Ames Quotes

What she couldn't understand was people who didn't imagine everything. ~ Elizabeth Ames

I hid my underwear beneath a parked Peugeot. ~ Jonathan Ames

C" is for colonies
Rightly we boast
that of all the great nations
Great Britain has most! ~ Mrs. Ernest Ames

I knew quite well, when I gave the names of our agents in the Soviet Union, that I was exposing them to the full machinery of counterespionage and the law, and then prosecution and capital punishment. ~ Aldrich Ames

The inward offer is a kind of spiritual enlightenment, whereby the promises are presented to the hearts of men, as it were, by an inward word. ~ William Ames

I came into the Agency with a set of ideas and attitudes that were quite typical of people coming into the Agency at that time. You could call it liberal anti-communism. ~ Aldrich Ames

I'm often asked, 'What is your favorite moment during the 30 years you hosted The Tonight Show?' I really don't have just one. The times I enjoyed the most were the spontaneous, unplanned segments that just happened, like Ed Ames' infamous 'Tomahawk Toss' that produced one of the longest laughs in television history. When these lucky moments happen, you just go with them and enjoy the experience and high of the moment. ~ Johnny Carson

No one I interact with - except maybe for family and strangers at the Russian baths and other weird places I may go to - is just friends or lovers with me: they also know something of my writing and this distorts their take on me ~ Jonathan Ames

The reason it's hard for me to tweet is I don't want to pronounce anything, and Twitter is for pronouncing. ~ Jonathan Ames

In the exercise of God's efficiency, the decree of God comes first. This manner of working is the most perfect of all and notably agrees with the divine nature. ~ William Ames

The national security state has many unfair and cruel weapons in its arsenal, but that of junk science is one which can be fought and perhaps defeated. ~ Aldrich Ames

Everyone around her was just between escaping something and not knowing what might come for them next. All they could do was find those people whose hands they would hold fast when they ran. ~ Elizabeth Ames

I started puberty very late. I was nearly sixteen. And for complicated reasons this late arrival of my puberty caused me to stop playing competitive tennis. But before my puberty problem, I had trouble with my lower back and with my left testicle. ~ Jonathan Ames

So, I guess it's true what they say, beauty and brains don't always go together."
Crow smiled.
"Did you just call me dumb, but ridiculously good-looking? ~ John H. Ames

You might as well ask why a middle-aged man with no criminal record might put a paper bag over his head and rob a bank. I acted out of personal desperation. ~ Aldrich Ames

[O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention ... intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often ... oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country. ~ Fisher Ames

Now that he knew there was the possibility of gay porn in his future he was a happy hamster. ~ Tam Ames - Caged

A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way. ~ Fisher Ames

It was one of those days when every time I went to go out the door, something grabbed me in the back of the brain and said, lie down and masturbate one more time. ~ Jonathan Ames

I saw a limit to what I was giving as kind of a scam I was running on the KGB, by giving them people that I knew were their double agents fed to us. ~ Aldrich Ames

No one's interested really in knowing what policies or diplomatic initiatives or arms negotiations might have been compromised by me. ~ Aldrich Ames

We are not to consider ourselves, while here, as at church or school, to listen to the harangues of speculative piety; we are here to talk of the political interests committed to our charge. ~ Fisher Ames

When I was in college, I had the good fortune to have Joyce Carol Oates as my writing teacher. She told me that I could take an aspect of myself, and from that one bit of personality, I can create a character. This is what I have done, particularly in my novels. ~ Jonathan Ames

How they became friends was no great mystery, but now they remained so, braided together beyond their shared college quarters, this transcended the usual alchemy of optimism and obligation that kept friendships intact, kept people from fading into other categories: old friend, college friend, just someone I once knew. None of the four would ever be just anything to the others... ~ Elizabeth Ames, The Other's Gold

Something has happened where you almost never grow up in America. Maybe it's the greater wealth. ~ Jonathan Ames

Ames applied this technique to any number of compounds, but one of the most interesting pieces of work was his 1990 paper on "Dietary Pesticides."5 Ames recognized that most plants produced their own pesticides and compared their prevalence to the residues of synthetic pesticides. Surprisingly, they found that 99.99% of the pesticides in the American diet were from plants, and only .01% were from synthetic sources. They noted that only 52 of those naturally occurring pesticides had been tested for carcinogenicity, and that 27 of those were indeed carcinogenic. So, if more than half of the tested natural pesticides were carcinogenic and in far greater concentration than those applied by man, they then concluded that the hazards from synthetic pesticides were probably insignificant. ~ James W. Cooper

