Brochure Quotes

You will know recycling has been picked up because your recycling bags will be gone and there will be a large, reddish brown smear across your front door roughly in the shape of an X. Or maybe it's a cross. It's not clear in the brochure I've been handed, which has no words, only dark black-and-white photographs of angled shadows along brick walls. I mean, municipal one-sheets are kind of useless, but this one is at least haunting. ~ Joseph Fink

Okay, I know--my superpower--I'd be able to shoot lightening bolts out from my fingertips--great big knowledge network lightening bolts--and when a person was zapped by one of those bolts, they'd fall down on their knees and once on their knees, they'd be under water, in this place I saw once off the east coast of the Bahamas, a place where a billion electric blue fish swam up to me and made me a part of their school--and then they'd be up in the air, up in Manhattan, above the World Trade Center, with a flock of pigeons, flying amid the skyscrapers, and then--then what? And then they'd go blind, and then they'd be taken away--they'd feel homesick--more homesick than they'd felt in their entire life--so homesick they were throwing up--and they'd be abandoned, I don't know...in the middle of a harvested corn field in Missouri. And then they'd be able to see again, and from the edges of the field people would appear--everybody they'd known--and they'd be carrying Black Forest cakes and burning tiki lamps and boom boxes playing the same song, and they sky would turn into a sunset, the way it does in Walt Disney brochure, and the person I zapped would never be alone or isolated again. ~ Douglas Coupland

He stood up, rushed to the fanned-out glossy company brochures. His finger landed on one in the center. Three stylized gold crowns. Corona Labs - BRINGING THE FUTURE TODAY.
"This," he said, finger tapping. Each time he touched the paper it seemed to get warmer.
This turned out to be the brochure for a new company.
Catherine picked it up, showed it to her husband. "I thought I knew more or less all the research labs in the country, but this is a new one." Mac turned the glossy paper over in his big hands. There was a videolette loop embedded in the paper, all the rage nowadays. Some smiling woman in a lab coat endlessly raising a test tube in triumph, putting it down, raising it . . .
Nick was shaking with tension. The logo, the name Corona Laboratories meant nothing to him, but still they shone in his mind. ~ Lisa Marie Rice

Depression, we are told over and over again, is a brain disease, a chemical imbalance that can be adjusted by antidepressant medication. In an informational brochure issued to inform the public about depression, the US National Institute for Mental Health tells people that 'depressive illnesses are disorders of the brain' and adds that 'important neurotransmitters - chemicals that brain cells use to communicate - appear to be out of balance'. This view is so widespread that it was even proffered by the editors of PLoS [Public Library of Science] Medicine in their summary that accompanied our article. 'Depression,' they wrote, 'is a serious medical illness caused by imbalances in the brain chemicals that regulate mood', and they went on to say that antidepressants are supposed to work by correcting these imbalances.
The editors wrote their comment on chemical imbalances as if it were an established fact, and this is also how it is presented by drug companies. Actually, it is not. Instead, even its proponents have to admit that it is a controversial hypothesis that has not yet been proven. Not only is the chemical-imbalance hypothesis unproven, but I will argue that it is about as close as a theory gets in science to being dis-proven by the evidence. ~ Irving Kirsch

It says in the brochure," said Arthur, pulling it out of his pocket and looking at it again, "that I can have a special prayer, individually tailored to me and my special needs."
- "Oh, all right," said the old man. "Here's a prayer for you. Got a pencil?"
- "Yes," said Arthur.
- "It goes like this. Let's see now: "Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen." That's it. It's what you pray silently inside yourself anyway, so you may as well have it out in the open."
- "Hmmm," said Arthur. "Well, thank you"
- "There's another prayer that goes with it that's very Important," continued the old man, "so you'd better jot this down, too, just in case. You can never be too sure. "Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer. Amen." And that's it. Most of the trouble people get into in life comes from missing out that last part. ~ Douglas Adams

Never liked history much, at least as it was relayed to him in school. It sounded too much like a brochure, everything neatly laid out and painfully obvious in retrospect. Every war had its bullet-pointed causes; every megalomaniac dictator was so cartoonishly evil you wondered how stupid the people of the past had to be, not to notice. ~ Cassandra Clare

my parents are Mexican who are not
to be confused with Mexican Americans
or Chicanos.

i am a Chicano from Chicago
which means i am a Mexican American
with a fancy college degree & a few tattoos.

my parents are Mexican who are not
to be confused with Mexicans still living
in México. those Mexicans call themselves mexicanos.
white folks at parties call them pobrecitos.
American colleges call them international students & diverse.

