Book bits

[Lilith7]

"The stock exchange is something very different. There is no economy & no production of goods & services. There are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this or that company is worth so many billions, more or less. IT doesn’t have a thing to do with reality or with the Swedish economy.
“So you’re saying that it doesn’t matter if the Stock exchange drops like a rock?”
“No, it doesn’t matter at all”, Blomberg said.....
“It only means that a bunch of heavy speculators are now moving their shareholdings from Swedish companies to German ones. So it’s the financial gnomes that some tough reporter should perhaps identify & expose as traitors. They’re the ones who are systematically & perhaps damaging the Swedish economy in order to satisfy the profit interests of their clients.”
The girl with the dragon tattoo, Stieg Larsson


"We human beings seem always to have found it comforting to have someone to look down on – a bottom level of fellow creatures who are very vulnerable, but who can somehow be blamed & punished for all or any troubles."
Parable of the talents, Octavia Butler

"I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.

"You know what they want? Obedient workers people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. I t's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club."
George Carlin


"Here bread is still the staff of life, a well of sweet water is more than jewels, a tree is shade, a piece of fertile ground id earth that will grow food, & hands are still marvellous creative instruments that can take the raw, rough stuff of rock & soil & water & make from it warmth & comfort, & beauty too. Perhaps they are so impressive a people because their normal expression – I realize this as I look around the crowded schoolroom – is one of quiet dignity. And I realize too that although I have seen these faces show grief, anger, bewilderment, laughter, pride, passion & sometimes resignation, what gives the faces a nobility almost unnatural in our age is the complete absence of resentment & pettishness, or those tell-tale lines that mark the frustration of little egos."
Charmian Clift

[Lilith7]

"We did what we could. We wrote to newspapers. We marched & we protested. We voted. After that, why not be cheerful? If we stop being cheerful, we give in to them."
Beatrice & Virgil, Yann Martel


"There is always room for a story
that can transport people
to another
place ."
J K Rowling


"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.
If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."
Albert Einstein

"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.”
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.”
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre


“These money men are strange human beings. They proclaim vision & innovation, but seem unable to imagine what their fellow man might be feeling. Poverty & powerlessness are beyond their ken. If the ability to walk in your fellow man’s footsteps is a barometer of civilisation, then these people are barbarians.”
Greg McGee. Love & money.


“You know why trees smell the way they do?” Murphy asked, looking up from her hammering. “Sap?” Logan guessed. “Chlorophyll?” Murphy shook her head. “Stars. Trees breathe in starlight year after year, and it goes deep into their bones. So when you cut a tree open, you smell a hundred years’ worth of light. Ancient starlight that took millions of years to reach earth. That’s why trees smell so beautiful and old.”
Frances O Roarke



“The point is that all the things we used to let society hold over us – my god, he got drunk in public; good lord, she actually has sex; wow, he’s experimented with drugs; gee whiz, sometimes she doesn’t look perfect; holy crap, he’s had a few minor run-ins with the law - none of that garbage matters, & Caitlin & most of her generations are saying so. They just don’t care about it; they don’t care about it now, & they won’t care about it when they’re the ones in power, either.”
Robert J Sawyer, Wonder

[Lilith7]

“Evil is not just a theory of paradox, but an actual entity that exists only for itself. .....it must hide within the shroud of lies and deceit it spins to manipulate the weak-minded as well as those who choose to ally themselves with it for their own personal gain......
For evil must rely on the self-serving interests of the arrogant, the lustful, the power-hungry, the hateful, and the greedy to feed and proliferate...... once all that was good has been extinguished by corruption or annihilation, evil will then turn upon and consume what remains: particularly its immoral servants who have assisted its purpose so well … along with itself."
R.G. Risch, Beyond Mars: Crimson Fleet


“Shorter hours for the working man, & a minimum wage for both skilled & unskilled labour, which will guarantee every man over the age of 21 a salary that will enable him to live decently."
Charlie Chaplin interview with New York World, 1931.
Charlie Chaplin, his life & art. David Robinson

“The way of life can be free & beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls – has barricaded the world with hate – has goose-stepped us into misery & bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard & unkind. We think too much & feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness & gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent & all will be lost.” Charlie Chaplin, The great dictator.



