Des Moines Quotes

When I was growing up I used to think that the best thing about coming from Des Moines was that it meant you didn't come from anywhere else in Iowa. By Iowa standards, Des Moines is a mecca of cosmopolitanism ~ Bill Bryson

I moved to Des Moines when I was 15. I asked my mother to give up costody and sign parental rights over to my grandmother, who I lived with while I went to school. I was clean and finally starting to figure myself out. I can only say that now without laughing. I was still very out of my own place, and I didn't even know what that place was. All I knew was that I could write music, that I had no idea what that could mean and that I was still surrounded by people I couldn't relate to. I hadn't found my tribe yet. ~ Corey Taylor

But I knew I wanted to be with him, and he wanted to be with me, too, and also knew what he wanted to do with his life. So, we compromised. He took the job in Des Moines, and it was my responsibility to get a job that would make enough money for what we needed, and that I enjoyed enough. I didn't have to love it, but it didn't matter whether I did, either, because I had him. I kept trying new things, too, and eventually discovered pottery. It's fun, of course, but the most important part is that I didn't feel like my job had to be my everything."

This is what I have to keep reminding myself. Sometimes a job can just be a job. We aren't all going to win the rat race. "I know. ~ Christina Lauren

A good journalist must be neutral," were the first word she heard from her professor at Georgetown.
"No journalist is, nor will be, nor really should be neutral," were the first word spoken to her by editor-in-chief of the Des Moines Registrant. "We're all biased one way or the other and that's fine. It's like in the court of law, two points of view clashing so the truth can emerge. Being objective is not the same as being neutral. ~ Krzysztof Pacyński

Whenever I'm in Des Moines, I always make a trip to Manhattan Deli for a sandwich. I spent a lot of time there when I was going to college at Drake, so it's usually my one 'go-to' food stop when I'm in town. ~ Zach Johnson

A typical National World Weekly would tell the world how Jesus' face was seen on a Big Mac bun bought by someone from Des Moines, with an artist's impression of the bun; how Elvis Presley was recently sighted working in a Burger Lord in Des Moines; how listening to Elvis records cured a Des Moines housewife's cancer; how the spate of werewolves infesting the Midwest are the offspring of noble pioneer women raped by Bigfoot; and that Elvis was taken by Space Aliens in 1976 because he was too good for this world. Remarkably, one of these stories is indeed true. ~ Neil Gaiman

There are a bunch of places to stay in Des Moines, but I'd suggest finding a place on the west side of town. It's a great urban area that has a lot to offer tourists. ~ Zach Johnson

Look, you know i don't wanna come on ungrateful, but that warren report, you know as well as me, just didn't make it. You know, like they might as well have asked some banana salesman from des moines, who was up in toronto on the big day, if he saw anyone around looking suspicious/ ... ~ Bob Dylan

Hardly anyone ever leaves. This is because Des Moines is the most powerful hypnotic known to man. Outside town there is a big sign that says, WELCOME TO DES MOINES. THIS IS WHAT DEATH IS LIKE. There isn't really. I just made that up. But the place does get a grip on you. ~ Bill Bryson

(On upcoming racing plans) Right now I am going to go back into training and then I am going to resurface and do the BAA Mile, The Boston Mile, and then I am going to do the USA Championships Mile out in Des Moines, Iowa. Then it is either going to be between The Penn or Drake Relays and then I will go back into training again and start another kind of session. ~ Leonel Manzano

Here's what I think: when you're born, you're assigned a brain like you're assigned a desk, a nice desk, with plenty of pigeonholes and drawers and secret compartments. At the start, it's empty, and then you spend your life filling it up. You're the only one who understands the filing system, you amass some clutter, sure, but somehow it works: you're asked the capital of Oregon, and you say Salem; you want to remember your first-grade teacher's name, and there it is, Miss Fox. Then suddenly you're old, and though everything's still in your brain, it's crammed so tight that when you try to remember the name of the guy who does the upkeep on your lawn, your first childhood crush comes fluttering out, or the persistent smell of tomato soup in a certain Des Moines neighborhood. ~ Elizabeth McCracken

