29
"We should always assist our friends and enemies in order to create a decent social environment."
29
"How a society channels male aggression is one of the greatest questions as to whether that society will survive. That's why I am not against violence in the media, I am against the glorification of immoral violence."
29
"Being graded for memorizing male accomplishments with the deep message that we can learn what others do but never do it ourselves."
29
"Bananas are great, as I believe them to be the only known cure for existential dread. Also, Mother Teresa said that in India, a woman dying in the street will share her banana with anyone who needs it, whereas in America, people amass and hoard as many bananas as they can to sell for an exorbitant profit. So half of them go bad, anyway."
29
"How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young?"
29
"As far as a truly radical conscience, you have to take it as part of a larger thing, that it was sort of historical inevitability that with the coming of a leaguer society people would start to use drugs a lot more then they had before."
29
"This is a form of double taxation and it's simply unfair."
28
"We have seen what the dependence and addiction to foreign oil has done to us economically."
28
"So we have broad bipartisan support for the bill, and it's my hope that we can build on some of the things that have been talked about in Washington involving building a larger ownership society."
28
"There's only one free person in this society, and he is white and male."
28
"Printing ballots in multiple languages costs millions of dollars every year. It also discourages immigrants from integrating into American society and gaining the benefits that come from speaking English."
28
"All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy, for what we are leaving behind is part of ourselves."
28
"Shyness is a luxury reserved for those who are above the poverty line. To a beggar, being shy is deadly."
28
"The Middle East is literally going up in flames, as is California, and Katrina's problems haven't been solved, and Congress' response is to criticize Federal judges."
28
"Being different isn't a sin, but intolerance is."
28
"Darius did not take the bait, showing no signs of anger or irritation. 'So, what you're saying is that you ugly f@*ks are not half breeds and that makes you superior? Please, do wow me with your druid sorcery."
28
"There has to be some limit to what lawyers can take from their clients. Otherwise, cagey attorneys end up with the lion's share of the settlement and the victims end up with little more than scraps."
28
"We should recognize that on the day that we are born, our glass is half full. In America your chance to fill your glass the rest of the way up is greater than it is anyplace else on this planet."
28
"It's basically the same in all periods of societies. If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things.''And those troubling things are all you /can/ think about when you're one of the few.''That's about the size of it,' she said mournfully. 'But maybe, if you're in a situation like that, you learn to think for yourself.''Yes, but maybe what you end up thinking for yourself /about/ is all those troubling things."
28
"So you need an alarm system because you gonna be in bad neighborhoods?''Actually, I sort of stole a car, and I'm afraid the owner will try to get it back."
28
"Many people can't sing their praise or feel proud of themselves in front of others because they are scared to be labelled as 'arrogant' or 'big - headed'. Social acceptance is more important than self - esteem in the 21st century - and that's not good."
28
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