Bettermann Miriam Quotes

Dare beyond your strength, hazard beyond your judgment, and in extremities, proceed in excellent hope. Bare the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances. ~ Miriam Defensor Santiago

Hundreds of people began to care in a personal way about the suffering of farm workers because they care about you and learned that you were willing to go to jail with striking farm workers," Chris wrote the delegates from the Jesuit spirituality conference. He apologized profusely for having misled them into thinking they would be out in a few days. But no one complained. They told Chris the two weeks ranked among the most moving times of their lives. The gripes came from those who had opted for the picket line that obeyed the injunctions. They had been forced to make the decision too fast, they grumbled to Chris.

Chris saw the saga as a modern parable, and he loved to tell the story: The people who played it safe, unwilling to risk arrest, ended up feeling cheated and angry. Those willing to sacrifice emerged from the ordeal enriched, certain that the experience had changed their lives. ~ Miriam Pawel

Mary Jane. Listen. Please," Eloise said, sobbing. "You remember our freshman year, and I had that brown-and-yellow dress I bought in Boise, and Miriam Ball told me nobody wore those kind of dresses in New York, and I cried all night?" Eloise shook Mary Jane's arm. "I was a nice girl," she pleaded, "wasn't I? ~ J.D. Salinger

I love road trips. You get into this Zen rhythm; throw sense of time out the window. ~ Miriam Toews

If, along the way, something is gained, then something will also be lost. ~ Miriam Toews

Everybody now admits that apartheid was wrong, and all I did was tell the people who wanted to know where I come from how we lived in South Africa. I just told the world the truth. And if my truth then becomes political, I can't do anything about that. ~ Miriam Makeba

I said. I'm a maid. I'm a dancer, she said. She stuck her elbows out and snapped her fingers. Well, I said. I get paid. Well, she said. I get applause. Well, I said. I get paid and with that money I rent an apartment and buy food. And a television. Well, she said. I get applause and with that affirmation of my amazing talent I feel happy and confident and cool. Well, I said. Enjoy your life as a dancer. Well, she said. Enjoy your life as a maid. Thanks, I will, I said. Good, she said. We walked in grim silence towards something else. ~ Miriam Toews

It was ludicrous to think that we could just talk our way out of shame, that shame was necessary, that it prevented us from repeating shameful actions and that it motivated us to say we were sorry and to seek forgiveness and to empathize with our fellow humans and to feel the pain of self-loathing which motivated some of us to write books as a futile attempt at atonement, and shame also helped, I told my friend, to fuck up relationships and fucked-up relationships are the life force of books and movies and theatre so sure, let's get rid of shame but then we can kiss art goodbye too. ~ Miriam Toews

In a corrupt country, if you want to succeed in politics, you must keep your conscience under control. ~ Miriam Defensor Santiago

An even, straight path is attractive. Its predictable routine perpetuates with no extra effort required. It becomes autopilot that leads to endless same old thing.

An uneven, windy path is unavoidable to many. Its unforeseen, exciting adventures require balance, adjustment, alertness and attention. A path that leads to a rewarding dream of your life. ~ Miriam Hurdle

The bottle was almost empty when Miriam slid to the floor in a boneless heap. Startled,she pushed herself up and leaned back against the oven door. "You done mind If I shit, do you?" she asked.
Willow blinked, then giggled. "Course not."
"Oh,go-o-od." Miriam stretched her legs out in front of her, paying scant attention to the cotton twill skirts hiked up to her knees.
"Are you all right, Miriam?"
"Course,dear. Never felt so so-o-o good. It's just a little warm in here, that's all. Perhaps anudder cup of tha' cool wine 'll help."
Willow, who was also feeling a bit too warm, agreed and divided what was left of the wine between them. "I think we've had nuff practice, Miri, Miri..." She belched and giggled.
Miriam took another drink, slapped her thigh, and shook her finger at the girl. "It snaut nice to belch," she slurred. "Not ladylike 'tall."
"Know what I think, Miri-um?"
"No,wha'?"
"Nothing's ladylike."
"Thas right!" Miriam agreed, slapping her thigh again. "And thas why I always say, don't cuss. Nobody really gives a tinker's damn but it zounds like hell! ~ Charlotte McPherren

I cut off all my hair, cut away
at the soft curves of my clothing
until I have edges once again,
using my body like broken glass
to slice at the world around me.

I have to take something back,
because I have nothing more to give.

Eloi, eloi, lema sabachthani? ~ Miriam Joy

I wondered if it was possible to donate my body to science before I was actually dead. I wondered if a disease were to be named after me what the symptoms would be. ~ Miriam Toews

Miriam is upset. Her voice is stretched and I can't look at her. Perhaps they beat something out of her she didn't get back. ~ Anna Funder

Miriam Sacher had survived polio as a child. To Abraham, she was simply the most exquisite little bird who could not fly. ~ Guillermo Del Toro

