A Quote by Seth Grahame-Smith

Sometimes we see the Civil War in movies and imagine these neatly aligned rows of men with muskets, walking in line to shoot each other. In reality the things that fascinated me were how absolutely ruthless and violent so many engagements were, how much suffering and how men were not prepared.
I was a young feminist in the '70s. Feminism saved my life. It gave me a life. But I saw how so much of what people were saying was not matching up with what they were doing. For example, we were talking about sister solidarity, and women were putting each other down. We were talking about standing up for our rights, and women weren't leaving abusive relationships with men. There were just so many disconnects.
We really wanted to know all the unknowable things about each other and how we were the same and how we were different, if we even were, maybe nobody is.
In my formative years the people who influenced me most were the Christian existentialists, I mean men like Munier and Kierkegaard and perhaps most of all Nicholas Berdyaev and in my travels I looked for one thing more than anything. I rarely discussed, probably mainly because of language difficulties, metaphysics with the various religious people of other groups I'd meet with. But I'd very much try to see how they were incarnated, how their particular soul was incarnated or took roots into reality.
You look back and see how hard you worked and how poor you were, and how desperately anxious you were to succeed, and all you can remember is how happy you were.
They were not friends, Comdrade Pillai and Inspector Thomas Matthew, and they didn't trust each other. But they understood each other perfectly. They were both men whom childhood had abandoned without a trace. Men without curiosity. Without doubt. Both in their own way truly, terrifyingly, adult. They looked out into the world and never wondered how it worked, because they knew. They worked it. They were mechanics who serviced different parts of the same machine.
The '60s were a remarkable time because several things were happening at once. Men were leaving planet Earth, kids were breaking into the television age, and I was able to see Neil Armstrong walking on the moon.
Television and movies were our biggest teachers. When we came to the United States, the Vietnam War was just ratcheting up. And so the Asian faces that I saw on the news, they were the face of the enemy. Asian men, particularly, were either small, ineffective, or they were evil. And those messages were deeply, deeply embedded in me for many years.
It was the easiest thing in the world for Arya to step up behind him and stab him. “Is there gold hidden in the village?” she shouted as she drove the blade up through his back. “Is there silver? Gems?” She stabbed twice more. “Is there food? Where is Lord Beric?” She was on top of him by then, still stabbing. “Where did he go? How many men were with him? How many knights? How many bowmen? How many, how many, how many, how many, how many, how many? is there gold in the village?
What shocked me, and what I wasn't prepared for, was just how brutal and how unethical some people can be in the NFL. I mean, there were some great people, but there were some real snakes, too. I was like, 'Holy cow!' But it made me a better person, and it got me ready for other things.
Many things they sawe with us as mathematicall instruments, sea compasses... spring clocks that seemed to goe of themselves - and many other things we had - were so strange unto them, and so farre exceeded their capacities to comprehend the reason and meanes how they should be made and done, that they thought they were rather the workes of gods then men.
At the close of life the question will be not how much have you got, but how much have you given; not how much have you won, but how much have you done; not how much have you saved, but how much have you sacrificed; how much have you loved and served, not how much were you honored.
I was repelled by the sleazy reality of the totalitarian countries: politicians were shameless. There were corruption, pollution, shoddy goods, long lines, and suicide everywhere, but the leaders kept boasting about their great achievements and bright tomorrows. I saw all this and tried to show it in my pictures as simply and straightforwardly as I could. All I wanted to do was record how all these poor people adapted to lies and suffering, how they got used to it, how, in fact they were bound to miss it when it was over.
I always feel, I guess being a product of the movies of the 40s where movies were the greatest things and screens were big and palaces were palaces and stars were larger than life that reality was so much inferior to what we felt was conceivably possible from what we had seen in the movies.
In little pockets of conversation, old men were telling stories of ancient floods. Women were talking of about how much rain there'd been in other towns -- Paragould, Lepanto, and Manila.
There are men and women still on the streets, and that's all they are saying Can you spare a quarter? I come from a crowd of people who were current on the outlook on life, who were social and knew where they were and had some input into how things seemed to be.
How many boys like him were out there in the ether, holding on to their big brothers and sisters who were still alive? How many husbands were floating between life and death, clinging to their wives in this world? And how may millions and millions of people were there in the world like Charlie who wouldn't let go of their loved ones when they're gone?
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!