Homeless In America Quotes

Most families are destroyed from the inside, because they allow themselves to be conquered by others from the outside. ~ Carlton Young

Why do you want so much this new beginning? Do you think the new beginning will postpone the end? Are you afraid of the end? Are you afraid of death Michael?" (Ch.35) ~ Stevan V. Nikolic

My grandfather was a railroad brakeman, sixty years with the D&H. I'd sit on his lap when I was little, I remember, at the upstairs apartment on Watkins Avenue in Oneonta overlooking the tracks, and we'd look out at the yard together and watch the trains hooking up, and he'd pull his gold watch out of his vest pocket and squint at the dial, a gold pocket watch, and the bulging surface of the watch case was all scritch-scratched, etched with tiny soft lines, hundreds of tiny scratches, interlaced. And then he'd check the yard, my Grandpa, to see if the trains were running on time. In those days there was a rhythm to everything, there was an order to things, but now we're riding a runaway train that's carrying us all away to that final night where nothing is remembered and nothing matters. ~ Donald O'Donovan

The Sentinel of Rain
I am a creature who cooks on roofs,
sleeps on roofs, livess on roofs.
The unenlightened call me homeless;
my inner circle know me as 'The Sentinel of Rain'.
I know all there is to know about roofs:
copper roofing, itchy;
aluminium sheeting, noisy;
precast concrete; dusty;
ceramic tiles; slippery.
I haven't had the pleasure of crashing
on banana leave or straw roofs
but I imagine them to be quite comfy,
though pitched a bit steep to saunter about,
and as for cooking dinner on, fuhgeddaboudit!
Those roofs are as flammable as a cellulose nitrate
print of The Blue Angel.
Thank God I wasn't born in Southeast Asia or in the backward
English countryside with their thatch roof cottages.
It's good to be homeless in America.
There are so many roof choices,
the streets are virtually paved with dumpsters,
stocked to the gills like the shelves of Walmart,
and when it rains ~ and I'm the first to know,
there's never an overpass too far
to shelter me from nature's whims. ~ Beryl Dov

…leaving a book behind keeps your thoughts alive in this world forever. So, in some ways, your spirit never dies. It is the best way to achieve immortality. ~ Stevan V. Nikolic

God wants you to be truthful and humble to yourself and others. He made you good and industrious, but you can't benefit from it if you always stumble on pride. ~ Stevan V. Nikolic

All of us, poor & rich alike, have been conditioned by our upbringings. Impoverished men & women may become lulled into a state of "learned helplessness" without hope to change their lives. Likewise, the wealthy can walk in a state of "learned blindness" ignoring the desperation of the local & global poor. ~ John Green

Note that the best rationalizations are those that have an element of truth. Whether you vote or not will almost certainly have no influence on the outcome of an election. Nor will the amount of carbon you personally put into the atmosphere make a difference in the fate of the planet. And perhaps it really should be up to governments rather than the charities that are soliciting your contributions to feed the hungry and homeless in America or save children around the world from crushing poverty and abuse. But the fact that these statements are true doesn't mean they aren't also rationalizations that you and others use to justify questionable behavior.

This uncomfortable truth is crucial to an understanding of the link between rationalization and evil - an understanding that starts with the awareness that sane people rarely, if ever, act in a truly evil manner unless they can successfully rationalize their actions... [The] process of rationalizing evil deeds committed by whole societies is a collective effort rather than a solely individual enterprise. ~ Thomas Gilovich

As for himself, however hateful life was, it was hateful in a home and not in the gutter. Many Americans hated their homes. The number of homeless in America couldn't touch the number of Americans who had homes and families and hated the whole thing. ~ Philip Roth

To be homeless in America is to live like a fugitive. The destitute are our own native-born "illegals." ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

Some day soon I'm gonna get away from here. ~ Randolph Randy Camp

…everybody should write one book. There is a book in each of us. It is just a matter of bringing it out. Some people are capable and willing to do that, some are not." (Ch.20) ~ Stevan V. Nikolic

Sometimes, he thought of himself as an elephant walking through the china store, breaking everything in his path and still expecting people not to be angry with the damage he made, but rather to admire his strength and his endurance. ~ Stevan V. Nikolic

You're not wet matches! ~ Randolph Randy Camp

All of us, poor & rich alike, have been conditioned by our upbringings. Impoverished men & women may become lulled into a state of "learned helplessness" without hope to change their lives. Likewise, the wealthy can walk in a state of "learned blindness" ignoring the desperation of the local & global poor. ~ John Green

