Cosmica South Quotes

My job is not done. I address my songs now to the third world. I am popular all over Asia and Africa and the Middle East, not to speak of South Africa, where I'm trying to go to see Nelson Mandela. ~ Nina Simone

I have written about the "toxic church" I grew up in: a legalistic, angry, racist church in the South. I joke about being "in recovery" from that church, learning along the way that much presented as absolute truth was in fact wrong. As a result, when I began writing I saw myself as someone on the edge, more comfortable asking questions than proposing answers. My early book titles (Where Is God When It Hurts, Disappointment with God) betray what I struggled with and how I ~ Philip Yancey

He was desperately lonely. He had a hard time connecting with new people. If South Koreans were sympathetic toward him, he found them condescending. Even though he hated the North Korean regime, he found he'd get defensive when South Koreans criticized it. This was a common predicament for defectors. ~ Barbara Demick

In the South the war is what A.D. is elsewhere; they date from it. ~ Mark Twain

If we talk about the environment, for example, we have to talk about environmental racism - about the fact that kids in South Central Los Angeles have a third of the lung capacity of kids in Santa Monica. ~ Danny Glover

Being traditional is a choice for me. South Indian families bring up their children with a sense of freedom, self-respect and self-value. We do whatever we have to with earnestness and honesty, including being uninhibited. Yet we hold onto our roots. ~ Vidya Balan

The V-2's directional system was notoriously erratic. In May 1947, a V-2 launched from White Sands Proving Ground headed south instead of north, missing downtown Juarez, Mexico, by 3 miles. The Mexican government's response to the American bombing was admirably laid back. General Enrique Diaz Gonzales and Consul General Raul Michel met with United States officials, who issued apologies and an invitation to come to "the next rocket shoot" at White Sands. The Mexican citizenry was similarly nonchalant. "Bomb Blast Fails to Halt Spring Fiesta," said the El Paso Times headline, noting that "many thought the explosion was a cannon fired for the opening of the fiesta. ~ Mary Roach

I haven't been everywhere, but I've been to enough "wheres" to know that Earth has pockets of stupid popping up north, south, east, and west. From the equator to the prime meridian - dumb does not so easily wash off. ~ Corey Taylor

Yes, our social and economic circumstances shape decisions we make about all sorts of things in life, including sex. Sometimes they rob us of the power to make any decisions at all. But of all human activity, sex is among the least likely to fit neatly into the blueprint of rational decision making favoured by economists. To quote my friend Claire in Istanbul, sex is about 'conquest, fantasy, projection, infatuation, mood, anger, vanity, love, pissing off your parents, the risk of getting caught, the pleasure of cuddling afterwards, the thrill of having a secret, feeling desirable, feeling like a man, feeling like a woman, bragging to your mates the next day, getting to see what someone looks like naked and a million-and-one-other-things.' When sex isn't fun, it is often lucrative, or part of a bargain which gives you access to something you want or need.

If HIV is spread by 'poverty and gender equality', how come countries that have plenty of both, such as Bangladesh, have virtually no HIV? How come South Africa and Botswana, which have the highest female literacy and per capita incomes in Africa, are awash with HIV, while countries that score low on both - such as Guinea, Somalia, Mali, and Sierra Leone - have epidemics that are negligible by comparison? How come in country after country across Africa itself, from Cameroon to Uganda to Zimbabwe and in a dozen other countries as well, HIV is lowest in the poorest households, and highest in the richest households? ~ Elizabeth Pisani

Our acquisition strategy is very clear: 3x3. Three continents - Asia, Africa and South America, and in three categories where we have strong positions - personal wash, household care and hair care. ~ Adi Godrej

There were no ravens to be seen. Abruptly a fox burst out of the trees, running hard. Ravens poured from the branches after it. The beat of their wings almost drowned out a desperate whining from the fox. A black whirlwind dove and swirled around it. The fox's jaws snapped at them, but they darted in, and darted away untouched, black beaks glistening wetly. The fox turned back toward the trees, seeking the safety of its den. It ran awkwardly now, head low, fur dark and bloody, and the ravens flapped around it, more and more of them at once, the fluttering mass thickening until it hid the fox completely. As suddenly as they had descended the ravens rose, wheeled, and vanished over the next rise to the south. A misshapen lump of torn fur marked what had been the fox. ~ Robert Jordan

I think I was just too young to even understand what was going on. When I was still living in South Africa, there was still so much racial tension. ~ St. Lucia

The wealthiest place in the world is not the gold mines of South America or the oil fields of Iraq or Iran. They are not the diamond mines of South Africa or the banks of the world. The wealthiest place on the planet is just down the road. It is the cemetery. There lie buried companies that were never started, inventions that were never made, bestselling books that were never written, and masterpieces that were never painted. In the cemetery is buried the greatest treasure of untapped potential. ~ Myles Munroe

A Favorite start to a book [sorry it's long!]:

"In yesterday's Sunday Times, a report from Francistown in Botswana. Sometime last week, in the middle of the night, a car, a white American model, drove up to a house in a residential area. Men wearing balaclavas jumped out, kicked down the front door, and began shooting. When they had done with shooting they set fire to the house and drove off. From the embers the neighbors dragged seven charred bodies: two men, three women, two children.
Th killers appeared to be black, but one of the neighbors heard them speaking Afrikaans among themselves. And was convinced they were whites in blackface. The dead were South Africans, refugees who had moved into the house mere weeks ago.
Approached for comment, the SA Minister of Foreign Affairs, through a spokesman, calls the report 'unverified'. Inquiries will be undertaken, he says, to determine whether the deceased were indeed SA citizens. As for the military, an unnamed source denies that the SA Defence Force had anything to do with the matter. The killings are probably an internal ANC matter, he suggests, reflecting 'ongoing tensions between factions.
So they come out, week after week, these tales from the borderlands, murders followed by bland denials. He reads the reports and feels soiled. So this is what he has come back to! Yet where in the world can one hide where one will not feel soiled? Would he feel any cleaner in the snows of Sweden, reading at a dist ~ J.M. Coetzee

The Indians were Araucanians from the south of Chile; several hundreds in number, and highly disciplined. They first appeared in two bodies on a neighbouring hill; having there dismounted, and taken off their fur mantles, they advanced naked to the charge. The only weapon of an Indian is a very long bamboo or chuzo, ornamented with ostrich feathers, and pointed by a sharp spear-head. My informer seemed to remember with the greatest horror the quivering of these chuzos as they approached near. When close, the cacique Pincheira hailed the besieged to give up their arms, or he would cut all their throats. As this would probably have been the result of their entrance under any circumstances, the answer was given by a volley of musketry. ~ Charles Darwin

But crossing into Louisiana I got this haunted little rill of feeling -- there was moss and mud everywhere and an inexplicable, hollow sensation that Louisiana is what would be left of the South after it has been nuked -- that I and everything around me were irretrievably rotten. ~ Padgett Powell

If you are one of the hewers of wood and drawers of small weekly paychecks, your letters will have to contain some few items of news or they will be accounted dry stuff ... But if you happen to be of a literary turn of mind, or are, in any way, likely to become famous, you may settle down to an afternoon of letter-writing on nothing more sprightly in the way of news than the shifting of the wind from south to south-east. ~ Robert Benchley

As proud as we are of this city and as extraordinary as it is, all of south Louisiana and all of the Gulf Coast is a very special place, and the federal government has underinvested in it year after year after year, whether it's education or health care. ~ Mary Landrieu

The racial conversation in the States is so multifaceted and multilayered. Obviously it's not always a positive conversation, but it's just so much more detailed than it was when I was growing up in South Africa. ~ St. Lucia

There was one of those sunsets beginning - the kind we've been having for months. Buildings and telephone poles were punched black against a watercolour sky into which fresh colour kept washing and spreading, higher and higher. We've never seen so high before; every day the colours go up and up to a hectic lilac, and from that, at last, comes the night. People carry their drinks outside not so much to look at the light, as to be in it. It's everywhere, surrounding faces and hair as it does the trees. It comes from a volcanic eruption on the other side of the world, from particles of dust that have risen to the upper atmosphere. Some people think it's from atomic tests; but it's said that, in Africa, we are safe from atomic fallout from the Northern Hemisphere because of the doldrums, an area where the elements lie becalmed and can carry no pollution. ~ Nadine Gordimer

While we were walking around, we came to the Catholic church, and we saw that some people had set fire to carpets and banked them around the rectory, which was made out of wood. They knew every fire truck on the South Side was going to be in the park, that the rectory would just burn to the ground. Our one little act was putting out that fire. ~ Sara Paretsky

I was the first South Asian female to do comedy videos on YouTube. But at the same time, all races face their barriers, and I've learned through YouTube, if it's not race, it will be sexism, if it's not sexism, it will be homophobia. It will always be something, and all voices should be heard. ~ Lilly Singh

I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. ~ T. S. Eliot

It's just a party. You eat some food and drink a beer and pretend you don't want to be crawdad fishing," Angie said.
"No, it's an echo chamber of sycophants and I can't listen to some bimbo recite her newest purchases while pretending I don't want to throw myself from the roof. ~ Mary Jane Hathaway

Being a military child, we moved a lot and we developed different vernaculars from moving from the south, to the Midwest, and seeing the world. Going from New York to California and from Jamaica Queens to the South, I was always the new kid, or had the army crew haircut. I expected people to pick up on me. My brother kinda stole all of my old jokes. He got his inspiration from me. ~ Joe Torry

It is said in the South there is no future, only three kinds of past - the distant past of heritage, the near past of experience, and the past-in-waiting. ~ Omar El Akkad

