Nam Quotes

Back on the block they probably call Big Al "Fat Albert" but here in the Nam we don't insult our friends. ~ Derrick Wolf

And she never had, Doug mused, because war and politics go for the big view and trample all over the little guy. France during the Revolution or a steamy pit of a jungle in Nam. It never changed. He knew just what it felt like to be helpless. He wasn't going to feel that way ever again. ~ Nora Roberts

The thing is not to write what no one else has written but to write what only you could have written.'
I found this fragment in my old notebooks. The person who wrote that couldn't have known what would happen: how a voice hollows how words you once loved can wither on a page. ~ Nam Le

Before Watergate and Viet Nam, the American public, as a whole, believed everything it was told, and since then it doesn't believe anything, and both of those extremes hurt us because they prevent us from recognizing the truth. ~ Daniel Keys Moran

He doesn't stop talking for most of the three-hour flight about his time in "'Nam." Finally the conversation slows, and I ask him what he's done since leaving the army.

He sums it up in three words: "I'm in insurance."

And that's it. That's all he has to say about the following forty years.

I think I may be in a similar situation with the whole marriage bit. Three words: "I got married. ~ Rick Springfield

The '60s were a very turbulent time for colored people. Being away at war was a chance for them to escape the racial bullshit for a while. It was a shame it came down to that kind of choice.
Don't get me wrong. There were plenty of guys, who tried to bring that racial crap over there with them. However, when the shit hits the fan, you don't give a damn about who's standing next to you, saving your ass. You certainly don't care what color his skin is or what language he speaks. All that matters to you is that he is an American G.I. Government Issued, baby! ~ Jason Medina

... Ending a conflict is not so simple, not just calling it off and coming home. Because the price for that kind of peace could be a thousand years of darkness for generation's Viet Nam borned. ~ Ronald Reagan

For the gods, instead of what is most pleasing, will give what is most proper. Man is dearer to them than he is to himself.
[Lat., Nam pro jucundis aptissima quaeque dabunt di,
Carior est illis homo quam sibi.] ~ Juvenal

She hated a mown lawn. Maybe that was because mow was the reverse of won, the beginning of the name of what she was - a woman. A mown lawn had a sad sound to it, like a long moan. From her, a mown lawn made a long moan. Lawn had some of the letters of man, though the reverse of man would be Nam, a bad war. A raw war. Lawn also contained the letters of law. In fact, lawn was a contraction of laman. Certainly a lawman could and did mow a lawn. Law and order could be seen as starting from lawn order, valued by so many Americans. More lawn could be made using a lawn mower. A lawn mower did make more lawn. More lawn was a contraction of more lawmen. Did more lawn in America make more lawmen in America? Did more lawn make more Nam? More mown lawn made more long moan, from her. Or a lawn mourn. So often, she said, Americans wanted more mown lawn. All of America might be one long mown lawn. A lawn not mown grows long, she said: better a long lawn. Better a long lawn and a mole. Let the lawman have the mown lawn, she said. Or the moron, the lawn moron. ~ Lydia Davis

I bet there are still many openings and loopholes in art history ... which are being overlooked right now by millions of young people who complain that everything has already been done, so that they cannot do new breakthroughs. However, the history of the world says that we don't win the games, but we change the rules of the games. ~ Nam June Paik

The most wretched fortune is safe; for there is no fear of anything worse.
[Lat., Fortuna miserrima tuta est:
Nam timor eventus deterioris abest.] ~ Ovid

He sounds like kind of a hacker. Which makes his nam-shub very difficult to
understand. If he was such a nice guy, why did he do the Babel thing?"
"This is considered to be one of the mysteries of Enki. As you have noticed,
his behavior was not always consistent with modern norms."
"I don't buy that. I don't think he actually fucked his sister, daughter, and
so on. That story has to be a metaphor for something else. I think it is a
metaphor for some kind of recursive informational process. This whole myth
stinks of it. To these people, water equals semen. Makes sense, because they
probably had no concept of pure water -- it was all brown and muddy and full of
viruses anyway. But from a modern standpoint, semen is just a carrier of
information -- both benevolent sperm and malevolent viruses. Enki's water --
his semen, his data, his me -- flow throughout the country of Sumer and cause it
to flourish."
"As you may be aware, Sumer existed on the floodplain between two major rivers,
the Tigris and the Euphrates. This is where all the clay came from -- they took
it directly from the riverbeds."
"So Enki even provided them with their medium for conveying information -- clay.
They wrote on wet clay and then they dried it out -- got rid of the water. If
water got to it later, the information was destroyed. But if they baked it and
drove out all the water, sterilized Enki's semen with heat, t ~ Neal Stephenson