Strangely enough, he didn't feel any guilt for separating himself from his past. Five years ago, he clearly heard in his dream a message brought to him by Archangel Michael from the God Almighty, telling him he should get up and leave everything behind; that his place was not there; that it was time to go in search for his true self and for his true destiny.
Now, five years after, he was sitting in the Bowery chapel, a broken and homeless man, still trying to find that which he was looking for. But he didn't regret anything he had done in those five years. In his mind, it wasn't his doing. He sincerely believed that he surrendered his own will to the will of God and that everything that happened to him, good or bad, had to happen for some reason. It was God's doing. It was his destiny. He just had to figure out why. ~ Stevan V. Nikolic

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem.
But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years
block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand. ~ Barack Obama

If you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, federal, state, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever. But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you're liable to be given more money to do it with. Well, we've discovered that money alone isn't the answer. ~ Ronald Reagan

I've been all over the place in all kinds of living situations. Due to the fact that my mind is my own worst enemy. In a way I am perpetually and permanently in a state of rehabilitation m in an attempt to rehabilitate from the shock of being born.Some people are too sensitive to withstand that. ~ Heather O'Neill

America is a nation of illusions; illusions in the media, schools and government - an iron curtain of propaganda. ~ Bryant McGill

The melting pot failed to function in one crucial area. Religions and nationalities, however different, generally learned to live together, even to grow together, in America. But color was something else. Reds were murdered like wild animals. Yellows were characterized as a peril and incarcerated en masse during World War ii for no really good reason by our most liberal president. Browns have been abused as the new slave labor on farms. The blacks, who did not come here willingly, are now, more than a century after emancipation by Lincoln, still suffering a host of slave like inequalities. ~ Theodore Hesburgh

They took Einstein to the process department, where they had a Ford set up on a scaffolding. He and Mrs. Einstein sat in it and the cameramen filmed them while, unbeknownst to the Einstein's, projecting an aerial film of New York, Niagra Falls, Chicago, and Los Angeles behind them. Then they developed this film of the Einstein's flying over America in a Ford and showed it. Einstein stared at it and kept saying in German, "My god, what have they done? I don't understand." My father said, "Relativity he understands!"
-Jack Warner, Jr. ~ Jean Stein

When I worked as a prosecutor in Richmond, Virginia in the 1990s, that city, like so much of America, was experiencing horrific levels of violent crime. But to describe it that way obscures an important truth: for the most part, white people weren't dying; black people were dying. Most white people could drive around the problem. ~ James Comey

The whole psychoanalytical establishment in America at midcentury was geared to make people with homosexual proclivities feel like monsters, moral degenerates. ~ Blake Bailey

Nonsense, Chloe. I certainly hope you aren't afraid of cemeteries"
"Um, no" Tori said. "It's the bodies buried in them that worry her. Uh, you know, dead bodies? Potential zombies?"
"Don't be silly. You can't accidentally raise the dead."
"Chloe can."
"I've heard Chloe is quite powerful, but I'm sure she doesn't need to worry about raising the dead yet."
"She already has. I was there"

"I-it's true." I said. "I raised subjects of Dr. Lyle's experiment, buried in the basement.. Then I raised dead bats in a warehouse, and a homeless guy in a place we tried to spend the night."
"Bats?" Tori said, nose wrinkling.
"You were asleep. I didn't want to wake you up"
"And for that I thank you."

~~Margaret, Chloe and Tori ~ Kelley Armstrong

When did it something of shame or ridicule to be a self-made man in America? ~ Glenn Beck

The medium of response in America is fame; that's how a person that bounces a ball can make millions of dollars, and a school teacher with no fame makes $35,000. ~ Patch Adams

We've got to start worrying about America. And if we don't start dealing with the debt we have and the deficit spending we have in Washington, politics doesn't matter, because the American people do realize that they have to balance their budgets. ~ Marlin Stutzman

Absolutely nobody in the entire United States of America has even a modicum of interest in who I am, but I'm determined to change that. Because if I can pull it off here, then I can kiss goodbye to tedious speeches, crappy TV jobs and all the other nonsense I have to do back in England to pay the bills. ~ Piers Morgan

The fact is that America's weapons systems have made it impossible for anybody to confront it militarily. So, all you have is your wits and your cunning, and your ability to fight in the way the Iraqis are fighting. ~ Arundhati Roy

In interviews, the first question I get in America is always: 'What do you do to stay young?' I do nothing. I don't think aging is a problem. What irritates me a little is growing fatter. It irritates me that if I eat what I want to eat, it shows. ~ Isabella Rossellini