"The sexual, physical & emotional violence meted out to women on a daily basis shocks & angers me.(Oh wait a minute – women are not supposed to be angry!) People have sometimes commented that women are violent too. Yes, a few are, but there doesn’t seem to be the need for a chain of refuges the length & breadth of New Zealand for men to escape from dangerous women. In her essay on rape culture, “The longest war” Rebecca Solnit (Men explain things to me & other essays, Granta 2014) asks when the hundreds of attacks on women all over the world will be recognized not as isolated incidents but as a pattern. “Violence doesn’t have a race, class, religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender.”
Carole Beu, passion play, Stroppy old women, compiled by Wendyl Nissen & Paul Little

[Lilith7]

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view–until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird


“Those who govern want us to compete & become like the rest of the world & are selling our produce & manufacturing to those willing to work for a pittance, while those who are in command can demand rewards…… The gap between rich & poor has so widened survival for many has become their biggest concern. There is now child poverty in a country that we from Europe chose as the ideal place to raise a family.
Ans Westra, Blunderland, Stroppy old women Compiled by Wendyl Nissen & Paul Little


“Life itself is an exile. The way home is not the way back.”
Colin Wilson, The outsider


“If Middle east leaders got their act together & stopped fuelling a senseless sectarian conflict – always in the name of a religion whose true character is apparently impossible to agree upon – the next generation in that region would have a chance of growing up learning about history, medicine, & mathematics instead of running from bullets & bombs, fleeing their towns & living in refugee camps or on the street.”


“The world is not facing a clash of civilizations or cultures, but a clash between those who want to build bridges & those who would rather see the world in polarities, who are working hard to spread hatred & divide us.”


“These days, people expect a reporter to take sides. But that’s not my job. It is difficult to stand in the middle, but I believe losing the ability to listen is far more destructive.”

“If I’ve learned anything; it’s this: a mother’s screams over the body of her murdered child sound the same no matter if she is black, brown or white; Muslim, Jewish or Christian; Shia or Sunni.
We will all be buried in the same ground.”

Souad Mekhennet, I was told to come alone, my journey behind the lines of jihad.

[Lilith7]

“Wherever you live in this country’, she says “we want you to be part of building its future and if you’re not, that is a problem for all of us, because we miss out on what you’re capable of. So what is it we can give you that lets you go out & take the world on rather than be fearful of it?”
Stella Creasy, Brit. MP.
I must belong somewhere, Jonathan Dean

"When Theresa May made her first party conference speech as Prime Minister, she said that if you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere.

It is worth noting that, in Germany in 1933, someone said “It is a small rootless, international clique that is turning the people against each other – that does not want them to have peace. It is people who are at home both nowhere & everywhere – who do not have anywhere a soil on which they have grown up.”
That person was Adolf Hitler.

I put May’s speech to Stella. “A citizen of the world, for me, is about compassion” she says “And my worry is she’s trading off patriotism against compassion. Compassion & tolerance always used to be a very proud British value & she’s stripping that out.”
Stella Creasy, Brit. MP.
I must belong somewhere, Jonathan Dean


“I now signified that it was imperatively necessary I should be relieved of her prescence.”
Isn’t that a wonderfully elegant way of saying ‘pi** off?!’
(Charlotte Bronte, Villette.)


"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery."
Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents



“It is remarkable, I have since thought, how once a man has a few coins, no matter how he came by them, he thinks right away that he is entitled to them & whatever they can buy, & fancies himself cock of the walk.”
Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

[Lilith7]

“Everything leaves a mark. Every blow echoes in the forest inside, every injustice cuts a branch, & every loss is a fallen tree. The beautiful courage of us, the hope that defines our kind, is that we go on, no matter how much life wounds us. We walk. We face the sea & the wind & the salted truth of death, & we go on.
And every step we take, every breath we spend, every wish fulfilled is a duty to those lives & loves no longer graced, as we still are, with the spark & rhythm of the Source: the soul we loved, in their eyes.”