I know that we women are all justly accounted praters; they say in the present day that there never was in any age such a wonder to be found as a dumb woman.
[Lat., Nam multum loquaces merito omnes habemus,
Nec mutam profecto repertam ullam esse
Hodie dicunt mulierem ullo in seculo.] ~ Plautus

Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules. ~ John Goodman

There is no rewind button on the BETAMAX of life. ~ Nam June Paik

Post-Traumatic Stress Injury isn't a disease. It's a wound to the soul that never heals. ~ Tom Glenn

Nature is beautiful, not because it changes beautifully, but simply because it changes. ~ Nam June Paik

It starts with chicken thigh meat cut into big, thick chunks. They're then set to marinate for the morning in a Nikumi- Original Marinade featuring soy sauce and cayenne pepper.
"Breading done."
"Thanks!"
"Man, the smell of this chicken deep-frying is so good, it's making me hungry!"
"Is it done yet? I wanna eat!"
After the chicken breast has been fried not once but twice...
... it, along with lettuce leaves and other leafy herbs...
... is all wrapped up in our special, freshly cooked wrap!
Some of our "Secret Chili Sauce" (which has a dash of Thai Nam Pla in it for flavor)...
... and a sprinkling of fresh cracked black pepper top it all off! ~ Yuto Tsukuda

The cathode-ray tube will replace canvas, ~ Nam June Paik

If you ask me why I came to Iowa, I would say that Iowa is beautiful in the way that any place is beautiful: if you treat it as the answer to a question you're asking yourself every day, just by being there. ~ Nam Le

I dont think that unless a greater effort is made by the Government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Viet-Nam, against the Communists. ~ John F. Kennedy

Gabriel Squeezed His Eyes Shut. In the distance He Heard shay Screaming His Nam. What Had he done.?
The answer Slammed Into His Mind. He Had Fallen in Love with Her. It had Clouded His Judgment.
He LOVED Her, HEART, SOUL, And BODY. And He Had Sentenced Her To Death. ~ Laura J. Burns

Former secretary of state George Shultz, reflecting on forty years of United States foreign policy from 1970 to the present, said, When I think about all the money we spent on bombs and munitions, and our failures in Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world . . . Instead of advancing our agenda using force, we should have instead built schools and hospitals in these countries, improving the lives of their children. By now, those children would have grown into positions of influence, and they would be grateful to us instead of hating us. ~ Daniel J. Levitin

In World War One, they called it shell shock. Second time around, they called it battle fatigue. After 'Nam, it was post-traumatic stress disorder. ~ Jan Karon

I've noticed this about new employees over the years. The women take on all the cumbersome, minor tasks without being asked, while guys never do. Doesn´t matter if they're new or the youngest - they never do anything they're not told to do. But why do women simply take things upon themselves? ~ Cho Nam-Joo

Thank you, Mr. Secretary General, UNICEF Executive Director, Excellencies and distinguished guests from across the world.

My name is Kim Nam Jun, also known as RM, the leader of the group BTS. It's an incredible honour to be invited to an occasion with such significance for today's young generation.

Last November, BTS launched the "Love Myself" campaign with UNICEF, building on our belief that "true love first begins with loving myself." We have been partnering with UNICEF's #ENDviolence program to protect children and young people all over the world from violence.

Our fans have become a major part of this campaign with their action and enthusiasm. We truly have the best fans in the world!

I would like to begin by talking about myself.

I was born in Ilsan, a city near Seoul, South Korea. It's a beautiful place, with a lake, hills, and even an annual flower festival. I spent a happy childhood there, and I was just an ordinary boy.

I would look up at the night sky in wonder and dream the dreams of a boy. I used to imagine that I was a superhero, saving the world.

In an intro to one of our early albums, there is a line that says, "My heart stopped…I was maybe nine or ten."

Looking back, that's when I began to worry about what other people thought of me and started seeing myself through their eyes. I stopped looking up at the stars at night. I stopped daydreaming. I tried to jam myself into mo ~ Kim Namjoon

The great heart of comrade Kim Jong Il has ceased. ~ Kim Yong-nam

He looked out the open window. So this was what it was like. He looked through the green foliage, over the ocean, and felt around him the heat massing in the air, the current of coolness running through it, taking form in the thunderheads. He saw the black energy becoming creatured from a hundred kilometers away, roaring toward shore, feeding on itself. On the headland, trees bending to absorb the weight of the forward wind. ~ Nam Le

Somewhere along the way I came upon a mews with a small sign on the entrance gate addressed to the passing world. The sign orders flatly:

COMMIT NO NUISANCE

The more you stare at that, the more territory it covers. From dirtying the streets to housebreaking to invading Viet Nam, that covers all the territory there is. ~ Helene Hanff

If you never love you never hurt
If you never hurt you've never lived.
Love in life and embrace all the pains that come with it. ~ Sophia Nam

A mind now clouded by the illusions of the innate darkness of life is like a tarnished mirror, but when polished, it is sure to become like a clear mirror, reflecting the essential nature of phenomena and the true aspect of reality. Arouse deep faith, and diligently polish your mirror day and night. How should you polish it? Only by chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo ~ Nichiren

You haven't lived a full life until you have been in a very tough situation when you thought you were going to die. War does that to you. ~ William E. Peterson

For 56 days they had given everything, endured everything; they had achieved the impossible, not once but again and again. They deserved to win; and if they were now being robbed of victory, then the real thieves weren't the People's Army, the 'rats of the Nam Youm', or anyone else in the filth of this last valley, but men who slept between clean sheets far away. ~ Martin Windrow

Grew up in a small town where there was only one crazy guy. He didn't even go insane doing anything good, like going to 'Nam or having an extended acid trip. Turns out - legend has it - he just had some bad cheese. ~ Brian Posehn

It was the excitement, the richness of the whole experience, the mixture of pleasure and danger and freedom and the sun. You know, when we came back here, for a long while I still went on living in Euphoria inside my head. Outwardly I returned to my old routine. I got up in the morning, put on a tweed suit, read the Guardian over breakfast, walked into the University, gave the same old tutorials on the same old texts... and all the while I was leading a completely different life inside my head. Inside my head, I had decided not to come back to England, so I was waking up in Plotinus, sitting in the sun in my happi-coat, looking out over the Bay, putting on Levis and a sports shirt, reading the Euphoric Times over breakfast, and wondering what would happen today, would there be a protest, a demonstration, would my class have to fight their way through teargas and picket lines or should we meet off-campus in somebody's apartment, sitting on the floor surrounded by posters and leaflets and paperbacks about encounter groups and avant garde theatre and Viet Nam. ~ David Lodge

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the greatest joy for all humankind. ~ Nichiren

If you have to think about it twice you probably shouldn't do it ~ Sophia Nam

Not all the blood of beasts On Jewish altars slain, Could give the guilty conscience peace, Or wash away the stain: But Christ, the heav'nly Lamb, Takes all our sins away, A sacrifice of nobler nam' And richer blood than they. ~ Isaac Watts

The library was ... scattered with odd cushions and strange padded built-in furniture added a few years ago to placate the rioting students of the time, who could never seem to make up their minds whether they were angriest about Viet Nam, about being made to learn a foreign language, or about being made to sit at a hard wooden desk while they did it. The College, being unable to do anything about Viet Nam and unwilling to do anything about the foreign language requirement, had reformed the furniture in the library. ~ Pamela Dean

That was the problem with Alison Fischer: you never knew which part of her to look at. He looked at her face ~ Nam Le

The article I actually write is a masterpiece. It takes talent to convince people that war is a beautiful experience. Come one, come all to exotic Viet Nam, the jewel of Southeast Asia, meet interesting, stimulating people of an ancient culture...and kill them. Be the first kid on your block to get a confirmed kill. ~ Gustav Hasford

I do believe that you can never know yourself let alone the person next to you let alone the person halfway across the world. Yet at the same time I believe there is nothing like fiction to fully thrust you into someone else s consciousness. ~ Nam Le

But is it right to prioritise short-term efficiency and balance sheets? Who'll be the last ones standing in a world with these priorities, and will they be happy? ~ Cho Nam-Joo

I am of the opinion which you have always held, that "viva voce" voting at elections is the best method.
[Lat., Nam ego in ista sum sententia, qua te fuisse semper scio, nihil ut feurit in suffragiis voce melius.] ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Hak Nam rose before her as she waded nearer, but with a dream's logic it grew no closer. Backwashing sea, sucking at her ankles. The Walled City is growing. Being grown. From the fabric of the beach, wrack and wreckage of the world before things changed. Unthinkable tonnage, dumped here by barge and bulk-lifter in the course of the great reconstruction. The minuscule bugs of Rodel-van Erp seethe there, lifting the iron-caged balconies that are sleeping rooms, countless unplanned windows throwing blank silver rectangles back against the fog. A thing of random human accretion, monstrous and superb, it is being reconstituted here, retranslated from its later incarnation as a realm of consensual fantasy. The ~ William Gibson