I promote my own self-hatred. ~ Jonathan Ames

I'm on the verge of a total breakdown. Sciatica. Taxes. Cars. Fleas, possibly. It's an absurd existence. ~ Jonathan Ames

Sanctification is not to be understood here as a separation from ordinary use or consecration to some special use, although this meaning is often present in Scripture, sometimes referring to outward and sometimes to inward or effectual separation. ~ William Ames

Her garments borrowed grace from her. ~ Ben Ames Williams

Participation in the blessings of the union with Christ comes when the faithful have all the things needed to live well and blessedly to God. ~ William Ames

The goodness of a thing created is the perfection of its fitness for the use which it serves. Now that use is either particular or universal. ~ William Ames

The resistance of policy-makers to intelligence is not just founded on an ideological presupposition. They distrust intelligence sources and intelligence officials because they don't understand what the real problems are. ~ Aldrich Ames

It's hard to leave New York: this is where my friends are, my parents are. It is so vital. The whole world seems to look to New York. ~ Jonathan Ames

A lot of writing is a form of seeing - putting down what you see in terms of action and landscape. ~ Jonathan Ames

I don't like to publicly acknowledge being a Jew. ~ Jonathan Ames

Every person according to his light," said Ames "You must help the world express itself. Use will make your powers endure ... ~ Theodore Dreiser

I wish I was the kind of writer who would go to a war zone and write about something that's meaningful and important to people, but that's not my area of coverage. ~ Jonathan Ames

For this is our most perfect duty and yet least known to us by nature: Whatever we conceive or will should be joined with the good of our neighbor. ~ William Ames

It's not easy taking care of one's self, determining nap lengths and all that, but with two people it's a manageable job. ~ Jonathan Ames

Would you like me to write Mrs. Ames about inviting you to Yaddo? Get Miss Moore to write too. You can't invite yourself, though, of course, almost all the invitations are planned. It would be marvelous to have you there. I know the solitude that gets too much. It doesn't drug me, but I get fantastic and uncivilized.
At last my divorce [from Jean Stafford] is over. It's funny at my age to have one's life so much in and on one's hands. All the rawness of learning, what I used to think should be done with by twenty-five. Sometimes nothing is so solid to me as writing - I suppose that's what vocation means - at times a torment, a bad conscience, but all in all, purpose and direction, so I'm thankful, and call it good, as Eliot would say. ~ Robert Lowell

I don't know that I've gotten much feedback directly from the literary world; sometimes I doubt even the notion that there is a literary world, though I guess there is or was. ~ Jonathan Ames

I said in court a long time ago that I didn't see that the Soviet Union was significantly helped by the information I gave them, nor that the United States was significantly harmed. ~ Aldrich Ames

I really should not be so willing to interpret my own books as I seem to be this evening. But the blessing Ames gives Jack is an act of recognition that blesses Ames, too. He is profoundly moved that he has had the occasion to do it, that Jack accepted it, wanted it. I really do believe that all blessing is mutual, and that the moment of blessing is when people rise to the very beautiful seriousness of what they are. I feel that we ought to value ourselves and one another far more than we do, and I'm speaking theologically here, but also with an awareness that always haunts me, that we are the wonder of the universe, incomparably complex, brilliant, poignant - and perverse, of course. Our own overwhelming problem. But there are good grounds for awe in any human encounter. If we came anywhere near respecting the richness of this improbable life - hopes would flourish and blossom as they have never done before. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Don't dwell on the shadows of the past, but move on with your future. ~ John H. Ames

A shining isle in a stormy sea, We seek it ever with smiles and sighs; To-day is sad. In the bland To-be, Serene and lovely To-morrow lies. ~ Mary C. Ames

I'm kind of an upbeat Hamlet. ~ Jonathan Ames

The attributes of God tell us what He is and who He is. ~ William Ames

I've always liked police-blotter kind of writing, or the writing of a policeman, right to the point and hardboiled. That's how I see at least the prose elements of scriptwriting. ~ Jonathan Ames

For example, in Vitamin K, the clotting proteins get it first ... and
only after they're satisfied do you prevent calcification of the arteries,
or prevent cancer, or prevent bone fractures. It's all insidious damage
that you get that's a long term consequence. In fact, we call these the
diseases of aging. ~ Bruce Ames

I need to stay in the present and use that new-age mantra: 'I'm okay right now.' But I worry about all the things I'm failing at every moment. ~ Jonathan Ames

Unfortunately, I'm one of those idiots who knows everything about health and is in a constant state of alarm, and yet I continue to do everything I shouldn't do. ~ Jonathan Ames

Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. Dalton Shirts. I thought all the time they were khaki, army issue khaki, until I saw they were of heavy Chinese silk or finest flannel because they made his face so brown his eyes so blue. Dalton Ames. It just missed gentility. Theatrical fixture. Just papier-mache, then touch. Oh. Asbestos. Not quite bronze. ~ William Faulkner

Now, all writing - all the arts - are a form of 'Pay attention to me,' but there's also the flip side. Like, I want to give something. Let me entertain you, let me amuse you, let me try to please you with this thing I've made. And then pay attention to me. ~ Jonathan Ames

The joke seemed to be that once they were very young and now they were very old, and that they had been the same day after day and were somehow at the end of it all so utterly changed. In a calm, affectionate way they studied each other. Ames ~ Marilynne Robinson

The promise in those words drove me out of my mind. I swear the world went soft around the edges, and Emanuel's hold on me suddenly wasn't nearly tight enough. His arm draped loosely around my shoulder might as well have been torture, because the body language was all wrong and I didn't want to be protected, didn't want to feel his cool regard - I wanted him to hold me down and fucking claim me. Miles ~ Solace Ames

through the transcript. Some colleagues, at least, found the whole exercise droll. Fisher Ames, a Federalist ~ Michael Waldman

Recently, I've discovered Radiohead and find them to be quite good. So clearly, I'm some kind of musical retard. (Jonathan Ames, Middle-American Gothic) ~ Dave Eggers

Thomas Goodwin said that "next to the Bible, he esteemed Dr. Ames, his Marrow of Divinity, as the best book in the world. ~ Joel R. Beeke

We looked into one another's eyes, and I think we both knew in that instant that the past was behind us. We could never be to each other what we had been once. ~ Ashley Weaver

I didn't think I was in a morbid mood, but it appears I am. My mind goes round and round trying to figure things out, but I always come back to the same two things: Loneliness and Death. Life ends before we figure anything out, most importantly how not to be lonely. Solitude is fine. But feeling like you have no one to love - abject lonliness - is not alright. ~ Jonathan Ames

We were idealists. We thought that when we got the vote the whole pattern of politics would be greatly improved and would be dominated by women. ~ Jessie Daniel Ames

The virtue of contentment is the acquiescence of the mind in the lot God has given ~ William Ames

Foreign Ministry guys don't become agents. Party officials, the Foreign Ministry nerds, tend not to volunteer to Western intelligence agencies. ~ Aldrich Ames

What you want to know is ... does it shorten your life? You can do
those kinds of questions in mice, but those are expensive to do and no
one's been really doing them. ~ Bruce Ames

I don't laugh that much, but I do like humorous books, and I like to entertain readers that way. ~ Jonathan Ames

While women's suffrage has not brought about the political millennium which its fondest backers predicted, its effects on the whole have been decidely beneficial. ~ Jessie Daniel Ames

Then between Sixth Street and Seventh Street, my mood was vastly improved when I passed a good-looking dog, a dark brown Lab. We locked eyes for a moment - two lovers from a former life reunited - and I felt quite happy. ~ Jonathan Ames

Because interrogations are intended to coerce confessions, interrogators feel themselves justified in using their coercive means. Consistency regarding the technique is not important; inducing anxiety and fear is the point. ~ Aldrich Ames

The ordinary ministry is that which receives all of its direction from the will of God revealed in the Scriptures and from those means which God has appointed in the church for its continual edification. ~ William Ames

Some ego is involved because I guess one wants to be perceived as a good clown and one puts one's name on the art; but it's so hard to do anything in life, trapped as we are in our bodies, that is purely selfless for others ... somehow the self is always involved. ~ Jonathan Ames

Think more, write less! ~ Andrea L. Ames

My little scam in April '85 went like this: Give me $50,000; here's some names of some people we've recruited. ~ Aldrich Ames