my mom was white in México & my dad was mestizo
& after they crossed the border they became diverse. & minorities. & ethnic. & exotic.

but my parents call themselves mexicanos,
who, again, should not be confused for mexicanos
living in México. those mexicanos might call
my family gringos, which is the word my family calls
white folks & white folks call my parents interracial.
colleges say put them on a brochure.

my parents say que significa esa palabra.
i point out that all the men in my family
marry lighter-skinned women. that's the Chicano
in me. which means it's the fancy college degrees
in me, which is also diverse of me. everything in me
is diverse even when i eat American foods
like hamburgers, which, to clarify, are American
when a white person eats them & diverse
when my family eats them. so much of America
can be understood like this. ~ José Olivarez

Many a trace, and many a germ of this infantile disease, to which without a doubt, I also am a victim, has been chased away by your brochure, or will yet be eradicated by it. ~ Herman Gorter

You're supposed to be Easterns' ladies man. I'm not getting the full freshman experience they promised in the brochure. ~ Jamie McGuire

Actively deciding to give to causes that move you deeply is far more fulfilling than the momentary gratification derived from signing a check and mailing it to a nonprofit about which you know little more than what's on the brochure they sent you. ~ Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen

I would show him the hotel brochure, but ~ Jojo Moyes

This idea where, in this safe haven for Jews, Jews will threaten to kill other Jews, it wasn't in the brochure. ~ Etgar Keret

Let's do it,Gregori." Her long eyelashes swept down to cover her expression, and that little infuriating smile brought his attention to her soft mouth. "You might pick up some pointers. After all,these guys are probably professionals."
Gregori felt the laughter welling up from somewhere in hi soul. The silver eyes warmed to molten mercury, quicksilver. "You think they might be able to help me out?"
Savannah nodded solemnly. "It says right on the brochure, no drunks. That has to mean they know what they're doing, don't you think? ~ Christine Feehan

You're important to me, you know," I said, squeezing him.
"I don't understand you, Pigeon. I thought I knew women, but you're so fucking confusing I don't know which way is up."
"I don't understand you, either. You're supposed to be Eastern's ladies' man. I'm not getting the full freshmen experience they promised in the brochure," I teased.
"Well, that's a first. I've never had a girl sleep with me to get me to leave her alone," he said, keeping his back to me. ~ Jamie McGuire

I didn't actually figure out how to get guidance, so I just decided to go to school at University of Southern California because they sent me a glossy brochure. ~ Bonnie Jo Campbell

I think the way design was practiced for most of the 20th century was very declarative. A designer came up with a solution for a project and put it in place and shipped the solution and it landed in a reader or a customer's hands as a brochure. They would see it as a poster, or as a piece of signage. And that was sort of it. That was the end of it. I think Internet technology has really upended that whole equation because in some ways a designer's work is never really done online. ~ Khoi Vinh

Ghastly," continued Marvin, "it all is. Absolutely ghastly. Just don't even talk about it. Look at this door," he said, stepping through it. The irony circuits cut in to his voice modulator as he mimicked the style of the sales brochure. " 'All the doors in his spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.' "
As the door closed behind them it became apparent that it did indeed have a satisfied sighlike quality to it. "Hummmmmmmyummmmmmmah!" it said. ~ Douglas Adams

So I made an outline. Well, you know, days are going by, and I am not writing anything because this thing is laid out in front of me. It's as if you get every brochure for a trip you are going to go on and you get the minutest details of every step along the way. Well, I really doubt you're going to then get in the car and go. You know, it's like, why bother if it's all laid out in front of you? ~ Steve Tesich

Imagine you are a member of a tour visiting Greece. The group goes to the Parthenon. It is a bore. Few people even bother to look - it looked better in the brochure. So people take half a look, mostly take pictures, remark on serious erosion by acid rain. You are puzzled. Why should one of the glories and fonts of Western civilization, viewed under pleasant conditions - good weather, good hotel room, good food, good guide - be a bore?
Now imagine under what set of circumstances a viewing of the Parthenon would not be a bore. For example, you are a NATO colonel defending Greece against a Soviet assault. You are in a bunker in downtown Athens, binoculars propped up on sandbags. It is dawn. A medium-range missile attack is under way. Half a million Greeks are dead. Two missiles bracket the Parthenon. The next will surely be a hit. Between columns of smoke, a ray of golden light catches the portico.
Are you bored? Can you see the Parthenon?
Explain. ~ Walker Percy

