Hubert Quotes

An extraordinary writer ... It is the vastness of Nick Tosches' heart that makes it possible to reveal the darkness. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Do anything you wanna do - but from [the heart]. Music is a thing from the heart, from the soul, just like anything else you do, man. And you can be the best, you can be what you wanna be. That's right! You can do what you wanna do. I believe - I'm a blues player. I never been a millionaire, but let me tell you something - I think I am. Cause I got this. I've got what it take. And I don't care if you don't believe me, man, but I know you do. Because this is what it's all about. Anything you do, if you wanna do it and you love it, you rich. You a millionaire, man. ~ Hubert Sumlin

The message of the United States is not nuclear power. The message of the United States is a spiritual message. It is the message of human ideals; it is the message of human dignity; it is the message of the freedom of ideas, speech, press, the right to assemble, to worship, and the message of freedom of movement of people. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

The way communication works is changing. ~ Hubert Burda

Anyt hing that is found to stimulate hope should be seized upon and make to serve. This applies to a book, a film, a broadcast, or a conversation with someone who can impart it. ~ Hubert Van Zeller

After one of his [Hubert Humphrey] long-winded harangues I suggested he had probably been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. He responded by saying that I would have been a great success in the movies working for Eighteenth Century-Fox. ~ Barry Goldwater

There is in every American, I think, something of the old Daniel Boone - who, when he could see the smoke from another chimney, felt himself too crowded and moved further out into the wilderness. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Heaven preserve us! what a hotch-potch!" cried Hubert. "Is that what they are doing nowadays? I very seldom read a novel, but when I glance into one, I'm sure to find some such stuff as that! Nothing irritates me so as the flatness of people's imagination. Common life - I don't say it's a vision of bliss, but it's better than that! Their stories are like the underside of a carpet, - nothing but the stringy grain of the tissue - a muddle of figures without shape and flowers without color. When I read a novel my imagination starts off at a gallop and leaves the narrator hidden in a cloud of dust; I have to come jogging twenty miles back to the denouement. Your clergyman here with his Romish sweetheart must be a very pretty fellow. Why didn't he marry her first and convert her afterwards? Isn't a clergyman after all, before all, a man? I ~ Henry James

Thats why you cant be worried about the world. theyll just do you in anyway. you can't depend on them because sooner or later theyll turn on you or just disapear and leave you there alone. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Peace comes not by establishing a calm outward setting so much as by inwardly surrendering to whatever the setting. ~ Hubert Van Zeller

All that Hubert needs over there is a gal to answer the phone and a pencil with an eraser on it. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

There is no such thing as an acceptable level of unemployment, because hunger is not acceptable, poverty is not acceptable, poor health is not acceptable, and a ruined life is not acceptable. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Being an artist doesn't take much. Just everything you got. Which means of course that as the process is giving you life, it is also bringing you closer to death. But it's no big deal. They are one in the same and cannot be avoided or denied. So when I totally embrace this process, this life/death, and abandon myself to it completely, I transcend all this gibberish and hang out with the gods. It seems to me that that is worth the price of admission. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

As we think about the next 50 years, I remember a story President Kennedy told a week before he was killed. The story was about French Marshal Louis-Hubert-Gonzalve Lyautey, who walked one morning through his garden with his gardener. He stopped at a certain point and asked the gardener to plant a tree there the next morning. The gardener said, "But the tree will not bloom for 100 years." The marshal replied, "In that case, you had better plant it this afternoon. ~ Newton N. Minnow

It makes tomorrow alright. ~ Hubert Selby Jr.

