Black Boxes Quotes

As for breaking up, once the relationship is over, you never really know what went wrong; you just feel nauseous whenever the subject comes to mind. After a plane crash there's the black box that tells the FAA what caused the crack-up. Too bad there's no black box of relationships. ~ Linda Sunshine

They are the key components of our civilization. I want to show that inside these political, economic, legal and social black boxes are highly complex sets of interlocking institutions. Like the circuit boards inside your computer or your smartphone, it is these institutions that make the gadget work. And if it stops working, it is probably because of a defect in the institutional wiring. You cannot understand what is wrong just by looking at the shiny casing. You need to look inside. ~ Niall Ferguson

It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she was; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and voice; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose, as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers, she had carried them to that account. She brought with her two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the coachman she took her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was. ~ Charles Dickens

I don't mind doing the green-screen stuff at all, and in fact it's a lot like black-box theater, which I did plenty of in New York. ~ Gabriel Macht

You're all like black boxes here," he said. He meant the black boxes that record information on airplanes. We think that we're living, talking, walking, eating. Loving one another. But we're just recording information! ~ Svetlana Alexievich

The Four Black Boxes To demonstrate that Western institutions have indeed degenerated, I am going to have to open up some long-sealed black boxes. The first is the one labelled 'democracy'. The second is labelled 'capitalism'. The third is 'the rule of law'. And the fourth is 'civil society'. Together, ~ Niall Ferguson

The records are black boxes for me. Like, if you want to know who I am, my views, my perspective, things I love, things I hate, my convictions, my anthems. I've never let people's opinions affect the way I write. ~ Katy Perry

The guitar. Rubbing the gentle polish
On Every smooth contour.
On the lap. Knowing every curve
As the light shines from it.

On stage a planned metamorphosis
Takes places as the hours go by and the
Space is transformed to a concert hall.
The energetic nemesis has struck.

The risers are transformed into a stage
And black boxes turned into powerful
Pieces of sound equipment.
The spring is taut.

Backstage while pandemonium
Sweeps the hall and people
Crowd the arena as ants flow to a cake.

The stage is set, the
Instruments tuned and placed.
The musicians work out last minute
Kinks as the lights dim.

An intense force hits the spectators.
Energy is released in every form.
A power rage beyond comprehension. ~ David Morrell

Normally Connor would walk away from a conversation like this. His life is about tangibles: things you can see, hear and touch. God, souls, and all that has always been like a secret in a black box he couldn't see into, so it was easier just to leave it alone. Only now, he's inside the black box. ~ Neal Shusterman

Any effects created before 1975 were done with either tape or echo chambers or some kind of acoustic treatment. No magic black boxes! ~ Alan Parsons

Biology has progressed tremendously due to the model that Darwin put forth. But the black boxes Darwin accepted are now being opened, and our view of the world is again being shaken. ~ Michael Behe

I open the door to the fear landscape room and flip open the small black box that was in my back pocket to see the syringes inside. This is the box I have always used, padded around the needles; it is a sign of something sick inside me, or something brave. ~ Veronica Roth

I always liked the visuals to be choice and at the same time minimalist. And, I love black boxes. After all, that's what theatre is, it's an empty space, and it's both limited and unlimited because the space is the space, but what you can do with people's imaginations is really endless. ~ Harold Prince

We are not inferring design to account for a black box, but to account for an open box. ~ Michael Behe

If black boxes survive air crashes - why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff? ~ George Carlin

In the music industry it's just you're either Black or white, and this is the box you get put in. ~ India.Arie

I found a way of working which pleased me because I didn't have to frighten people with heavy equipment. It was that little black box and me. ~ Eve Arnold

My first time performing was in the black box theater of my high school's basement as a member of 'Clownaz,' the school's improv team. We charged money for tickets, saying the proceeds went to our school's recycling program. Then, immediately after the show, we divided up all the money and kept it. ~ Joe Mande

In theory, cars are fairly simple. If they don't start, it's either the fuel system or the electrical system. Teach yourself about the path of each in your engine and tracing it is fairly straightforward. But at the beginning, mastering each new system seems like an unreachable shore. The car is effectively a black box. ~ Adam Savage

