Laney Boggs Quotes

It takes time for change to take place. But then when huge changes are taking place, they are extraordinary. And it requires a kind of philosophical thinking, thinking in terms of epochs. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

The pregnant body suggests a story we think we know: health, love, happiness. ~ Belle Boggs

As I witness and participate in our visionary efforts to revitalize Detroit and contrast them with the multibillion dollars' worth of megaprojects advanced by politicians and developed that involve casinos, giant stadiums, gentrification, and the Super Bowl, I am saddened by their shortsightedness. At the same time I rejoice in the energy being unleashed in the community by our human-scale programs that involve bringing the country back into the city and removing the walls between schools and communities, between generations, and between ethnic groups. And I am confident just as in the early twentieth century people came from around the world to marvel at the mass production lines pioneered by Henry Ford, in the twenty-first century they will be coming to marvel at the thriving neighborhoods that are the fruit of our visionary programs. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

Boggs quickly examines my face, then scoops me up and jogs for the runway. Halfway there, I puke on his bulletproof vest. It's hard to tell because he's short of breath, but I think he sighs. ~ Suzanne Collins

We can begin by doing small things at the local level, like planting community gardens or looking out for our neighbors. That is how change takes place in living systems, not from above but from within, from many local actions occurring simultaneously. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

I don't know what the next American revolution is going to be like, but we might be able to imagine it if your imagination were rich enough. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

I warn you, I'm a terrible housekeeper. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

I have a message for the young kids. Life is about obstacles, endeavors in life are not to be overlooked. ~ Wade Boggs

It seems that I'm very good at negotiating having safe sex, but I actually have no idea how to ask if we can stop, ~ Laney Cairo

I am falling in love with you, Laney Keating."
"Don't say that."
"It's true."
"Don't say it," I said miserably, looking away.
"Why?"
Falling for someone is like pulling a loose thread. It happens stitch by stitch. You feel whole most of the time even while the seams pop, the knots loosen, everything that holds you together coming undone. It feels incredible, this opening of yourself to the world. Not like the unraveling it is. Only afterward do you glance down at the tangle of string around your feet that used to be a person who was whole and self-contained and realize that love is not a thing that we create. It's an undoing.
"Because you deserve better," I whispered. ~ Leah Raeder

I just didn't want to admit that he was dead. ~ Lindy Boggs

If you say so. Just to be clear, I feel anything but brotherly toward you, Laney. ~ Rebecca Zanetti

What kind of life is that? Do you know? Do you? Because I know. I lived that life. For years I lived it. Without you. And I've never been more miserable. I'd rather fight everyday to keep you near me than have you walk away. I'd rather pay that price, Max. I'm not afraid to pay it. I can't believe you're standing here telling me that you are."
~Layla to Max; TORN ~ Laney McMann

The life an infertile person seeks comes to her not by accident and not by fate but by hard-fought choices. How to put together the portfolio of photographs. How to answer at the home study. What clinic or doctor or procedure. Donor egg or donor sperm or donor embryo. Open or closed adoption. What country, what boxes to check or uncheck. What questions to ask, and ask again. When to start and when to stop. What to say when her child says, Tell me my story. ~ Belle Boggs

Finnick?" I say, "Maybe some pants?"
He looks down at his legs as if noticing his outfit for the first time. Then he whips off his hospital gown leaving him in just his underwear. "Why? Do you find this"
he strikes a ridiculously provocative pose
"distracting?"
I laugh. Boggs looks embarrassed and Finnick looks more like the guy I met at the Quarter Quell ~ Suzanne Collins

You cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it, unless you see yourself as belonging to it and responsible for changing it. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

I'm trying to think of a witty comeback, when Boggs says brusquely, "Well, don't expect us to be too impressed. We just saw Finnick Odair in his underwear." I decide to go ahead and like Boggs. ~ Suzanne Collins

Yeah, over my scattered panties, I asked him to dinner and told him to bring a friend. - Laney ~ Joann I. Martin Sowles

How are we going to make our livings in a society becoming increasingly jobless because of hi-tech and outsourcing? Where will we get the imagination to recognize that for most of human history the concept of Jobs didn't even exist? Work, as distinguished from Labor, was done to produce needed goods and services, develop skills and artistry, and nurture cooperation. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

It has been a privilege beyond belief for me to have represented the State of Louisiana in Congress and to have been given the blessed assignment of U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. ~ Lindy Boggs

A no-brainer meaning an obvious decision? Or like an idea to which you have devoted very little brain-power. ~ Belle Boggs

We need to undergo a very radical revolution in values. And we need to think about what it's like to have become so materialistic that we think having a good job, and consuming like crazy to compensate for the dehumanization of the job, is living like a human being. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

Layla had always just been there. In my life. I wasn't sure who said, 'hi,' first, or maybe who smiled at who first - all I really remembered was staring at her, and her staring back at me, neither of us looking away. Both of us standing frozen, and life falling into the background with a distant hum. As if the world had stopped spinning. Just for us.
I remembered not caring if it had. She'd seemed so familiar, and even as a little kid, I'd known she was special. Like something bigger than me, older than me, had taken over my emotions in a way I didn't understand. She just felt like ... home.
I could have gazed into her eyes forever. Happy to stand in that powerless state for the rest of my life ~ Laney McMann

I think people look at revolution too much in terms of power. I think revolution has to be seen more anthropologically, in terms of transitions from one mode of life to another. We have to see today in light of the transition, say, from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and from agriculture to industry, and from industry to post-industry. We're in an epoch transition. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