It's hard to pass up a pole vault opportunity here in Des Moines. The crowd was so great when I was at the mall and I was pumped up and I thought technically I was on and I figured where else to open up my outdoor season than here. ~ Jenn Suhr

I love it. It's all good to me. Whether I'm performing in New York, L.A., Columbus or Des Moines, I give 110 percent every night. ~ Bret Michaels

I ate apple pie and ice cream - it was getting better as I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer. There were the most beautiful bevies of girls everywhere I looked in Des Moines that afternoon - they were coming home from high school - but I had no time for thoughts like that ... So I rushed past the pretty girls, and the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines. ~ Jack Kerouac

I must admit, even my fans everywhere I go in the world - just this week I was in London and Glasgow and the week before I was in Des Moines - my fans all look the same in all those cities - they look great! ~ John Waters

Des Moines is like your typical American city; it's just these concentric circles of malls, built outward from the city. ~ Bill Bryson

We're talking about an extremely prolific poet and songwriter and lyricist. That stuff comes off the top of her head. She [Joni Mitchell] will write exactly what she lives. If she puts some money in the soda machine, she'll write about putting money in the soda machine. "Dry Cleaner from Des Moines," on the Shadows & Light album, was about sitting next to a dry cleaner from Des Moines, playing a slot machine. ~ Don Alias

There once was a man from Des Moines
Whose wife was always annoyed
He stepped in the kitchen
She started her bitchin'
Now that fucking cunt is dead. ~ Frances Winkler

If you want to be a comedian, go out. Do a week in Des Moines, Iowa. Try to make those people laugh. ~ Nick Swardson

You need to make a trip to Des Moines in August, because the Iowa State Fair really is a sight to see. The Iowa Fairgrounds are usually packed for those 11 days, and you get a real sense of what a classic Midwest fair is all about. ~ Zach Johnson

My first district was Northwest Iowa. In 2002, it became North Central Iowa hooking around Des Moines down to the south, clear up to the northeast corner of the state. ~ Tom Latham

As rich Cahill superstars went, Fidelio Racco was definitely on the B-list. Maybe even the D-list. Google had heard of him, but a search for his surname placed him below Racco Auto Body in Toronto and Trattoria Racco in Florence, and only slightly ahead of the Rack O'Lamb Irish Chop House in Des Moines. ~ Gordon Korman

Generally, Iowans are Iowans no matter where you go. There are some different issues in Des Moines than in the real rural areas. But I haven't seen any real difference outside of just local issues. ~ Tom Latham

I've still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, 'You know, that's the truth. I wasn't there, and I wasn't a six-foot black girl, but that's the truth.' ~ Maya Angelou

My interest in chemistry was started by reading Robert Kennedy Duncan's popular books while a high school student in Des Moines, Iowa, so that after some delay when it was possible for me to go to college I had definitely decided to specialize in chemistry. ~ Wallace Carothers

Where I grew up, in Des Moines, Iowa, there is hardly any downtown economic activity now. Everybody shops in malls - you don't find a sense of community in malls. ~ Bill Bryson

His brown eyes would roam around the various sentimental and artistic bric-a-brac present, and his own banal toiles (the conventionally primitive eyes, sliced guitars, blue nipples and geometrical designs of the day), and with a vague gesture toward a painted wooden bowl or veined vase, he would say "Prenez donc une des ces poires. La bonne dame d'en face m'en offre plus que je n'en peux savourer." Or: "Mississe Taille Lore vient de me donner ces dahlias, belles fleurs que j'exècre. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

What were the relations between the Jews and the secret societies? That is not easy to elucidate, for we lack reliable evidence. Obviously they did not dominate in these associations, as the writers, whom I have just mentioned, pretended; they were not necessarily the soul, the head, the grand master of masonry as Gougenot des Mousseaux affirms. It is certain however that there were Jews in the very cradle of masonry, kabbalist Jews, as some of the rites which have been preserved prove. ~ Bernard Lazare

Their train speeds through the cities and crosses rivers until it reaches Paris. They leave the station, their arms around each other, and walk to the Jardin des Plantes where the panther paces the length of his cage. The young teacher nods as Hannelore Beier reaches into the cage, and strokes the animal's magnificent neck. The panther arches his back. A curtain lifts from his pupils as the pastor's sister slides aside the bolt that has kept him in captivity. His eyes like sudden, green flames, he recognizes a world beyond the bars of his cage. ~ Ursula Hegi

The ability to send applications by post allows fraudsters to apply in false or stolen identities without fear of arrest and to make multiple applications in the hope of getting one through. It allows the possibility of passports being applied for with the photographs of people who are outside the U.K. and seeking to enter illegally. ~ Des Browne

Love is tears of joy, this is the baptism of fingers. (L'amour, c'est larme de joie, - C'est le baptême des doigts) ~ Charles De Leusse

Comme des Garcons is a gift to oneself, not something to appeal or to attract the opposite sex ~ Rei Kawakubo

INT. MINISTÈRE DES AFFAIRES MAGIQUES, RECORDS ROOM ATRIUM - NIGHT
MELUSINE: Puis-je vous aider?
NEWT: Er - yes, this is Leta Lestrange. And - I'm her -
TINA: Fiancé.
There is an increased awkwardness between them.
NEWT: Tina, about that fiancée business -
TINA (brittle): Sorry, yeah. I should have congratulated you -
The doors to the records office open. They enter briskly.

INT. MINISTÈRE DES AFFAIRES MAGIQUES, RECORDS ROOM - NIGHT
The doors close behind them, plunging them into darkness.
NEWT: No, that's -
TINA: Lumos.
NEWT: Tina - about Leta -
TINA: Yes, I've just said, I am happy for you -
NEWT: Yeah, well, don't.
She stops. Looks at him. What?
NEWT: Please don't be happy.
(in trouble) Uh, no, no. I'm sorry. I don't . . . Uh, obviously, I - Obviously I want you to be. And I hear that you are now. Uh, which is wonderful. Sorry -
(a gesture of hopelessness) What I'm trying to say is, I want you to be happy, but don't be happy that I'm happy, because I'm not.
(off her confusion) Happy.
(off her continued confusion) Or engaged.
TINA: What?
NEWT: It was a mistake in a stupid magazine. My brother's marrying Leta, June the sixth. I'm supposed to be best man. Which is sort of mildly hilarious.
TINA: Does he think you're here to win her back?
(beat)
Are you here to win her back?
NEWT: No! I'm here to -
A beat. He stares at her.
NE ~ J.K. Rowling

Jimi Hendrix often spoke about being a messenger. His hope was that his music might somehow pierce our hearts and heal our souls. He finally did go so far out that he couldn't find his way back in, but he did us all a huge favor - he left his music with us. ~ Des Barres, Pamela

I adore summer entertaining. For a dinner party at the farm, I might prepare homemade fettuccine with porcini mushrooms, soft-shell crabs, spinach from the garden, and lemon tarts with fraises des bois for dessert. ~ Martha Stewart

I would dearly love to read the reactions, the observations of each and every person who walks through the gates of Le Cirque des Reves, to know what they see and hear and feel. To see how their experience overlaps with my own and how it differs. I have been fortunate letters with such information, to have reveurs share with me writings from journals or thoughts scribbled on scraps of paper.
We add our own stories, each visitor, each visit each night spent at the circus. I suppose there will never be a lack of things to say, of stories to be told and shared. -Friedrick Thiessen, 1895 ~ Erin Morgenstern

The memory of the dead is indeed a good remorse. (Le souvenir des morts - Est bien un bon remords) ~ Charles De Leusse