We are succeeding in Iraq. Thank you, America. ~ Iyad Allawi

The newspaper is a Bible which we read every morning and every afternoon, standing and sitting, riding and walking. It is a Biblewhich every man carries in his pocket, which lies on every table and counter, and which the mail, and thousands of missionaries, are continually dispersing. It is, in short, the only book which America has printed, and which America reads. So wide is its influence. ~ Henry David Thoreau

You could not buy a house in those days without just assuming that the house was not only a place to live, but it was a good investment, because it was going to keep up with inflation or get ahead of inflation, and it was just - that was America. ~ Paul A. Volcker

I don't mean to beat a made-in-America drum, but I would be lying if I said it doesn't feel somehow right to be printing books in the U.S. ~ Dave Eggers

America remained a land of promise for lovers of freedom. Even Byron, at a moment when he was disgusted with Napoleon for not committing suicide, wrote an eloquent stanza in praise of Washington. ~ Bertrand Russell

Education is a precondition to survival in America today. ~ Marian Wright Edelman

Mass prosperity came with the mass innovation that sprung up in 1815 in Britain, soon after in America, and later in Germany and France: It brought sustained growth to these nations - also to nations with entrepreneurs willing and able to copy the innovations. ~ Edmund Phelps

A man with dry, graying skin and a mop of white hair came in with a plastic tray of herbal potions for sale. "No, no, no," Aisha said to him, palm raised as though to ward him off. The man retreated. Ifemelu felt sorry for him, hungry-looking in his worn dashiki, and wondered how much he could possibly make from his sales. She should have bought something. "You talk Igbo to Chijioke. He listen to you," Aisha said. "You talk Igbo?" "Of course I speak Igbo," Ifemelu said, defensive, wondering if Aisha was again suggesting that America had changed her. "Take it easy!" she added, because Aisha had pulled a tiny-toothed comb through a section of her hair. "Your hair hard," Aisha said. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I come from suburban America. It was a very safe environment and it was a good place to come from in that it was a good place to leave. ~ Robert Mapplethorpe

Major theme of the book [ Hotels of North America], from my point of view: what is persona, what is self, in the digital sphere, and/or what is the effect of it on self in a prolonged interaction. ~ Rick Moody

There was never a promise that race relations in America would be entirely resolved during my presidency or anybody's presidency. I mean, this has been a running thread - and - and fault line in American life and American politics since its founding. ~ Barack Obama

So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America. ~ Barack Obama

And we're also remembering the guiding light of our Judeo-Christian tradition. All of us here today are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, sons and daughters of the same God. I believe we are bound by faith in our God, by our love for family and neighborhood, by our deep desire for a more peaceful world, and by our commitment to protect the freedom which is our legacy as Americans. These values have given a renewed sense of worth to our lives. They are infusing America with confidence and optimism that many thought we had lost ... ~ Ronald Reagan

The Queen Mary was the most civilized and luxurious way one could travel to America in the late 1930s. ~ Maureen O'Hara

Lose the attitude, respect the man's position and his politics, and ask how he intends to handle this matter. He may not fully understand the black experience. Maybe you can help him out. Describe the terror of that night for you and your kids. Help him understand how the officer went so terribly wrong. Make him see the world through your eyes, through Marcus's eyes, through a black person's eyes."
"Do you really think that is possible, Mama?"
"It's what I have prayed for every day since the day you were born. I prayed that things would be better for you than they ever were for me."
"That's not happening, Mama."
"No, baby, it isn't, but you have an opportunity to shine a positive light on a very negative situation, and you need to take advantage of that opportunity. ~ Mark M. Bello

Racial oppression of black people in America has done what neither class oppression or sexual oppression, with all their perniciousness, has ever done: destroyed an entire people and their culture. ~ Eleanor Holmes Norton

Sometimes it's moments like that, real complicated moments, absorbing moments, that make you realize that even hard times have things in them that make you feel alive. And then there's music, and girls, and drugs, and homeless people who've read Pauline Kael, and wah-wah pedals, and English potato chip flavors, and I haven't even read Martin Chuzzlewit yet ... There's plenty out there. ~ Nick Hornby

Living here in North America - I have been Americanized. When I go back home now, there are things that I have far less tolerance for in South Africa. We've come such a long way in terms of race relations and the economy as well as people's willingness to move on. There are still a lot of things that are frustrating about being in South Africa. ~ Kandyse McClure

I got through breakfast and most of a meeting before thoughts of you consumed me. I told everyone I was sick and am now hiding in my room, writing to you, hoping this will make me feel like your home again.
-Maxon ~ Kiera Cass

The brank, or scold's bridle, was unknown in America in its English shape: though from colonial records we learn that scolding women were far too plentiful, and were gagged for that annoying and irritating habit. ~ Alice Morse Earle