”Our humankind at this moment in our destiny is a child blowing on a dandelion, without thought or understanding. But the wonder in a child is the wonder in us & there’s no limit to the good we can do , when human hearts connect. It’s the truth of us. It’s the story of us. It’s the meaning of the word god: we are one. We are one. We are one.

Gregory David Roberts, The mountain shadow


“The western civilization, which had fought & beaten mid 20th century totalitarianism, was held in a headlock by concealed number crunchers & mouth pieces for neo liberal gobbledegook.”
Eye of the songbird, Michael Munro.



"Countries that want to develop their economies & standards of living cannot afford to shut out one half of their population. Conservatives & extremists in any society are extremely aware of this fact. Those who control life, & the bodies of women, control the money & hold the power. Women who are kept indoors, whether because of references to religion, culture or honour, cannot make money & will not hold any power. Women who are married off & locked up, raped by older husbands in order to produce male heirs, will never rule a country or explore its natural resources. Or go to war, for that matter. Women who never receive an education are not likely to demand their rightful inheritance. Women who do not have a say over their own bodies’ reproduction will never be able to challenge men on economic power. Those who hold the power to create life control the universe."

The underground girls of Kabul; the hidden lives of Afghan girls disguised as boys.
Jenny Nordberg



"Religion is not one of my high points. I don’t really subscribe to the stories surrounding each one, because they are just stories, remembered by men. I do feel the Great Spirit in all that is around me, & I am humbled/ I do pray with others if that is what they do. I don’t judge them for that. That is their way; I join them. Then I move on. The moon means a lot to me, as does the forest. All things natural speak to me with a rhythm that I feel. It is this that probably makes me a pagan.
There is no evil in the forest or the moon. Or, if there is, I don’t see it.
The Great Spirit, as I like to call her, is in us all & in everything that lives or used to live, in everything that exists or used to exist."
Waging heavy peace, Neil Young

[Lilith7]

“I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.”

John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent


“I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible.”

John Steinbeck, East of Eden



“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”

John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent



“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.”

John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.”

John Steinbeck, East of Eden


"It is in the brains & soul that lack of money damages you. Mental deadness, spiritual squalor - they seem to descend upon you inescapably when your income drops below a certain point. Faith, hope, money - only a saint could have the first two without having the third."
George Orwell, Keep the aspidistra flying.

[Lilith7]

"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right."

'And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'


'The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. . . . Power is not a means; it is an end . . . not power over things, but over men. . . . In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. . . . There will be no loyalty, except loyalty toward the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. . . . Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.'


“The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?”
George Orwell, 1984

[Lilith7]

“Evil is not just a theory of paradox, but an actual entity that exists only for itself. .....it must hide within the shroud of lies and deceit it spins to manipulate the weak-minded as well as
those who choose to ally themselves with it for their own personal gain......
For evil must rely on the self-serving interests of the arrogant, the lustful, the power-hungry, the hateful, and the greedy to feed and proliferate...... once all that was good has been extinguished by corruption or annihilation, evil will then turn upon and consume what remains: particularly its immoral servants who have assisted its purpose so well … along with itself."
R.G. Risch, Beyond Mars: Crimson Fleet

[Lilith7]

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.”
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

[Lilith7]

"It is in the brains & soul that lack of money damages you. Mental deadness, spiritual squalor - they seem to descend upon you inescapably when your income drops below a certain point. Faith, hope, money - only a saint could have the first two without having the third."
George Orwell, Keep the aspidistra flying.

[Lilith7]

"Once Governor General Cath Tizard had opened Parliament & the new members were sworn in, work was underway.
To our horror, the new Govt's first act was to rescind the Pay Equity Act, & even worse, the minister who led the debate in her capacity as Minister of Women's Affairs was Jenny Shipley. When I thought of the struggle that women had been engaged in since the turn of the century, & how strenously Helen Clark had battled in Cabinet & in the House to have the legislation introduced & to steer it through, I was sickened. I didn't accept Jenny Shipley's contention that there were other & more effective ways of ahcieving pay equity.
We'd tried all those & they hadn't worked."

Marching on, Sonja Davies, published 1997

[Lilith7]

“Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humourless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun.”

Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater