An Nam Quotes

Post-Traumatic Stress Injury isn't a disease. It's a wound to the soul that never heals. ~ Tom Glenn

Before Watergate and Viet Nam, the American public, as a whole, believed everything it was told, and since then it doesn't believe anything, and both of those extremes hurt us because they prevent us from recognizing the truth. ~ Daniel Keys Moran

If you never love you never hurt
If you never hurt you've never lived.
Love in life and embrace all the pains that come with it. ~ Sophia Nam

Back on the block they probably call Big Al "Fat Albert" but here in the Nam we don't insult our friends. ~ Derrick Wolf

She hated a mown lawn. Maybe that was because mow was the reverse of won, the beginning of the name of what she was - a woman. A mown lawn had a sad sound to it, like a long moan. From her, a mown lawn made a long moan. Lawn had some of the letters of man, though the reverse of man would be Nam, a bad war. A raw war. Lawn also contained the letters of law. In fact, lawn was a contraction of laman. Certainly a lawman could and did mow a lawn. Law and order could be seen as starting from lawn order, valued by so many Americans. More lawn could be made using a lawn mower. A lawn mower did make more lawn. More lawn was a contraction of more lawmen. Did more lawn in America make more lawmen in America? Did more lawn make more Nam? More mown lawn made more long moan, from her. Or a lawn mourn. So often, she said, Americans wanted more mown lawn. All of America might be one long mown lawn. A lawn not mown grows long, she said: better a long lawn. Better a long lawn and a mole. Let the lawman have the mown lawn, she said. Or the moron, the lawn moron. ~ Lydia Davis

A mind now clouded by the illusions of the innate darkness of life is like a tarnished mirror, but when polished, it is sure to become like a clear mirror, reflecting the essential nature of phenomena and the true aspect of reality. Arouse deep faith, and diligently polish your mirror day and night. How should you polish it? Only by chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo ~ Nichiren

If I said he really wants to see you, would you care a little bit?"
"No."
"You don't have anything you want to say to him?"
"I do, but I'm trying to be a better person and not use those words as much. ~ Deborah Nam-Krane

I was eighteen when I first read Joseph Heller's stunning work 'Catch-22,' and was at that time close to being drafted for the fruitless and unenlightened war in Viet Nam. ~ Thomas Steinbeck

Gabriel Squeezed His Eyes Shut. In the distance He Heard shay Screaming His Nam. What Had he done.?
The answer Slammed Into His Mind. He Had Fallen in Love with Her. It had Clouded His Judgment.
He LOVED Her, HEART, SOUL, And BODY. And He Had Sentenced Her To Death. ~ Laura J. Burns

I found myself surrounded by really old veterans wearing hats that said, "Retired Marine - SEMPER FI." These hats didn't appear to fit on their heads, but instead seemed to hover over them.
At one point, I mistakenly tried to take the last box of crackers that a veteran also wanted. He started yelling, "I ran away from home at seventeen, lied about my age, and joined the Corps! I fought in World War II, Korea, and NAM! I have no cartilage in my right knee! It's bone-on-bone, but every morning I run six miles! I did not sacrifice my knee for this country to come here today and have you disrespect me at the commissary. Oooh-RAH!"
I dropped the crackers and walked away. ~ Mollie Gross

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the greatest joy for all humankind. ~ Nichiren

You haven't lived a full life until you have been in a very tough situation when you thought you were going to die. War does that to you. ~ William E. Peterson

Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules. ~ John Goodman

In World War One, they called it shell shock. Second time around, they called it battle fatigue. After 'Nam, it was post-traumatic stress disorder. ~ Jan Karon

But is it right to prioritise short-term efficiency and balance sheets? Who'll be the last ones standing in a world with these priorities, and will they be happy? ~ Cho Nam-Joo

Not all the blood of beasts On Jewish altars slain, Could give the guilty conscience peace, Or wash away the stain: But Christ, the heav'nly Lamb, Takes all our sins away, A sacrifice of nobler nam' And richer blood than they. ~ Isaac Watts

That which leads us to the performance of duty by offering pleasure as its reward, is not virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue.
[Lat., Nam quae voluptate, quasi mercede aliqua, ad officium impellitur, ea non est virtus sed fallax imitatio simulatioque virtutis.] ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

The mirror is the worst judge of true beauty ~ Sophia Nam

I do believe that you can never know yourself let alone the person next to you let alone the person halfway across the world. Yet at the same time I believe there is nothing like fiction to fully thrust you into someone else s consciousness. ~ Nam Le

Suffer what there is to suffer, enjoy what there is to enjoy. Regard both suffering and joy as facts of life, and continue chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, no matter what happens. How could this be anything other than the boundless joy of the Law? ~ Nichiren

The thing is not to write what no one else has written but to write what only you could have written.'
I found this fragment in my old notebooks. The person who wrote that couldn't have known what would happen: how a voice hollows how words you once loved can wither on a page. ~ Nam Le

If you ask me why I came to Iowa, I would say that Iowa is beautiful in the way that any place is beautiful: if you treat it as the answer to a question you're asking yourself every day, just by being there. ~ Nam Le

Former secretary of state George Shultz, reflecting on forty years of United States foreign policy from 1970 to the present, said, When I think about all the money we spent on bombs and munitions, and our failures in Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world . . . Instead of advancing our agenda using force, we should have instead built schools and hospitals in these countries, improving the lives of their children. By now, those children would have grown into positions of influence, and they would be grateful to us instead of hating us. ~ Daniel J. Levitin

The library was ... scattered with odd cushions and strange padded built-in furniture added a few years ago to placate the rioting students of the time, who could never seem to make up their minds whether they were angriest about Viet Nam, about being made to learn a foreign language, or about being made to sit at a hard wooden desk while they did it. The College, being unable to do anything about Viet Nam and unwilling to do anything about the foreign language requirement, had reformed the furniture in the library. ~ Pamela Dean

Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation. ~ Edward R. Murrow

Today's theater-goer must live in dread of walking into a theater and discovering that some classic work has been given a modernized, socially relevant setting. Oedipus gouges his eyes with a spoon at a 1950's malt shop; Macbeth napalms Banquo in Viet Nam, Julius Caesar dies in Dallas in 1963. More and more, American theater is coming to resemble a season of Quantum Leap. ~ Reduced Shakespeare Company

The American soldiers were brave, but courage is not enough. David did not kill Goliath just because he was brave. He looked up at Goliath and realized that if he fought Goliath's way with a sword, Goliath would kill him. But if he picked up a rock and put it in his sling, he could hit Goliath in the head and knock Goliath down and kill him. David used his mind when he fought Goliath. So did we Vietnamese when we had to fight the Americans. ~ Vo Nguyen Giap

There is no rewind button on the BETAMAX of life. ~ Nam June Paik

If you have to think about it twice you probably shouldn't do it ~ Sophia Nam

The only way to win a race is to run alone. ~ Nam June Paik

Nature is beautiful, not because it changes beautifully, but simply because it changes. ~ Nam June Paik

The culture that's going to survive in the future is the culture that you can carry around in your head. ~ Nam June Paik

Somewhere along the way I came upon a mews with a small sign on the entrance gate addressed to the passing world. The sign orders flatly:

COMMIT NO NUISANCE

The more you stare at that, the more territory it covers. From dirtying the streets to housebreaking to invading Viet Nam, that covers all the territory there is. ~ Helene Hanff

I bet there are still many openings and loopholes in art history ... which are being overlooked right now by millions of young people who complain that everything has already been done, so that they cannot do new breakthroughs. However, the history of the world says that we don't win the games, but we change the rules of the games. ~ Nam June Paik

For whoever meditates a crime is guilty of the deed.
[Lat., Nam scelus intra se tacitum qui cogitat ullum,
Facti crimen habet.] ~ Juvenal

That was the problem with Alison Fischer: you never knew which part of her to look at. He looked at her face ~ Nam Le

The cathode-ray tube will replace canvas, ~ Nam June Paik

The great heart of comrade Kim Jong Il has ceased. ~ Kim Yong-nam