Mine was, as it were, the connecting link between wild and cultivated fields; as some states are civilized, and others half-civilized, and others savage or barbarous, so my field was, though not in a bad sense, a half-cultivated field. They were beans cheerfully returning to their wild and primitive state that I cultivated, and my hoe played the Ranz des Vaches for them. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Des felt a familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. All soldiers felt the same thing going into battle, whether they admitted it or not: fear. Fear of failure, fear of dying, fear of watching their friends die, fear of being wounded and living out the rest of their days crippled or maimed. The fear was always there, and it would devour you if you let it.
Des knew how to turn that fear to his own advantage. Take what makes you weak and turn it into something that makes you strong. Transform the fear into anger and hate: hatred of the enemy; hatred of the Republic and the Jedi. The hate gave him strength, and the strength brought him victory.
For Des the transformation came easily once the fighting started. Thanks to his abusive father, he'd been turning fear into anger and hate ever since he was a child. Maybe that was why he was such a good soldier. Maybe that was why the others looked to him for leadership. ~ Drew Karpyshyn

Arbre toujours au milieu
De tout ce qui l'entoure
Arbre qui savoure
La voute des cieux

(Tree always in the center
Of all that surrounds it
Tree feasting upon
Heaven's great dome) ~ Gaston Bachelard

We live in a very uncertain world, and I think that uncertainty of itself generates an environment which we should not make a decision that deprives future generations of the deterrent effect that the nuclear weapons have provided for us and for almost all of my life. ~ Des Browne

The Luxembourg is within five minutes' walk of the rue Notre Dame des Champs, and there he sat under the shadow of a winged god, and there he had sat for an hour, poking holes in the dust and watching the steps which lead from the northern terrace to the fountain. The sun hung, a purple globe, above the misty hills of Meudon. Long streamers of clouds touched with rose swept low on the western sky, and the dome of the distant Invalides burned like an opal through the haze. Behind the Palace the smoke from a high chimney mounted straight into the air, purple until it crossed the sun, where it changed to a bar of smouldering fire. High above the darkening foliage of the chestnuts the twin towers of St. Sulpice rose, an ever-deepening silhouette. ~ Robert W. Chambers

The French fairy tale writers were so popular and prolific that when their stories were eventually collected in the 18th century, they filled forty–one volumes of a massive publication called the Cabinet des Fées. Charles Perrault is the French fairy tale writer whom history has singled out for attention, but the majority of tales in the Cabinet des Fées were penned by women writers who ran and attended the leading salons: Marie–Catherine d'Aulnoy, Henriette Julie de Murat, Marie–Jeanne L'Héritier, and numerous others. These were educated women with an unusual degree of social and artistic independence, and within their use of the fairy tale form one can find distinctly subversive, even feminist subtext. ~ Terri Windling

And with that, we resume our trek.

It takes an annoyingly long time to get to the palace. I mean, the walk is scenic and all, the forest lush with life, the ground sprinkled with glittering pools and rippling creeks, and blah, blah, blah - lots of pretty shit. But it's still a stupidly long walk, and now that Des and I have five billion guards hemming us in, our conversation is next to non-existent.

To be fair, I have been entertained. Des has spent most of the last hour plaiting one guard's hair into at least fifty braids (he hasn't yet noticed) and moving branches into another guard's way.

"Mother fucking trees," the fairy mutters under his breath. "I swear they're moving in my way."

