Gatto Nero Quotes

Nero, we need to talk. Chloe will not get off my ass. I told her," Amo looked right at Chloe in the eyes, "to walk beside me, but she refuses to even say a word to me."
　　"T-that's how I walk!" Chloe blurted.
　　Elle started laughing; it was too hard not to.
　　"Oh, now you can talk because Elle's around." Elle only laughed harder.
"I blame you!" He pointed at Elle. ~ Sarah Brianne

They say that Nero started the fire himself because he needed a suitable backdrop for his concert. ~ Victor Borge

When Nero, with a casual quip, declared 'mushrooms to be the food of the gods, since it was by means of a mushroom that Claudius has become a god',66 it ~ Tom Holland

Teaching is a function, not a profession. Anything with something to offer can teach. ~ John Taylor Gatto

Grades don't measure anything other than your relevant obedience to a manager. ~ John Taylor Gatto

Someone who was a part of my life. Probably the only one that really mattered. ~ Franco Nero

I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves. ~ John Taylor Gatto

It strikes me, sir, that you are nearing the point where even a grateful American might tell you to go to the devil.-Nero Wolfe to an FBI Agent ~ Rex Stout

Custer was a child once. He didn't spend his childhood killing Indians and stealing their homeland. Nero didn't spend his childhood burning Rome to the ground. Everybody was a child once. No child was born hating the world around him. You had to learn that trait. You had to pick it up from the worst pockets of the universe, the filthiest recesses of society, where the people who learned it before you deposited it when they were done. ~ Rose Christo

The Rome he has been trained to serve, the Rome of Augustus and Germanicus, was gone. In its place stood Neronopolis, ruled by a megalomaniac brat. ~ James Romm

What if there is no dirt on Merjack?
Oh, I can answer this one. (Omari raised his hand like he was in a classroom, then dropped it to his side.) We all die. (Omari)
I just love teenage angst. By the way, chip, there are worse things in life than dying. (Nero)
Like what? (Omari)
Living as a slave. (Alix) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

If you choose to not deal with an issue,
then you give up your right of control over the issue
and it will select the path of least resistance. ~ Susan Del Gatto

Nero, you are an example to all the children on this shuttle. Because most of them are so foolish, they think it is better to keep their stupidest thoughts to themselves. You, however, understand the profound truth that you must reveal your stupidity openly. To hold your stupidity inside you is to embrace it, to cling to it, to protect it. But when you expose your stupidity, you give yourself the chance to have it caught, corrected, and replaced with wisdom. Be brave, all of you, like Nero Boulanger, and when you have a thought of such surpassing ignorance that you think it's actually smart, make sure to make some noise, to let your mental limitations squeak out some whimpering fart of a thought, so that you have a chance to learn. ~ Orson Scott Card

By bells and many other similar techniques they (schools) teach that
nothing is worth finishing. The gross error of this is progressive: if
nothing is worth finishing then by extension nothing is worth starting
either. Few children are so thick-skulled they miss the point. ~ John Taylor Gatto

I taught public school for 26 years, but I just can't do it anymore. For years I asked the school board to let me teach a curriculum that doesn't hurt kids, but they always had other fish to fry. If you hear of a job where I don't have to hurt kids to make a living, let me know. The truth is that schools don't really teach anything, but blind obedience. ~ John Taylor Gatto

What?' Otto said as he finished soldering one of the contact points on the device in front of him. 'It's not like we're being trained to follow the rules here. If anything, I think Nero should reward us for our determination and initiative.'

'Can you fit "determination and initiative" on a headstone?' Laura asked as she leant in to examine Otto's handiwork. ~ Mark Walden

Genius is an exceedingly common human quality, probably natural to most of us. ~ John Taylor Gatto

Who besides a degraded rabble would voluntarily present itself to be graded and classified like meat? No wonder school is compulsory. ~ John Taylor Gatto

Hey, babe, can I sit here?" Elle turned her head and saw Nero standing there, holding a tray.
　　Did he just really ask that, and did he just really call me 'babe'?
　　"Are you serious? Sit here?" Elle pointed to the chair beside her.
　　"Yes, I was talking directly to you, wasn't I?" Nero was definitely a smartass.
　　"No, you clearly weren't because my name isn't 'babe'. I bet you don't even know my name. So, no, you cannot sit here, Nero. ~ Sarah Brianne