The only way to win a race is to run alone. ~ Nam June Paik

You couldn't think of after, you only thought of now, and come to think of it, you didn't do that either -- you were left with pools of memory, each stranded from the next by time pulling forward like a tide. ~ Nam Le

Wait a second," Andy said, snapping his fingers. "You're Vietnamese." "Don't say it," Sun warned. But Andy, a grin stretched across his face, couldn't resist. "You're a Vietnam vet." Sun's face became even harder, something Andy hadn't thought possible. "Never heard that one before. Open the pen there." Andy lifted the latch on the gate and Sun led the sheep out of the pen and over to the entrance door. "I've visited Viet Nam twice," Andy said. "Beautiful place. All of those war movies make it look like hell, but it's actually very tranquil, don't you think?" "I wouldn't know. I've never been there. I'm an American. ~ Lee Goldberg

The culture that's going to survive in the future is the culture that you can carry around in your head. ~ Nam June Paik

I was eighteen when I first read Joseph Heller's stunning work 'Catch-22,' and was at that time close to being drafted for the fruitless and unenlightened war in Viet Nam. ~ Thomas Steinbeck

The girls stowed away repulsive, frightening experiences with males deep in their hearts without even realizing it themselves. ~ Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Ji-young, Nacida En 1982

Suffer what there is to suffer, enjoy what there is to enjoy. Regard both suffering and joy as facts of life, and continue chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, no matter what happens. How could this be anything other than the boundless joy of the Law? ~ Nichiren

You don't have to be in Nam to be in Nam. ~ Tim O'Brien

The Communist leaders in Moscow, Peking and Hanoi must fully understand that the United States considers the freedom of South Viet Nam vital to our interests. And they must know that we are not bluffing in our determination to defend those interests. ~ Gerald R. Ford

Coincidence sometimes happens as in a fairy tale. Wong was in an emotional state of mind. Still smoking opium, he thought about Kwang's long-dead father, who had arrived in Singapore from Amoy on the junk Nam Hong. The opium den now felt bare and lonely without all the old vibrations. It was also dark and damp and the small kerosene lamp was running low on fuel. Wong added more kerosene and mumbled to himself, "Tonight I am going to smoke my way to heaven! ~ Ming Cher

I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a schnauzer named Teddy. Salvador Biagiani was philosophical. He said it sure beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Viet Nam War. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

For whoever meditates a crime is guilty of the deed.
[Lat., Nam scelus intra se tacitum qui cogitat ullum,
Facti crimen habet.] ~ Juvenal

The mirror is the worst judge of true beauty ~ Sophia Nam

That which leads us to the performance of duty by offering pleasure as its reward, is not virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue.
[Lat., Nam quae voluptate, quasi mercede aliqua, ad officium impellitur, ea non est virtus sed fallax imitatio simulatioque virtutis.] ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

If I said he really wants to see you, would you care a little bit?"
"No."
"You don't have anything you want to say to him?"
"I do, but I'm trying to be a better person and not use those words as much. ~ Deborah Nam-Krane

Today's theater-goer must live in dread of walking into a theater and discovering that some classic work has been given a modernized, socially relevant setting. Oedipus gouges his eyes with a spoon at a 1950's malt shop; Macbeth napalms Banquo in Viet Nam, Julius Caesar dies in Dallas in 1963. More and more, American theater is coming to resemble a season of Quantum Leap. ~ Reduced Shakespeare Company

I found myself surrounded by really old veterans wearing hats that said, "Retired Marine - SEMPER FI." These hats didn't appear to fit on their heads, but instead seemed to hover over them.
At one point, I mistakenly tried to take the last box of crackers that a veteran also wanted. He started yelling, "I ran away from home at seventeen, lied about my age, and joined the Corps! I fought in World War II, Korea, and NAM! I have no cartilage in my right knee! It's bone-on-bone, but every morning I run six miles! I did not sacrifice my knee for this country to come here today and have you disrespect me at the commissary. Oooh-RAH!"
I dropped the crackers and walked away. ~ Mollie Gross

There is a wonderful expression in Persian, war nam nihadan, which means to murder somebody, bury his body, then grow flowers over the body to conceal it ~ Slavoj Zizek

Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation. ~ Edward R. Murrow

The American soldiers were brave, but courage is not enough. David did not kill Goliath just because he was brave. He looked up at Goliath and realized that if he fought Goliath's way with a sword, Goliath would kill him. But if he picked up a rock and put it in his sling, he could hit Goliath in the head and knock Goliath down and kill him. David used his mind when he fought Goliath. So did we Vietnamese when we had to fight the Americans. ~ Vo Nguyen Giap