"Lay off the spirits, Sythus," another says. ~ Laura Thalassa

While we are deploying troops in their thousands, we lose the chance to build up their basic skills. ~ Des Browne

I don't want a politician who's thinking about fashion for even one millisecond. It's the same as medical professionals. The idea of a person in a Comme des Garcons humpback dress giving me a colonoscopy is just not groovy. ~ Simon Doonan

There are some days when history is made. Yesterday was one - and I was honoured to be in Washington to watch Barack Obama being sworn in. During his soaring inaugural address, the new president gazed over a teeming National Mall that was crowded with more than a million people. ~ Des Browne

I agree with the British Legion that we have a responsibility to support our troops and support their families, particularly when we are asking people to do very difficult and dangerous things for our security. ~ Des Browne

Russia is a name usurped by the Muscovites. They are not Slavs; they do not belong to the Indo-Germanic race at all, they are des intrus [intruders], who must be chased back across the Dnieper, etc. ~ Karl Marx

Il y a deux sortes d'esprits, l'un ge ome trique, et l'autre que l'on peut appeler de finesse. Le premier a des vues lentes, dures et inflexibles; mais le dernier a une souplesse de pense e. There are two kinds of mind, one mathematical, the other what one might call the intuitive. The first takes a slow, firm, inflexible view, but the latter has flexibility of thought. ~ Blaise Pascal

What you need to do in conflict resolution is to bring the people who believe that the answer to their political ambitions will be achieved through violence into a frame of mind that they accept that their political ambitions will be delivered by politics. ~ Des Browne

May the new era be an era of liberty and respect for everyone
including writers! Only through liberty and respect for culture can Europe be saved from the cruel days of which Montesquieu spoke in the Esprit des lois: "Thus, in the days of fables, after the floods and deluges, there came forth from the soil armed men who exterminated each other." Boook XXXII, Chapter XXIII. ~ Curzio Malaparte

What are the important issues there? Khalil asked. What do left and right disagree on? As I began to answer him, as I enumerated the divisive issues, I felt faintly embarrassed at how tawdry they were: abortion, homosexuality, gun control - Khalil looked confused by that last term, and Farouq said des armes. ~ Teju Cole

After the German occupation of Holland in May 1940, the last two dark years of the war I spent hiding indoors from the Nazis, eating tulip bulbs to fill the stomach and reading Kramers' book "Quantum Theorie des Elektrons und der Strahlung" by the light of a storm lamp. ~ Nicolaas Bloembergen

Some odd things were found; among other things the skeleton of an ourang-outang which disappeared from the Jardin des Plantes in 1800, a disappearance probably connected with the famous and incontestable appearance of the devil in the Rue des Bernardins in the last year of the eighteenth century. The poor devil finally drowned himself in the sewer. ~ Victor Hugo

Have you ever sailed across an ocean, Donald? On a sail boat surrounded by sea with no land in sight. Without even the possibility of sighting land for days to come. To stand at the helm of your destiny. I want that, one more time. I want to be in the Piazza Del Campo in Sienna. To feel the surge as ten race horses go thundering by. I want another meal in Paris, at L'Ambroisie in the Place Des Vosges. I want another bottle of wine. And then another. I want the warmth of a women in the cool set of sheets. One more night of jazz at the Vanguard. I want to stand on summits and smoke cubans and feel the sun on my face for as long as I can. Walk on the wall again. Climb the tower. Ride the river. Stare at the frescoes. I want to sit in the garden and read one more good book. Most of all I want to sleep. I want to sleep like I slept when I was a boy. Give me that. Just one time. ~ Anonymous

Back in Paris they had happy moments together, like stills from a perfume ad (dashing hand in hand down the steps of Montmartre; or suddenly revealed in motionless embrace on the Pont des Arts by the lights of a bateau-mouche as it turned). There were the Sunday afternoon half-arguments, too, the moments of silence when bodies curl up beneath the sheets on the long shores of silence and apathy where life founders. Annabelle's studio was so dark they had to turn on the lights at four in the afternoon. They sometimes were sad, but mostly they were serious. Both of them knew that this would be their last human relationship, and this feeling lacerated every moment they spent together. They had a great respect and a profound sympathy for each other, and there were days when, caught up in some sudden magic, they knew moments of fresh air and glorious, bracing sunshine. For the most part, however, they could feel a gray shadow moving over them, on the earth that supported them, and in everything they could glimpse the end. ~ Michel Houellebecq