Liberal economists conceive of societies as black boxes connected by exchange rates; as long as exchange rates are correct, what goes on inside the black box is regarded as not very important. ~ Robert Gilpin

School is at its best when it gives students the expectation that they will not only
dream big, but dream dreams that they can work on every day until they accomplish
them-not because they were chosen by a black-box process, but because
they worked hard enough to reach them. ~ Seth Godin

I am a black man dedicated to expression; expression of the joy and pride of blackness. I consider myself neither poet, composer, or musician. These are merely tools used by sensitive men to carve out a piece of beauty or truth that they hope may lead to peace and salvation. ~ Gil Scott-Heron

You remember that my great vision came to me when I was only nine years old, and you have seen that I was not much good for anything until after I had performed the horse dance near the mouth of the Tongue River during my eighteenth summer. ~ Black Elk

Tell us your life story.' I look up. Twenty sets of eyes looked back. Only forty-five minutes left in class. I wish I could tell them my life story. I would tell the popular girls to be nice, because later in life they'll realize isn't about them. I would tell the pretty girls that looks aren't all they have. I would tell the kids in black that is just a phase and the real world isn't quite so harsh. I would tell the tough girls that getting hurt is part of life. I would tell the pretty boy with the hair swoosh that there will be a million of him wherever he goes next and the thing that will make him stand out is his character. I would tell the girls trying desperately to fit in that one day it won't be so hard. I would tell the in-betweens that one day they'll have a place in this world. Mostly I would tell them there is a Jesus who loves them, a Jesus who knows what thy are going through and has a relationship waiting for them that is more then they could ever imagine. There are so many things I would like to tell this class, but for now they have to take a test. ~ Tindell Baldwin

She investigated further: moving along with little kisses down his throat and over his collarbone until she came to the same location on his neck that on hers was currently a decorative black and blue color. She bit him. Hard. Alexia never did anything by halves. ~ Gail Carriger

Andy once clipped a magazine article about how black dogs are always the last to be adopted at shelters and, therefore, more likely to be put down. Which is totally Dog Racism, if you ask me. ~ Stephanie Perkins

Let men in their madness blast every city on earth into black rubble and envelope the entire planet in a cloud of lethal gas - the canyons and hills, the springs and rocks will still be here, the sunlight will filter through, water will form and warmth shall be upon the land and after sufficient time, no matter how long, somewhere, living things will emerge and join and stand once again, this time perhaps to take a different and better course. I have seen the place called Trinity, in New Mexico, where our wise men exploded the first atomic bomb and the heat of the blast fused sand into a greenish glass - already the grass has returned, and the cactus and the mesquite. ~ Edward Abbey

I own a lot of shoes; I am not sure how many. ~ Kristin Cavallari

Hurry home, darling," she said. "Hurry home." And how's that for a man to have! When I hung up, I stood by the phone all weak and leaky and happy if there is such a condition. I tried to think how it had been before Mary, and I couldn't remember, or how it would be without her, and I could not imagine it except that it would be a condition bordered in black. ~ John Steinbeck

There's something easy about the idea that vampirism is some kind of disease- then they can't help it if they attack us, that they commit murders and atrocities, that they can only control themselves sometimes. They're sick; its not their fault. And there's something even easier about the idea of demonic invasion, something forcing our loved ones to do all manner of terrible things. Still not their fault, only now we can destroy them. But the third option, the possibility that there's something monstrous inside of us that can be unleashed, is the most disturbing of all. Maybe its just us, us with a raging hunger, us with a couple of accidental murders under our belt. Humanity, with the training wheels off the bike, careening down a steep hill. Humanity, freed from the constraints of consequence and gifted with power. Humanity, grown away from all things human. ~ Holly Black

He stands, loosening his black tie and stripping off his white shirt, dropping the latter just in front of my face. The appetizing smell of him reaches my face in a goading wave. As he walks around my body to the bed, he slaps my ass, making me turn and yelp. ~ Felicity Brandon