If you aren't in love, Willow Vaughn, then my name isn't Miriam Brigham."
Willow started out of her daydreaming and glanced up from the laundry tub. Miriam stood before her with her fists planted on her hips. "Now, Miriam, I-"
"No sense denying it, young lady. You've got that dreamy dazed glow about you. Rider Sinclair isn't much better, the way he hangs around you,like a bee drawn to honey. He's always holding your hand or throwing his arm around you when he thinks I'm not looking."
"Well,even if I were in love, it wouldn't change anything. I still don't want another man to look after, and I don't need one looking out for me either. I can take care of myself!"
"Course, you can!" Miriam agreed, picking the last sheet out of the rinse water and wringing it out. "Most women can. Look at me, I run a boarding house and support myself just fine. But let me tell you something. That lonely bed of mine is mighty cold on winter nights, even here in the territory."
Willow blushed and concentrated on her hands where they rested on the edge of the tub.
"Willow," Miriam continued, "you've been managing your pa just fine since he got home. A husband isn't any more difficult to manage than a father, unless, of course, you're married to a no-good lout."
Willow dried her hands on the wide white apron around her middle. "But, Miriam, if I don't marry, then I don't have to bother finagling a man to my way of doing things. Staying single makes a hell of a lot m ~ Charlotte McPherren

David Bergen is a master of taut, spare prose that's both erotic and hypnotic ... ~ Miriam Toews

I am not afraid of death threats, but I am appalled that so many people are capable of so much wrong spelling and fractured grammar! ~ Miriam

It's a really unfair world because life is, where I am; all day long we listen to American music. So I don't see why the radios in the U.S. cannot even put aside one hour a day just to play music that is not American. ~ Miriam Makeba

Tea had featured heavily in the past fortnight. Miriam sometimes felt her belly sloshing with it, like a waterbed, yet still she took tea when it was proffered, for the symbolism, she supposed - solicitude, comfort, warmth. It is the English way, after all. ~ Susie Steiner

'Irma Voth' is my sixth book, but it's only the third time I've featured Mennonite settings and characters. ~ Miriam Toews

Life is not a race among the vain. ~ Miriam Defensor Santiago

Ignorance can be cured. Stupid is forever. ~ Miriam

I stare out the window and reflect on the similarity between writing and saving a life and the inevitable failure of one's imagination and one's goals and ambitions to create a character or a life worth saving. ~ Miriam Toews

An angry discussion followed, during which belligerent ministers, who had come to the convention in an attempt to disrupt it, read aloud passages from the Bible to disprove Antoinette Brown's contention of equality. They read passages like "Let your women be silent in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience," and "Likewise, ye wives, be in subection to your own husbands. ~ Miriam Gurko

Nomi, he said, you just need to wake up to the fact that other people need to know where you're going. But there's nobody behind me, I told him. And he said, reassuringly, that someday there may be. ~ Miriam Toews

You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place. ~ Miriam Adeney

Can't you just be like the rest of us, normal and sad and fucked up and alive and remorseful? ~ Miriam Toews

Alexis, please mind your mouth. Cursing in Russian is still cursing. ~ G.S. Jennsen

And what have you been up to? she asked.
Oh, I don't know really, I said. Not much. Learning how to be a good loser. ~ Miriam Toews

He is the same chap who informed me that there are unusually high numbers of Mennonites who suffer from depression but nobody knows why. I said, Well, thank you for that! As cheerfully as if I was accepting a plate of homemade Christmas cookies from one of my students. ~ Miriam Toews

There are three things I was born with in this world, and there are three things I will have until the day I die-hope, determination, and song. ~ Miriam Makeba

All we women have are our dreams – so of course we are dreamers. ~ Miriam Toews

We are not members, . . . we are commodities. . . . When our men have used us up so that we look sixty when we're thirty and our wombs have literally dropped out of our bodies onto our spotless kitchen floors, finished, they turn to our daughters. ~ Miriam Toews

In my mind he is a demon and a god
and I blame him, I blame him, I blame him
for the world I created on my own
as much as the one he built around me. ~ Miriam Joy

I want to feel them against my bare skin.
I want their colourful touch to burn itself into my body
and set my blood on fire with chemicals and fury,
to drag me from a place of retreat and smothered tears
into destruction and gloriously bright fire falling. ~ Miriam Joy

A true teacher does not terrorize ignorant students, because a true teacher knows that it is his job to cure ignorance. ~ Miriam Defensor Santiago

Salome interrupts. We're not members! she repeats. We are the women of Molotschna. The entire colony of Molotschna is built on the foundation of patriarchy (translator's note: Salome didn't use the word "patriarchy" - I inserted it in the place of Salome's curse, of mysterious origin, loosely translated as "talking through the flowers"), where the women live our their days as mute, submissive, and obedient servants. Animals. Fourteen-year-old boys are expected to give us orders, to determine our fates, to vote on our excommunications, to speak at the burials of our own babies while we remain silent, to interpret the Bible for us, to lead us in worship, to punish us! We are not members, Mariche. We are commodities. ~ Miriam Toews

The director said he's got a haunted soul and a natural sweetness. ~ Miriam Toews

Life being what it is, one dreams not of revenge. One just dreams. ~ Miriam Toews

Miriam really hates for me to ride to and from the ranch alone so your coming along should make her feel better. Right, Miriam?"
Miriam cast her a don't-play-my-own-tricks-on-me look.
For her benefactress's peace of mind, less than for Rider's knowledge, Willow added, "I've told Miriam she doesn't need to worry about me. I always carry a pistol."
Rider's brows shot up. "You pack a gun?"
"Uh-huh, an old Colt .45. It was a present from Nick, my oldest brother."
"And I bet you know how to shoot it, too." He smiled wryly.
"I ain't no quick draw, but I usually hit what I aim at. ~ Charlotte McPherren

I'm not really a practising Jew but I keep a kosher kitchen just to spite Hitler. ~ Miriam Margolyes