Des said reluctantly at last, Pray to your god. He's the only other one in here besides us. Pen ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

With characteristic exuberance Tom named this curiously constructed
house Castel des Tours saunz Nowmbre, which means the Castle of
Innumerable Towers. David Montefiore had counted the innumerable
towers in 1764. There were fourteen of them. ~ Susanna Clarke

In the past the French came to Germany less with the desire to understand it than with a zealous desire to interpret, to analyze it dispassionately something for which their training at the Ecole Normale Superieure or the Ecole des Hautes Etudes and the French language superbly equipped them to do. ~ Walter Abish

Guilleaume left La Praline with a small bag of florentines in his pocket; before he had turned the corner of avenue des Francs Bourgeois I saw him stoop to offer one to the dog. A pat, a bark, a wagging of the short stubby tail. As I said, some people never have to think about giving. ~ Joanne Harris

The credit for Erté's rediscovery must be given to French writer Jacques Damase, who met the artist when preparing a book on the Parisian music-hall. It was not merely his active presence which astounded Damase, but the fact that neatly stored away were thousands of perfectly preserved drawings representing a life's work. The immediate result was an exhibition at Galerie Motte in 1965, organised with Jacques Perrin, who the following year held another exhibition at his own gallery in Paris. Through the Motte exhibition, Erté was brought to the attention of galleria Milano, which in 1965 included some of his work in a pioneering exhibition of Art Déco. The most prominent event in this sequence was was Erté inclusion in the important exhibition Les Années 25 held at Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in 1966, which put an historical and artistic seal on Art Déco and the diverse artistic activities of the 'twenties.

It is fair to say, however, that complete international reappraisal only came about after Grosvenor gallery in London became his world agents. Jacques Damase had suggested an exhibition of Erté's work to this London gallery, to which, at that time, I was acting as an art consultant. As a result we were able to prepare his first ever London exhibition in 1967. The remarkable success it achieved was presaged by a smaller exhibition in New York a few months earlier. It had planned to follow the London show with a similar collection in new York, based on work b ~ Charles Spencer

Once I saw Desjardins' house, I hated him even more. It was a huge mansion on the other side of the Tuileries, on the rue des Pyramids.
"Pyramids Road?" Sadie said. "Obvious, much?"
"Maybe he couldn't find a place on Stupid Evil Magician Street," I suggested. ~ Rick Riordan

This by the way is known as Werther's Axiom, whereby quote The Intensity of a desire D is inversely proportional to the ease of D's gratification. Known also as Romance. ~ David Foster Wallace

The average human has one breast and one testicle. ~ Des MacHale

[T]he Famous Rules which the French call, Des Trois Unitez , or, The Three Unities, which ought to be observ'd in every Regular Play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action. ~ John Dryden

There is rap music in all my films. In 'La Vie des Morts,' there is rap music too. It's because I'm French, and when it appeared in 1978, it was so new, it set off my musical imagination. ~ Arnaud Desplechin

903AL RAGHIF is now available in French (LE PAIN) beautifully translated by Fifi Abou Dib. Check it out!
Publisher: Acte Sud/ L'Orient des livres ~ Toufic Youssef Aouad

I will do what the Prime Minister asks me to do; that is my consistent approach to politics and to service. ~ Des Browne

Ce fut le temps sous de clairs ciels,
(Vous en souvenez-vous, Madame?)
De baisers superficiels
Et des sentiments à fleur d'âme.

It was a time of cloudless skies,
(My lady, do you recall?)
Of kisses that brushed the surface
And feelings that shook the soul. ~ Paul Verlaine

Des, who brought me things I wanted (tulips, wine) to make me do the things he wanted (love him). Nick just wanted me to be happy, that's all, very pure. Maybe I mistook that for laziness. ~ Gillian Flynn

Des snorted again, rolling her eyes at Ruby as if, in a world that contained werewolves, faeries were just over the top. ~ Rachel E. Bailey