When, sometime around my fortieth birthday, I was struck by the urge to try to write a novel, I was vastly comforted to learn that Rex Stout didn't write his first Nero Wolfe tale until he was forty-seven, and that he proceeded to write them right up to his death at the age of eighty-eight. It was considerably less comforting to learn that he typically completed a novel in thirty-eight days, and that he always got it right on the first try. P. G. Wodehouse once said, "Stout's supreme triumph was the creation of Archie Goodwin." That's how I've always felt about it, too. When I returned those first Rex Stout books to my librarian, I said to her, "Do you have any more of these Archie Goodwin stories?" She smiled, I recall, and said, "Why, yes. Dozens. ~ Rex Stout

I have undertaken to to find an explanation for something that can't possibly be explained-Nero Wolfe ~ Rex Stout

I stole a kiss and whispered, "I've never had anyone in my corner before. I like it."

"Me too."

A spark of mischief flashed in her dark eyes. "You know what else I like?"

"What's that?" Her hand slid down to grab my
ass.

"Being naked with you. ~ Lisa Kessler

May occasionally pay lip-service to their value, but it ultimately has no real use for artists, dancers, poets, self-sufficient farmers, tree lovers, devoted followers of what it views as non-materialist cults - Christian or otherwise - handicraft workers, makers of their own beer, or, for that matter, stay-at-home moms and dads, all of whom, when they endure at all, do so at the margins and on the periphery of the social economy. ~ John Taylor Gatto

Children allowed to take responsibility and given a serious part in the larger world are always superior to those merely permitted to play and be passive. ~ John Taylor Gatto

I don't know what it is but every time I see you I feel such a strong urge, to be near you, to protect you, to hold you in my arms and never let you go.
Luke Nero - The Witchlings-Midnight curse ~ Amanda Turner

So, suspecting that Nero had a contract on her, she got herself Mithridatized against the poisons that would have been available to her son's underlings. Like Mithridates, Agrippina eventually died by more mechanical methods as her son (supposedly) had assassins slay her, thus providing us with the small but meaningful lesson that one cannot be robust against everything. And, two thousand years later, nobody has found a method for us to get "fortified" against swords. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I'm afraid it's not nonsense," Genghis said, shaking his turbaned head and continuing his story. "As I was saying before the little girl interrupted me, the baby didn't dash off with the other orphans. She just sat there like a sack of flour. So I walked over to her and gave her a kick to get her moving."

"Excellent idea!" Nero said. "What a wonderful story this is! And then what happened?"

"Well, at first it seemed like I'd kicked a big hole in the baby," Genghis said, his eyes shining, "which seemed lucky, because Sunny was a terrible athlete and it would have been a blessing to put her out of her misery."

Nero clapped his hands. "I know just what you mean, Genghis," he said. "She's a terrible secretary as well."

"But she did all that stapling," Mr. Remora protested.
"Shut up and let the coach finish his story," Nero said.

"But when I looked down," Genghis continued, "I saw that I hadn't kicked a hole in a baby. I'd kicked a hole in a bag of flour! I'd been tricked!"

"That's terrible!" Nero cried. ~ Lemony Snicket

If you live in a material universe where acquiring things is very important to you, then family is an absolute deterrent to maintaining that sort of a world, because family involves values like affection, and sympathy, and passion, and types of pleasure that lead nowhere in a material sense. ~ John Taylor Gatto

Children learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important or worth finishing; ridicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly. ~ John Taylor Gatto

I don't think we'll get rid of schools any time soon, certainly not in my lifetime, but if we're going to change what's rapidly becoming a disaster of ignorance, we need to realize that the institution "schools" very well, but it does not "educate"; that's inherent in the design of the thing. It's not the fault of bad teachers or too little money spent. It's just impossible for education and schooling to be the same thing. ~ John Taylor Gatto

Paul was Nero's prisoner, but Nero was much more God's. ~ William Gurnall

I've come to believe that genius is an exceedingly common human quality, probably natural to most of us. I didn't want to accept that notion - far from it: my own training in two elite universities taught me that intelligence and talent distributed themselves economically over a bell curve and that human destiny, because of those mathematical, seemingly irrefutable scientific facts, was as rigorously determined as John Calvin contended. ~ John Taylor Gatto

They never let you live it down. One little mistake!- Nero ~ Robert Asprin

People who read too many books get quirky. We can't have too much eccentricity or it would bankrupt us. Market research depends on people behaving as if they were all alike. ~ John Taylor Gatto