Dust was time in material form, Hubert could no longer remember who had said it, or where he had read it. At any rate, a lot of time seemed to have collected in his studio, because there was a thin, almost transparent layer of dust over everything. ~ Peter Stamm

I suspect there will never be a requiem for a dream, simply because it will destroy us before we have the opportunity to mourn it's passing. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

The voice so filled with nostalgia that you could almost see the memories floating through the blue smoke, memories not only of music and joy and youth, but perhaps, of dreams. They listened to the music, each hearing it in his own way, feeling relaxed and a part of the music, a part of each other, and almost a part of the world. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

It/ll be better tomorrow... ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

All of a sudden I'm an expert on everything. Interviewers want your opinion on golf, foreign policy and even the price of peanuts. ~ Hubert Green

I've always been inspired by Genet, Henry Miller and Hubert Selby, Jr., who taught me that you've got to tell a bigger truth in whatever you're doing, but the truth is not popular. ~ Lydia Lunch

I guess it could be said that the inspiration for 'Requiem for a Dream' is watching the American dream not only destroy so many lives in the U.S., but infect the rest of the world with its obsession with getting more, ignoring the deadly effect that has on the planet. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

He looked down at the street, and the unbroken whiteness, and watched his foot touch the snow and listened to the slight crunching sound as he stepped forward. He looked back at his footprints. They were fascinating. He had been the only one to walk along this street today. There wasn't even the mark of a dog or squirrel, or the scratch of a bird. He continued through the soft, silent snow, a feeling of peace starting to flow through him, helping make his step lighter and easier. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

It the Senator can find in Title VII any language which provides that an employer will have to hire on the basis of percentage or quota related to color, race, religion, or national origin, I will start eating the pages one after another, because it is not in there. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

I've always felt alienated. I realized that I've been terrified my entire life. So I can identify that fear which drives so many of the people that I write about. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

She shakes the little house, though she knows it will not give itself away. He went back for it. Carried it out. Died with it. What sort of a boy was he? She remembers how he sat and paged through that book of Etienne's. Birds, he said. Bird after bird after bird. She sees herself walk out of the smoking city, trailing a white pillowcase. Once she is out of his sight, he turns and lets himself back through Hubert Bazin's gate. The rampart a huge crumbling bulwark above him. The sea settling on the far side of the grate. She sees him solve the puzzle of the little house. Maybe he drops the diamond into the pool among the thousands of snails. Then he closes the puzzle box and locks the gate and trots away. Or he puts the stone back into the house. Or slips it into his pocket. From her memory, Dr. Geffard whispers: That something so small could be so beautiful. Worth so much. Only the strongest people can turn away from feelings like that. She twists the chimney ninety degrees. It turns as smoothly as if her father just built it. When she tries to slide off the first of the three wooden roof panels, she finds it stuck. But with the end of a pen, she manages to lever off the panels one two three. Something drops into her palm. An iron key. ~ Anthony Doerr

I have seen in the Halls of Congress more idealism, more humanness, more compassion, more profiles of courage than in any other institution that I have ever known. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

When you write about the people you hate the most, do it with love. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

There's something I've been wanting to say for a long time. I'm a liberal, and I'm proud of it. In fact, I was probably a little more liberal than Hubert was. I just wanted to say that. ~ Muriel Humphrey

Peace of mind is another way of saying that you've learned how to love, that you have come to appreciate the importance of giving love in order to be worthy of receiving it. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

My favorite sandwich is peanut butter, baloney, cheddar cheese, lettuce, and mayonnaise on toasted bread with catsup on the side. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Music brought the war in Vietnam right into our bedrooms. Songs we heard from America made us interested in politics; they were history lessons in a palatable, exciting form. We demonstrated against the Vietnam and Korean wars, discussed sexual liberation, censorship and pornography and read books by Timothy Leary, Hubert Selby Jr (Last Exit to Brooklyn) and Marshall McLuhan because we'd heard all these people referred to in songs or interviews with musicians. [...] Music, politics, literature, art all crossed over and fed into each other. There were some great magazines around too [...] Even though we couldn't afford to travel, we felt connected to other countries because ideas and events from those places reached us through music and magazines. ~ Viv Albertine

Much of our American progress has been the product of the individual who had an idea; pursued it; fashioned it; tenaciously clung to it against all odds; and then produced it, sold it, and profited from it. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Well, you have to remember that until 1948, when Hubert Humphrey and others forced the Democratic Party to adopt a new policy on civil rights, the Democratic Party was the party of the old solid South. All of the racists, all of the Cottonhead Smith types and so on were Democrats, allies of Franklin Roosevelt - because of their seniority - of all the major committees of the Congress. ~ William A. Rusher

Usually the space was dotted with people getting high, getting higher, or wondering why they werent high yet. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

I knew the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Frank Schirrmacher's passing is a great loss. Among the intellectuals, he, along with Friedrich Kittler, was the only one who understood the philosophical dimensions of the Internet. ~ Hubert Burda

Why did you start to write?