When you find yourself judging, yourself or others, move on to something else. It's a hallmark symptom of mindlessness to be constantly classifying our experiences, including how we experience other people, into simple black-and-white categories. When we do this we miss out on all the rich detail of life. And we act on prejudices and stereotypes. If you learn to stop judging, you will start to undermine your most ingrained paradigms. ~ Anonymous

Patriarchal hip-hop ushered in a world where black males could declare that they were "keeping it real" when what they were really doing was taking the dead patriarchal protest of the black power movement and rearticulating it in forms that, though entertaining, had for the most part no transformative power, no ability to intervene on the politics of domination, and turn the real lives of black men around. ~ Bell Hooks

Whether in private debate or in public, any attempt I made to explain how the Black Muslim movement came about, and how it has achieved such force, was met with a blankness that revealed the little connection that the liberals' attitudes have with their perceptions or their lives, or even their knowledge - revealed, in fact, that they could deal with the Negro as a symbol or a victim but had no sense of him as a man. ~ James Baldwin

Well first of all, I'd just like to say that 2005 was a great year, if you like swimming through crap. ~ Lewis Black

I'd get out of here," he said. "Go someplace where no one knew me. Start over. Go to Paris like you did or go to - I don't know - Prague. Somewhere." He looked toward the window, like he could already see himself gone.
"Oh," she said, because it hurt that he was thinking about that when she was thinking about him. She narrowed her eyes. "What's stopping you?"
The boy looked down at the book of fairy tales. "Nothing," he said.
Lila wanted to be the one to stop him. ~ Holly Black

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends. ~ Shel Silverstein

To avoid detection, the Doctor had attached a device called Randomiser to his TARDIS, his plan being to outfox the Black Guardian by popping up randomly all over the place. Neither Romana nor K-9 had the heart to tell the Doctor that that was pretty much what he did anyway. ~ Gareth Roberts

Now are the woods all black, but still the sky is blue.
May you always see a blue sky overhead, my young friend; and then, even when the time comes, which is coming now for me, when the woods are all black, when night is fast falling, you will be able to console yourself, as I am doing, by looking up to the sky. ~ Marcel Proust

I had an iPhone and a Droid and both of them were miserable pieces of equipment. ~ Lewis Black

I see the world for what it is, beyond the white and the black. ~ Immortal Technique

Even in pictures of their youth, old people look old.
He watched as the pictures moved to crisp black-and-white and then to the bland colour of Polaroids, watched as children were born and then grew up, as hair fell out and was replaced by wrinkles.
And all the while Starnes and Mary stayed in the pictures together, from their wedding to their fiftieth anniversary.
I will have that, Colin thought. I will have it. I will. ~ John Green

I got out of the bathtub and put on a black low-cut dress with lace all over it sandly. I put on black high heels with pink metal stuff on the ends and six pairs of skull earrings.
I couldn't fucking believe it. Then I looked out the window and screamed ... Snap was spying on me and he was taking a video tape of me! And Loopin was masticating to it! They were sitting on their broomsticks. ~ Tara Gilesbie

Unwrapping the paper carefully so it doesn't tear, I find a beautiful red leather box. Cartier. It's familiar, thanks to my second-chance earrings and my watch. Cautiously, I open the box to discover a delicate charm bracelet of silver or platinum or white gold - I don't know, but it's absolutely enchanting. Attached to it are several charms: the Eiffel Tower; a London black cab; a helicopter - Charlie Tango; a glider - the soaring, a catamaran - The Grace; a bed; and an ice cream cone? I look up at him, bemused. "Vanilla?" He shrugs apologetically( ... ) ~ E.L. James

Yep. A box of dicks, if you will. Actually, that's how I got fired."
"What do you mean?"
"I screwed up and had my prototypes sent to my office. The boxes got piled up outside my cube, and a coworker of mine decided she had to know what was in them, so she opened one. Apparently she wasn't used to being wrist-deep in dicks because she freaked and dropped one on the floor, which of course turned on and vibrated its way just far enough into the hall for a senior VP to trip on. He landed face-first on the floor, broke a wrist and chipped a tooth, and I had to explain that my dick was the culprit. ~ Meghan March