By the end of the twentieth century Interpol was ranking art crime as one of the world's most profitable criminal activities, second only to drug smuggling and weapons dealing. The three activities were related: Drug pushers were moving stolen and smuggled art down the same pipelines they used for narcotics, and terrorists were using looted antiquities to fund their activities. This latter trend began in 1974, when the IRA stole $32 million worth of paintings by Rubens, Goya, and Vermeer. In 2001, the Taliban looted the Kabul museum and "washed" the stolen works in Switzerland. Stolen art was much more easily transportable than drugs or arms. A customs canine, after all, could hardly be expected to tell the difference between a crap Kandinksy and a credible one. ~ Laney Salisbury

This journey started about 42 years ago in a little town of Brunswick, Georgia. ~ Wade Boggs

A swing is like a car. You've got the fan belt, carburetor, pistons, spark plugs, fuel pump. If any part isn't working, the car doesn't run. Same way with hitting. ~ Wade Boggs

Being a victim of oppression in the United States is not enough to make you revolutionary, just as dropping out of your mother's womb is not enough to make you human. People who are full of hate and anger against their oppressors or who only see Us versus Them can make a rebellion but not a revolution. The oppressed internalize the values of the oppressor. Therefore, any group that achieves power, no matter how oppressed, is not going to act differently from their oppressors as long as they have not confronted the values that they have internalized and consciously adopted different values. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

My sense, although I don't remember discussing it with anyone, was that with the fall of France to the Nazis in June 1940, European civilization had collapsed. I also recalled that although both George Herbert Mead and John Dewey had been born in New England, they developed their distinctively American philosophy of pragmatism in Chicago. So thinking of my own New England roots, I decided to go to Chicago, which, seen through Carl Sandburg's eyes, was the opposite of European decadence: Hog Butcher for the World, Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler, Stormy, husky, brawling. City of the Big Shoulders.7 ~ Grace Lee Boggs

My boyfriend is a vampire and I'm okay with it. - Laney ~ Joann I. Martin Sowles

I had no idea what I was gonna do after I got my degree in philosophy in 1940. But what I did know was at that time, if you were a Chinese-American, even department stores wouldn't hire you. They'd come right out and say, 'We don't hire Orientals.' ~ Grace Lee Boggs

Lesbian?"
Payton turned around and saw J.D. standing there.
Maybe it was the wine. Maybe she was basking in the glow of their successful pitch to Gibson's. Maybe it was her promise to Laney to be the "New Payton," or maybe it was a combination of all those things. But Payton actually found herself smiling at J.D.
It's just an excuse, the lesbian thing," she said. ~ Julie James

Looking back on those days and little leaguer, the Hall of Fame is not even a blinking star, but through baseball travels and moving up the ladder, that star begins to flicker. ~ Wade Boggs

I think that rebellions arise out of anger, and they're very short-lived. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

We need to do what I call visionary organizing. Recognize that in every crisis, people do not respond like a school of fish. Some people become immobilized. Some people become very angry, some commit suicide, and other people begin to find solutions. And visionary organizers look at those people, recognize them and encourage them, and they become leaders of the future. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

We're in a very, very profound crisis. It's so obvious that no one in the power structure, either the corporate power structure or the political power structure, knows what to do or is willing to do what's necessary in relationship both to global war and global warming. It's so obvious that conditions are getting worse for the great majority of Americans. It's so obvious also that we face a very serious danger from people who feel, see themselves only as victims. And we have to somehow, in a very loving way, help the American people to recover the best that is in our traditions. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

The only way to survive is by taking care of one another. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

We should go swimming," Anna says, out of the blue. ( ... )
Danny looks at her like she just suggested knocking over the closest liquor store. Which wouldn't be such a bad idea, on second thought, considering how fast Laney, Seth and Anna are working through the tequila bottle. "Uh sure, if catching pneumonia's your idea of a fun time. I don't want to freeze my balls off. I'm rather attached to them. Literally and figuratively. ~ Hannah Harrington

People are aware that they cannot continue in the same old way but are immobilized because they cannot imagine an alternative. We need a vision that recognizes that we are at one of the great turning points in human history when the survival of our planet and the restoration of our humanity require a great sea change in our ecological, economic, political, and spiritual values. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

Westerns have often been considered the ugly stepchild of genre writing... ~ Johnny D. Boggs

There weren't any promises of a future life together, either, but he didn't need to live like a monk anymore. Two years was more than enough time for soul-searching and penance. As long as Laney was close enough to touch, to breath in, to taste like his goddamn last meal, he would take whatever she offered and not ask any questions about what it might cost him when she inevitably left. ~ Zoe York

There's a meeting in Command. Disregard your current schedule,' he says.
'Done,' I say.
'Did you follow it at all today?' he asks in exasperation.
'Who knows? I'm mentally disoriented.' I hold up my wrist to show my medical bracelet and realize it's gone.
'See? I can't even remember they took my bracelet.'
(Katniss and Boggs) ~ Suzanne Collins

We're at a great transition point in terms of population, demographics, and what it means to be a human being. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

The natural tendency of children is to solve problems, but we try to indoctrinate them with facts, which they are supposed to feed back, and then we fail them. And that's child abuse. And you should never raise children that way. You should cultivate and encourage their natural tendencies to create solutions to the problems around them. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

Then I laughed. It was this sick reflex - to laugh. But that was what people did, right? When they couldn't cry or scream because they couldn't feel enough to do either of those? They laughed. It was what happened to those too numb for pain, who instead sensed only a tickle. They laughed. ~ Laney Wylde

Then maybe you'll believe me when I say ... you're pretty fucking special, Laney Hill. ~ Cassia Leo

We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In this exquisitely connected world, it's never a question of 'critical mass.' It's always about critical connections. ~ Grace Lee Boggs