I left at 15.. I started to write becase I was taken off a ship from Germany when I was 18. They said I wouldn't live for 6 months.

I'd been given up for dead many times and I just didn't want to waste my life. I had what I now realize was a spiritual experience.

I realized that I would die,
and that just before I would die,
two things would happen.

number one, I would regret my entire life.
and number two, I would want to live my life over again.
and then I would die.
and that terrified me.

[...]

to think that I would live my entire life, look at it, and say oh..I blew it. was such a terrifying thought
that I bought a typewriter

I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I bought a typewriter.
but that is what got me to start writing, was

I did not want to waste my life

I wanted to, and I HAD to, do something with my life ~ Hubert Selby Jr.

Never give in and never give up. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

When Arianna Huffington founded 'The Huffington Post' in 2005, a whole new era of journalism began. ~ Hubert Burda

The moral test of a society is how that society treats those who are in the dawn of life: the children; ... the elderly. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

I think that the Internet and print behave in a complementary manner. ~ Hubert Burda

Igor?' said Moist. 'You have an Igor?'
Oh, yes,' said Hubert. 'That's how I get this wonderful light. They know the secret of storing lightning in jars! But don't let that worry you, Mr Lipspick. Just because I'm employing an Igor and working in a cellar doesn't mean I'm some sort of madman, ha ha ha!'
Ha ha,' agreed Moist.
Ha hah hah!,' said Hubert. 'Hahahahahaha!! Ahahahahahahhhhh!!!!!-'
Bent slapped him on the back. Hubert coughed.
Sorry about that, it's the air down here,' he mumbled. ~ Terry Pratchett

I guess we're kindred souls and that's why we can feel so close to each other. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

They luxuriated in the feeling of deep and all pervading satisfaction, a feeling of knowing absolutely that all was well with the world and them and that the world was not only their oyster it was also their linguine with clam sauce. Not only were all things possible, but all things were theirs. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

But you cant shut everyone out. I mean you have to have someone to love ... someone to hold on to ... someone
~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

We will be remembered not for the power of our weapons but for the power of our compassion, our dedication to human welfare. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

What do we want for people? Human dignity, personal expression and fulfillment, justice, freedom. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

I am absolutely disgusted that anyone would put thousands of America's boys at risk just to win a Political Campaign. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity
an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

What did the child-woman have to say except that she was happy to be living with Hubert--a big, pompous, grasping, scheming, conniving stud who used her at his will and shaped her affections and her tastes and in general raped her spirit. ~ M.F.K. Fisher

History teaches us that the great revolutions aren't started by people who are utterly down and out, without hope and vision. They take place when people begin to live a little better - and when they see how much yet remains to be achieved. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

You cannot tell a poor boy from a small country town on the plains of South Dakota who has had the opportunity to be a teacher, a mayor, a senator, and a vice president, that America is not a nation of promise. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

The fascinated loathing which he (Jean Lorrain) cultivated for the decadence of fin de siecle Paris has a good deal of envy and ardent desire in it; in the words of Hubert Juin, he 'loved his epoch to the point of detestation.'

(Introduction: "The Life And Career Of Jean Lorrain) ~ Francis Amery

This is the first generation in all of recorded history that can do something about the scourge of poverty. We have the means to do it. We can banish hunger from the face of the earth. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

The manipulation of statistical formulas is no substitute for knowing what one is doing. ~ Hubert M. Blalock

More progress results from the violent execution of an imperfect plan than the perfection of a plan to violently execute. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

The history of the labor movement needs to be taught in every school in this land. America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life. We ought to be proud of it! ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

And the night was comfortably warm as the soft filtered light continued to push the darkness into the shadows as they held each other and kissed and pushed each others darkness into the corner, believing in each others light, each others dream. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

To err is human. To blame someone else is politics. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

It was a nice night. A pleasant evening. There seemed to be stars somewhere and it was easy to avoid stepping in the garbage and dog shit on the streets. A truly beautiful night. Tony ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Johnson had a sense of humor, and he could kid with me," he would say. "Johnson didn't enjoy talking with most liberals. He didn't think they had a sense of humor. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

But "Inquisition" can also mean a new kind of legal process that, when the pope introduced it in the thirteenth century, was one of the greatest leaps forward in legal history. Among its innovations was the office of state prosecutor. Investigations were now initiated by this office, and not - as had previously been the case - purely on the grounds of an accusation. ~ Hubert Wolf

And he just sat back and stared at the tube, almost interested in what was happening, trying to find the ability to believe in that lie so he could believe the one within. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

You remind me of Hubert Humphrey. You talk too much ~ Ernest Hollings

I absolutely believe my talent is God-given. I ask God for a lot, but I also thank him. I'm a very demanding believer. ~ Hubert De Givenchy

In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

It's always the same
you get used to one thing, then it changes. Get used to another, and that changes. Over and over. Always the same.
O well, the hell with it. It's not important anyway. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Hubert, the great friend of Perceval, has only the steward's steward to bid him farewell," Wido said, clapping young Josson's back with undisguised delight. "The depth of Perceval's true love for Hubert is finally revealed." Josson smiled uneasily. "My lord Hector is busy with ~ Angela Elwell Hunt

"I heard something earlier, from Humphrey's friend, Hubert. We stopped at his inn."
Morpheus practically beams. "Ah, Hubert. How is the old sot?"
"Glittery." I furrow my brow. "And grumpy."
A deep laugh rumbles in Morpheus's chest. "I've always enjoyed his company."
"Yeah." I scowl. "He's a real good egg. ~ A.G. Howard

Where life is fully and consciously lived in our own neighborhood, we are cushioned a little from the impact of great far-off events which should be of only marginal concern to us. ~ Hubert Butler

We should have learnt by now that laws and court decisions can only point the way. They can establish criteria of right and wrong. And they can provide a basis for rooting out the evils of bigotry and racism. But they cannot wipe away centuries of oppression and injustice - however much we might desire it. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Has it ever occurred to you that a woman, when she is powerful, is more powerful than a man?" "Powerful in a different way, perhaps." Laud said: "It's a power partly based on fear. Perhaps the fear is atavistic, memories of babyhood. Women change the nappy, give the breast or withhold it." Langton said with a faint smile: "Not now, apparently. Fathers change nappies and it's usually a bottle." "But I'm right, Hubert, about power and fear. I wouldn't say it outside these walls, but life in Chambers would be a great deal easier if Venetia fell under that convenient Number 11 bus." He paused, and then asked the question to which he needed an answer. "So I have your support, have I? Can I take it that I'm your choice to succeed you as Head of Chambers? ~ P.D. James

Liberalism, above all, means emancipation - emancipation from one's fears, his inadequacies, from prejudice, from discrimination, from poverty. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

The great challenge which faces us is to assure that, in our society of big-ness, we do not strangle the voice of creativity, that the rules of the game do not come to overshadow its purpose, that the grand orchestration of society leaves ample room for the man who marches to the music of another drummer. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Never give in,never give up,never surrender no matter what! ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

American public opinion is like an ocean, it cannot be stirred by a teaspoon. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

There are a lot of people in this country who really like my writing. And a lot of writers respect me. But the so-called establishment? They hate me. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Propaganda, to be effective, must be believed. To be believed, it must be credible. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Here's the bottom line. I don't care if it was Kinko the Klown or a guy in an Uncle Sam suit on stilts or Hubert the Happy Homo. If ~ Stephen King

The measure of a civilization is how it treats those at the dawn of life, the margins of life and the twilight of life. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Our opposition will never understand the Democratic Party. Our Party is
to the unpracticed eyes of the old Republican Tories
a mysterious contraption that usually seems to be moving in a thousand directions. What they don't know is what hurts them. For all that movement in the Democratic Party is caused by the internal combustion of creative ferment, of ideas, of people vigorously committed to the proposition that change and social progress are not only to be desired; they are necessities of twentieth-century America. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

There's a sorrow and pain in everyone's life, but every now and then there's a ray of light that melts the loneliness in your heart and brings comfort like hot soup and a soft bed. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

What we need are critical lovers of America - patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Just be what you are and speak from your guts and heart - it's all a person has. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Hubert complains that the electric wastebasket has been overheating. I haven't noticed it but that's what Hubert says and Hubert is rarely wrong about things that don't matter. The electric wastebasket is a security item. Papers dropped into it are destroyed instantly. How the electric wastebasket accomplishes this is not known. An intimidation followed by a demoralization eventuating in a disintegration, one assumes. It is not emptied. There are not even ashes. ~ Donald Barthelme

The mobile business in particular is something we must take seriously. I see tremendous prospects for all those transactions that can be handled on mobile phones. ~ Hubert Burda

Everything has gotten less expensive. Digitization has made content, whether it's print or music, less costly. Today, anyone can read the news for free online. ~ Hubert Burda

Racism is racism–and there is no room in America for racism of any color. And we must reject calls for racism, whether they come from a throat that is white or one that is black. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

The President looked out of his window. He was not very happy. I worry about Bill, Hubert, Henry, Kevin, Edward, Clem, Dan and their lover, Snow White. I sense that all is not well with them. Now, looking out over this green lawn, and these fine rosebushes, and into the night and the yellow buildings, and the falling Dow Jones Index and the screams of the poor, I am concerned. I have many important things to worry about, but I worry about Bill and the boys too. Because I am the President. Finally. the President of the whole fucking country. And they are Americans, Bill, Hubert, Henry, Kevin, Edward, Clem, Dan and Snow White. They are Americans. My Americans. ~ Donald Barthelme

I think the function of suffering is to let me know that my perception is skewed; what I'm doing is judging natural events in such a way that I am creating suffering within myself. For instance, you have pain over certain conditions, certain situations that occur. And if you just say 'ok, here I am, I'm going to experience the pain,' you don't suffer. The resistance and the degree of the resistance to the natural phenomenon of life causes tremendous suffering. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

We're at war with nature. If we win, we're lost. ~ Hubert Reeves

Let's talk politics, to please Guy!"
"Sounds fine," said Mrs. Bowles. "I voted last election, same as everyone, and I laid it on the line
for President Noble. I think he's one of the nicest-looking men who ever became president."
"Oh, but the man they ran against him!"
"He wasn't much, was he? Kind of small and homely and he didn't shave too close or comb his
hair very well."
"What possessed the 'Outs' to run him? You just don't go running a little short man like that
against a tall man. Besides -he mumbled. Half the time I couldn't hear a word he said. And the
words I did hear I didn't understand!"
"Fat, too, and didn't dress to hide it. No wonder the landslide was for Winston Noble. Even their
names helped. Compare Winston Noble to Hubert Hoag for ten seconds and you can almost
figure the results. ~ Ray Bradbury

Hubert Humphrey is a treacherous, gutless old ward-heeler who should be put in a goddamn bottle and sent out with the Japanese current. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Unfortunately, our affluent society has also been an effluent society. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Technologies that exist between man and nature in a simple form and those that enable the interaction with other technologies are becoming significantly more complex and create their own information systems. ~ Hubert Burda

I do not feel that we should allow a shortage of funds to prevent cities from financing needed projects. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

There can be no compromise on the right of personal security; there can be no compromise on securing of human rights. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

It is all too easy for a society to measure itself against some abstract philosophical principle or political slogan. But in the end, there must remain the question: What kind of life is one society providing to the people that live in it? ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

When I did 'Esquire,' I did a lot of celebrity covers, but the celebrity cover was Hubert Humphrey as a dummy, sitting on Lyndon Johnson's lap and aping his feelings about the war. I did celebrity covers that made a difference in what was going on in American culture. ~ George Lois