The place where [adults] pass the most time and submit to the closest control is at work. Thus, without even entering into the question of the world economy's ultimate dictation within narrow limits of everybody's productive activity, it's apparent that the source of the greatest direct duress experienced by the ordinary adult is _not_ the state but rather the business that employs him. Your foreman or supervisor gives you more or-else orders in a week than the police do in a decade. ~ Bob Black

It was like watching magic take wing, Brian thought.The muscular black horse soared over the ground with the woman on his back.They streaked over another rise,moving west,into the dying sun. The sky was a riot of color, a painting slashed with reds and golds. It seemed to him she would ride straight into it, through it.
And he'd have no choice but to follow her.
When she pulled up,turned to wait for him, her face flushed with pleasure, her eyes gleaming with it,he knew he'd never seen the like.
And wanting her was apt to kill him. ~ Nora Roberts

Yeah," I said. "And I'm gonna look just like him."
The black cat paused and looked me over.
"No you ain't baby. That cat is a prince, man. He is royalty in exile. You ain't never gonna look like that. ~ S.E. Hinton

The Garden of Love
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys & desires. ~ William Blake

Prince is king to me. As this half-naked, short black guy who looked like a girl in the 70s and 80s, he was talking about women in a way that was very unusual because he didn't objectify them. ~ Robyn

If people believe that they are marrying out of love and free choice rather than out of duty, they are more likely to decide, if love should die, that the free choice to join together is no more significant than the free choice to part, and to look for love elsewhere; those married out of duty expect less love to begin with, and what duty has brought together, duty may keep together. ~ Stephen L. Carter

With all the trouble black people have, they try to forget on weekends. You've got to be good to make them laugh. ~ Flip Wilson

Just because I don't have on a silly black costume and carry a silly broom and wear a silly black hat, doesn't mean that I'm not a witch. I'm a witch all the time and not just on Halloween. ~ E.L. Konigsburg

Historian Larry Hise notes in his book Pro-Slavery that ministers 'wrote almost half of all defenses of slavery published in America.' He listed 275 men of the cloth who used the Bible to prove that white people were entitled to own black people as work animals. ~ James A. Haught

I guess cause i'm black boy, I'm supposed to say 'peace', sing songs, and get capped on. ~ Tupac Shakur

Can you save yourself? ~ Holly Black

You shaved your chest?"
He looks down at the sheer black stripes. "Actually, there wasn't a mirror in my room. Gossamer did it after my bath, when she shaved my face. She said elves are hairless everywhere but their heads."
Everywhere? I pictured him naked - Gossamer touching his abs, among other places. "That sprite saw you in the nude?"
He clears his throat. "More than just her. I think there were about thirty of them climbing on me at one point."
A surge of jealousy scalds me. My fists clench. "Thirty sprites touched your naked body?"
"Chill about the sprites, all right? Flying lima beans aren't my thing. ~ A.G. Howard

The drive to Black Rock City from San Francisco leads through the Nevada flatlands, past the jittering neon sadness of Reno. ~ Daniel Pinchbeck

Billy nods and turns to the window. He knows he will never see Faison again, but how can he know? How does anyone ever know anything - the past is a fog that breathes out ghost after ghost, the present a freeway thunder run at 90 mph, which makes the future the ultimate black hole of futile speculation. And yet he knows, at least he thinks he knows, he feels it seeded in the purest certainty of his grief as he finds his seat belt and snaps it shut, that snick like the final lock of a vast and complex system. He's in. Bound for the war. Good-bye, good-bye, good night, I love you all. He sits back, closes his eyes, and tries to think about nothing as the limo takes them away. ~ Ben Fountain

I think black Americans expect too much from individual black Americans in terms of changing the status quo. ~ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

I like black for clothes, small items, and jewelry. It's a color that can't be violated by any other colors. A color that simply keeps being itself. A color that sinks more somberly than any other color, yet asserts itself more than all other colors. It's a passionate gallant color. Anything is wonderful if it transcends things rather than being halfway ... ~ Yana Toboso

We have to realize our black heritage in order to give us strength to move on and progress. But as far as returning to the old African culture, it's unnecessary and it's not advantageous in many respects. We believe that culture itself will not liberate us. We're going to need some stronger stuff. ~ Huey Newton