The longing provoked by the brochure was an example , at once touching and pathetic, of how projects (and even whole lives) might be influenced by the simplest and most unexamined images of happiness; of how a lengthy and ruinously expensive journey might be set in motion by nothing more than the sigh of a photograph of a palm tree gently inclining in a tropical breeze. I resolved to travel to the island of Barbados. ~ Alain De Botton

The sky grows dark over the city as Janey tells me her story. Teh beast was supposed to help their community. Something that would look good in a brochure, I suppose. But instead, it cut loose, took out in to the Williamsburg night. Janey and the kids went after it , and when they finally caught up what does it do? The thing ate a hipster. ~ Daniel Jose Older

Arthur checked himself into a small motel on the outskirts of town, and sat glumly on the bed, which was damp, and flipped through the little information brochure, which was also damp. It said that the planet of NowWhat had been named after the opening words of the first settlers to arrive there after struggling across light years of space to reach the furthest unexplored outreaches of the Galaxy. The main town was called OhWell. ~ Douglas Adams

The frontispiece featured a brochure from a Parisian brothel of the belle époque. It came as a profound shock when I realised that some of the sexual specialities offered by 'Mademoiselle Hortense' were completely unknown to me. I had no idea what a 'voyage through the yellow land' or a 'Russian imperial soap' could possibly mean. Certain sexual practices had vanished from human memory, in one century – not unlike certain forms of skilled labour, such as cobbling or bell-ringing. How could anyone argue that Europe wasn't in decline? ~ Michel Houellebecq

Life is never quite like the brochure. ~ Chuck Lorre

He gave me the brochure. It was about the Hunters of Artemis. The front read, A WISE CHOICE FOR YOUR FUTURE! Inside were pictures of young maidens doing hunter stuff, chasing monsters, shooting bows. There were captions like: HEALTH BENEFITS: IMMORTALITY AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU! and A BOY-FREE TOMORROW!
"I found that in Annabeth's backpack," Grover said.
I stared at him. "I don't understand."
"Well, it seems to me ... maybe Annabeth was thinking about joining."
I'd like to say I took the news well.
The truth was, I wanted to strangle the Hunters of Artemis one eternal maiden at a time. ~ Rick Riordan

I spent a lot of last night being moody and grim.
I'm a vampire. We're allowed to do that. It's in all the brochures. ~ Garon Whited

Ever since Apple's first brochure proclaimed "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication," Jobs had aimed for the simplicity that comes from conquering complexities, not ignoring them. "It takes a lot of hard word," he said, "to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions. ~ Walter Isaacson

It was hard to get lost in Missoula even if you wanted to. Wherever you were, all you had to do to get your bearings was look around and find the big letter M, embossed in white halfway up the steep shoulder of grass that reared on the south bank of the Clark Fork River. Though only a hill, it was called Mount Sentinel and if you had the legs and lungs and inclination to hike the trail that zigzagged up it, you could stand by the M and gaze out across the town at a travel-brochure shot of forest and mountain dusted from early fall with snow. ~ Nicholas Evans

If your stories are all about your products and services, that's not storytelling. It's a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger. ~ Jay Baer

A tourist - almost by definition a person immersed in prejudice, whose interest was circumscribed, who admired the weathered faced and rustic manners of the local inhabitants, a perspective entirely contemptible but nonetheless difficult to avoid. I would have irritated myself in their position. By my presence alone, I reduced their home to a backdrop for my leisure, it became picturesque, quaint, charming, words on the back of a postcard or a brochure. Perhaps, as a tourist, I even congratulated myself on my taste, my ability to perceive this charm, certainly Christopher would have done so, it was not Monaco, it was not Saint-Tropez, this delightful rural village was something more sophisticated, something unexpected. ~ Katie Kitamura

So that's our approach. Very simple, and we're really shooting for Museum of Modern Art quality. The way we're running the company, the product design, the advertising, it all comes down to this: Let's make it simple. Really simple." Apple's design mantra would remain the one featured on its first brochure: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. ~ Walter Isaacson

in the middle of this God-forsaken desert, the government built an oasis. The designers included rolling hills, a small river, walking trails, two small lakes, and dozens of large one and two story buildings that seemed to be part of the environment. And there was grass, lots of bright green grass right there in the middle of the desert. It was synthetic but it looked real and made the place look like a picture on a travel brochure. ~ Clint Morey

Love never comes with a brochure of rules and regulations, a prospectus with guides of what is acceptable and what is abominable. It's a standard to follow your heart, and that's what I did and if doing that hurt you, then I'm sorry ... sorry for coming in your life and wasting your time, for causing you an anguish so great that you could not bear the sight of me. Today, I am proud to stand up and honour myself and proclaim to the world ... yes, I loved someone more than myself. I loved someone truly, madly, deeply! ~ Faraaz Kazi