I've done four other films since 'Submarine,' so that's quite cool. It's just good to have people respect your work; I've never had that before. Yeah, my life has changed crazy. I'm a kid from a small town in south Wales, I play my Xbox usually and all that sort of stuff, and it's a whole new world. ~ Craig Roberts

Ambition is to be the fastest runner on this planet, to be the first on the South Pole, which is a grotesque perversion of ambition. It's an ego trip, and I'm not on an ego trip. I don't have ambitions - I have a vision. ~ Werner Herzog

Those who liberated the South from Israel must show allegiance to Lebanon. ~ Walid Jumblatt

The Deep South might be wretched, but it can howl. ~ Barry Hannah

Everyone in the South has no time for reading because they are all too busy writing. ~ William Faulkner

As South Africa has a white population of only 2.8 million or thereabouts, you can see that every other central organization in the world has been out-created. ~ L. Ron Hubbard

I have run two small businesses in Kansas, and I have seen how government can crush entrepreneurism. That's why I ran for Congress. It just so happens that there are a lot of people in south central Kansas who agree with me on that. ~ Mike Pompeo

Gone with the Wind, a self-help manual that dealt with the subject of how best to cope with Yankees when they venture south. ~ Raymond L. Atkins

I grew up in South Africa, but like many people at that time, I couldn't bear living in the country. The main motivation for moving to Britain was to get away. ~ Manfred Mann

You were just in South Dakota a couple of weeks ago," he pointed out. "Why didn't you get it then?"
"It wasn't available then." She brushed back a tiny strand of loose hair. "Don't cross-examine me, okay? It's been a long day."
He ran a hand around the back of his neck, under his braid of hair, and stared at her own hair in the tight bun at her nape as she replaced the errant strand. "I thought you took it down at night."
"At bedtime," she corrected.
His eyes narrowed. "Lucky Colby," he said deliberately.
She wasn't going to give him any rope to hang her with. She just smiled.
He glared at her. "He won't change," he said flatly.
"I don't care," she said. "I appreciate all you've done for me, Tate, but my private life is my own business, not yours."
"That's a hell of a way to talk to me."
"That works both ways," she replied, eyes narrowing. "What gives you the right to ask questions about the men I date?"
Her words made him mad. His lips compressed until they made a straight line. He looked like his father when he was angry. He finished his coffee in a tense silence and got to his feet. He glanced at his watch. "I've got to go. I just wanted to see how you were."
"You just wanted to see if Colby was here," she corrected and smiled mirthlessly when he blinked.
"You know I don't approve of Colby," he told her.
"Like I care?" she said.
He took a step toward her. His black eyes glittered with conflicting emotion ~ Diana Palmer

The grateful person, being still the most severe exacter of himself, not only confesses, but proclaims, his debts. ~ Robert South

One of my favorite places is Seattle. Growing up, I never thought I'd be able to go to Seattle. I grew up in eastern South Carolina, so that's as far as you can get from Seattle, unless I lived in Miami. ~ Josh Turner

Communication, self-awareness, and planning are just three skills that can help you to change your picture and achieve your goals. But remember to enjoy this one life that you have been blessed with. Make the most of every day and each person. The effort will yield the life you were meant to have." - Lynda Smith, Johannesburg, South Africa ~ David Mezzapelle

Further south, there are some airports, but none our size. Our airport is the gateway to the southern Kansas City. ~ James Green

I have had extremely good relations with the United States and with both parties (Republicans and Democrats), and I hope to continue to have these good relations, which I, again repeating, do not consider to be mutually exclusive with having good relations with Venezuela or Ecuador or whichever country in South America. ~ Juan Manuel Santos

As the train rolled through the countryside, so lush and green, and into the sprawling suburbs of south London, I stared around at all the strangeness: the narrow little "terraced" houses all in rows of brick and chimneypots, the tiny back gardens with clotheslines and garden sheds, the little cars all on the wrong side of the road - it was all so delightfully foreign, and exotic. My first lesson that the rest of the world really was more different than I knew or imagined. ~ Neil Peart

I enjoy a four-seasonal climate and wide-open spaces, so being on an island 2,500 miles into the South Pacific made me feel a little claustrophobic. ~ Matthew Fox

She isn't stupid. She's intelligent enough in a purely feminine way. Eighteenth-century France would have been a marvellous setting for her, or the old South if she hadn't made the mistake of being born a Negro. ~ Nella Larsen

Tyranny flourishes in those societies that reject the Reformed Faith. Tyranny is squelched and liberty flourishes in those societies that embrace the Reformed Faith in all its fullness. ~ Joseph C. Morecraft III

In 1916, when Johnny Heartfield and I invented photomontage in my studio at the south end of the town at five o'clock one May morning, we had no idea of the immense possibilities, or of the thorny but successful career, that awaited the new invention. On a piece of cardboard we pasted a mishmash of advertisements for hernia belts, student song books and dog food, labels from schnaps and wine bottles, and photographs from picture papers, cut up at will in such a way as to say, in pictures, what would have been banned by the censors if we had said it in words. ~ George Grosz