I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people. It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful. I love liberty as well as anybody. I am proud of it, as the true title of our people to distinction above others; but ... I would guard it by making the laws strong enough to protect it. ~ Fisher Ames

As a child, I wanted to be an athlete, a professional tennis player or something like that. ~ Jonathan Ames

The man born and bred a slave, even if freed, never loses wholly the feeling or manner of a slave. ~ Mary C. Ames

I grew up in northern New Jersey - the banlieue of New York - and I now live in Brooklyn. I am separated from my parents by about 50 miles, but really there is almost no distance between us. I speak to them nearly every day. ~ Jonathan Ames

A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the bottom; a republic is a raft which will never sink, but then your feet are always in the water. ~ Fisher Ames

A large portion of our citizens, who will not believe, even on the evidence of facts, that any public evils exist, or are impending. They deride the apprehensions of those who foresee, that licentiousness will prove, as it ever has proved, fatal to liberty. ~ Fisher Ames

I felt just the way I imagine the shade of poor old Samuel must have felt when the witch dragged him up from Sheol. "Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?" In fact, I had spent the morning darkness praying for the wisdom to do well by John Ames Boughton, and then when he woke me, I was immediately aware that my sullen old reptilian self would have handed him over to the Philistines for the sake of a few more minutes' sleep. ~ Marilynne Robinson

I found that our Soviet espionage efforts had virtually never, or had very seldom, produced any worthwhile political or economic intelligence on the Soviet Union. ~ Aldrich Ames

I was deeply depressed. I felt my brain slipping out of its casing and down my neck, like an egg sliding on a frying pan. So ~ Jonathan Ames

My professional apprenticeship at Iowa State College from 1930 to 1943 could not have been better; the Great Depression made it so, and the talented younger economists at Ames during that period made it an exciting and profitable intellectual experience. ~ Theodore Schultz

I will tell you sincerely and without exaggeration that the best part of lunch today at the NASA Ames cafeteria is the urine. It is clear and sweet, though not in the way mountain streams are said to be clear and sweet. More in the way of Karo syrup. The urine has been desalinated by osmotic pressure. Basically it swapped molecules with a concentrated sugar solution. Urine is a salty substance (though less so than the NASA Ames chili), and if you were to drink it in an effort to rehydrate yourself, it would have the opposite effect. But once the salt is taken care of and the distasteful organic molecules have been trapped in an activated charcoal filter, urine is a restorative and surprisingly drinkable lunchtime beverage. I was about to use the word unobjectionable, but that's not accurate. People object. They object a lot. ~ Mary Roach

I drink coffee. Without coffee, I probably couldn't write. ~ Jonathan Ames

No man can be a sound lawyer in this land who is not well read in the ethics of Moses and the virtues of Jesus. ~ Fisher Ames

To serve thy generation, this thy fate: "Written in water," swiftly fades thy name; But he who loves his kind does, first and late, A work too late for fame. ~ Mary C. Ames

The happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend on piety, religion, and morality. ~ Fisher Ames

Let's say a Soviet exchange student back in the '70s would go back and tell the KGB about people and places and things that he'd seen and done and been involved with. This is not really espionage; there's no betrayal of trust. ~ Aldrich Ames

Essentially I'm a pantheist-agnostic. I worship many deities with equal amounts of confusion. ~ Jonathan Ames

The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty. ~ Fisher Ames

I know I experience great consolation when my mouth is between a woman's legs. I think it must be because I'm drinking in her happiness. ~ Jonathan Ames

Theology is the doctrine or teaching of living to God. ~ William Ames

All such men are, or ought to be, agreed, that simple governments are despotisms; and of all despotisms, a democracy, though the least durable, is the most violent. ~ Fisher Ames

That can never be reasoned down which was not reasoned up. ~ Fisher Ames

The deepest insult which can be shown to a human being is to associate it solely with material functions, with no cognizance and no consideration of its intellectual and spiritual power. ~ Mary C. Ames

Perhaps my information hurt the Soviet Union more than it helped. I have no idea. It was not something I ever discussed with the KGB officers that I was dealing with. ~ Aldrich Ames

The Indian Summer, the dead Summer's soul. ~ Mary C. Ames

There's no shortage of material in life. ~ Jonathan Ames

Deciding whether to trust or credit a person is always an uncertain task. ~ Aldrich Ames