At the heart of the durability of mass schooling is a brilliantly designed power fragmentation system which distributes decision-making so widely among so many different warring interests that large-scale change is impossible to those without a codebook. ~ John Taylor Gatto

The ghost of the heart of manred Cain
And the more murderous brain
Of Man, still redder Nero that conceived the death
Of his mother Earth, and tore
Her womb, to know the place where he was conceived. ~ Edith Sitwell

There is frequently another way to look at things and we are encouraged to do exactly that if we want to grow as a nation, however when we mess with the principles of what made our country great we are in danger of upsetting the apple cart. Many civilized countries that did, lost their freedom in a rapid downhill spiral. Nero fiddled as Rome burned. Cubans lost out by electing Fidel Castro and the Germans and Italians, wanting a better life, voted for Mussolini and Hitler. ~ Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater One"

Thus Nero went up and down Greece and challenged the fiddlers at their trade. Aeropus, a Macedonian king, made lanterns; Harcatius, the king of Parthia, was a mole-catcher; and Biantes, the Lydian, filed needles. ~ Jeremy Taylor

Darkdoom? Darkdoom did this?" Nero was visibly surprised. He placed a hand on his forehead, rubbing his temples. "Oh, why is it always the bald ones? ~ Mark Walden

God was pitched out of forced schooling on his ear after WWII. This wasn't because of any constitutional proscription-there was none that anyone had been able to find in over a century and a half-but because the political state and corporate economy considered the Western spiritual tradition too dangerous a competitor. And it is. ~ John Taylor Gatto

Instead of beseeching men to be reconciled to God, we find ministers wasting their time in giving Sunday lectures about all kinds of subjects. Rome is burning and Nero is playing his fiddle. Souls are perishing and minsters are amusing them. ~ Todd Friel

They heard Hugo ask if the plan for the hors d'oeuvres was still in operation, and they heard Colette ask about plucking the feathers off crows, and they heard Kevin complain that he didn't know whether to hold the birdpaper in his right hand or his left hand, and they heard Mr. Lesko insult Mrs. Morrow, and the bearded man sing a song to the woman with the crow-shaped hat, and they heard a man call for Bruce and a woman call for her mother and dozens of people whisper to and shout at, argue with and agree upon, angrily accuse and meekly defend, furiously compliment and kindly insult dozens of other people, both inside and outside the Hotel Denouement, whose names the Baudelaires recognized, forgot, and had never heard before. Each story had its story, and each story's story was unfathomable in the Baudelaire orphans' short journey, and many of the stories' stories are unfathomable to me, even after all these lonely years and all this lonely research. Perhaps some of these stories are clearer to you, because you have spied upon the people involved. Perhaps Mrs. Bass has changed her name and lives near you, or perhaps Mr. Remora's name is the same, and he lives far away. Perhaps Nero now works as a grocery store clerk, or Geraldine Julienne now teaches arts and crafts. Perhaps Charles and Sir are no longer partners, and you have had the occasion to study one of them as he sat across from you on a bus, or perhaps Hugo, Colette, and Kevin are still comrades, and you have followe ~ Lemony Snicket

School is the first impression children get of organized society. Like most first impressions it is the lasting one. Life is dull and stupid, only Coke provides relief. And other products, too, of course. ~ John Taylor Gatto

No matter how many men you kill, you can't kill your successor. ~ Seneca.

If you put fleas in a shallow container they jump out. But if you put a lid on the container for just a short time, they hit the lid trying to escape and learn quickly not to jump so high. They give up their quest for freedom. After the lid is removed, the fleas remain imprisond by their own self policing. So it is with life. Most of us let our own fears or the impositions of others imprison us in a world of low expectations. ~ John Taylor Gatto

Work in classrooms isn't significant work; it fails to satisfy real needs pressing on the individual; it doesn't answer real questions experience raises in the young mind; it doesn't contribute to solving any problem encountered in actual life. The net effect of making all schoolwork external to individual longings, experiences, questions, and problems is to render the victim listless. ~ John Taylor Gatto

What would happen if you set me free?"
"I can't," he said, shaking his head. "Even if I had the key to those chains and let you go, Nero would beat the snot out of me."
"Scratch that idea."
He lifted his chin and disguised an emotion I couldn't read. "You mean it?"
"No one takes a beating for me."
For the first time, Finn was silent.
His jeans rustled as he stood up to leave. When he was out of sight, I heard him mumble to himself, "I wish I could give you a blanket."
I loved that kid immediately. ~ Dannika Dark