In Vietnamese hoa means 'flower' and the first thing we noticed on the menu was lau hoa, flower hotpot. This was where we were meant to be.
Stunning fresh blossoms of squash, daylilies, white so dua flowers, lotus stems and yellow velvetleaf buds made up the floral ingredients in our flower hotpot. All of these were cooked together in a light pineapple soup base that included chunks of salmon. The restaurant's brochure explained why the name had been chosen: 'Chi Hoa, which means "flowers", is a common name of many Vietnamese women who are sophisticated, caring and always bring great love into every meal they cook for their family. ~ Constance Kirker

Siebel, The Magazine has a man in a suit on the cover. He's not smiling, or frowning. He wears a beard that isn't a beard; it's a quotation from a film nobody can put their finger on. 'Customer satisfaction,' says the brochure. 'Seamless integration.' 'Comprehensive upgrade.' Of what? I want to scream. 'Solutions provider.' Siebel has solutions for questions that have not yet been asked, will never be asked.
A Sino-American businessman holds a tiny screen in his hand: 'You're always connected and always available. Some call it a revolution; others call it evolution.' Language is de-fanged, homogenised. Yellow E-tab faces leer at you. Ecstasy without frenzy. Satisfaction, whether you want it or not. ~ Iain Sinclair

Old soldier's trick, sir. Sleep when you can." "You're not sleeping, Staff." "Staff sergeants never sleep, sir." "Ever vigilant?" "You've been reading the brochure. ~ Tanya Huff

Howard thought, Is it not true: A move of the head, a step to the left or right, and we change from wise, decent, loyal people to conceited fools? Light changes, our eyes blink and see the world from the slightest difference of perspective and our place in it has changed infinitely: Sun catches cheap plate flaking
I am a tinker; the moon is an egg glowing in its nest of leafless trees
I am a poet; a brochure for an asylum is on the dresser
I am an epileptic, insane; the house is behind me
I am a fugitive. His despair had not come from the fact that he was a fool; he knew he was a fool. The despair came from the fact that his wife saw him as a fool, as a useless tinker, a copier of bad verses from two-penny religious magazines, an epileptic, and could find no reason to turn her head and see him as something better. ~ Paul Harding

Now focus. 17° 59' 0" North, 76° 44' 0" West. Down there is the Caribbean, though not the bits you might have seen in a pretty little brochure. We are beyond the aquamarine waters, with their slow manatees and graceful sea turtles, and beyond the beaches littered with sweet almonds. We have gone inland. Notice the hills, how one of them carries on its face a scar - a section where bulldozers and tractors have sunk their rusty talons into its cheeks, scraped away the brush and the trees and left behind a white crater of marl. The eyesore can be seen from ten or more miles away. To the people who live in this valley, it feels as if they wear the scar on their own skin - as if a kind of ruin has befallen them. ~ Kei Miller

The Catholic Church discourages non-Catholics from receiving the Eucharist, so I remained in my seat as the twenty or so congregants approached the altar to receive the elements. The "Not Catholic?" part of my brochure suggested I use this moment to "pray for the reunification of the church," which, though I'm sure it was unintended, sounded a lot like, "You sit here and think about that schism you caused. ~ Rachel Held Evans

You know, plenty of people headed off to Canada or America on the basis of government information, propaganda campaigns. Often you'd go off with a brochure in hand and you'd turn up and it wouldn't be like that at all. ~ Emma Donoghue

seven tips for gaining the response rate you want with direct mail. 1. The headline of your brochure should ask for the order. 2. The copy should always tell the person what to do next. 3. Blue is a dandy second color, but red with black is generally the best-pulling direct-mail combination. 4. Red can be overused; use it primarily for highlights. 5. Experts say that the four most important elements in direct mail are the list, the offer, the copy, and the graphics. Guerrillas pay close attention to each. 6. The fastest-growing segment of the direct-mail industry is nontraditional mailers - those who haven't used direct mail in the past. 7. Direct-mail success comes with the cumulative effect of repeat mailings. Make them repetitive yet different from one another. ~ Jay Conrad Levinson

I don't understand you, Pigeon. I thought I knew women, but you're so fucking confusing I don't know which way is up."
"I don't understand you, either. You're supposed to be Eastern's ladies' man. I'm not getting the full freshmen experience they promised in the brochure," I teased. ~ Jamie McGuire