Nathaniel West Quotes

Love is but a flitting shadow, a lure, a gimcrack, a kickshaw. ~ Nathanael West

To be American is to be part of a dialogical and democratic operation that grapples with the challenge of being human in an open-ended and experimental manner. Although America is a romantic project in which a paradise, a land of dreams, is fanned and fueled with a religion of vast possibility, it is, more fundamentally, a fragile experiment-precious yet precarious-of dialogical and democratic human endeavor that yields forms of modern self-making and self-creating unprecedented in human history. From Thomas Jefferson to Elijah Muhammad, Geronimo to Dorothy Day, Jane Adams to Nathaniel West, it holds out the possibility of self-transformation and self-reliance to New World dwellers willing to start anew and recast themselves for the purpose of deliverance and betterment. This purpose requires only a restlessness, energy and boldness that galvanizes people to organize and mobilize themselves in a way that makes new opportunities and possibilities credible and worth the ~ Cornel West

When I was a kid, my dad kind of forced me to sing the third harmony for our little family group, and I just kind of hated it. I just felt so uncomfortable on stage, too shy. ~ Nathaniel Rateliff

We want to bear witness today that we know the relation between corporate greed and what goes on too often in the Supreme Court decisions. ~ Cornel West

We gonna touch the sky ~ Kanye West

Would all, who cherish such wild wishes, but look around them, they would oftenest find their sphere of duty, of prosperity, and happiness, within those precincts, and in that station where Providence itself has cast their lot. Happy they who read the riddle without a weary world-search, or a lifetime spent in vain! ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

The idea of original sin
of guilt with no possibility of innocence, no freedom of choice, no alternatives
inherently militates against self-esteem. The very notion of guilt without volition or responsibility is an assault on reason as well as on morality. Sin is not original, it is originated
like virtue. ~ Nathaniel Branden

[Donald] Trump: he'd probably declare in Hiroshima that he'd nuke half of Asia if it would help the West to retain its control over the world. At least one would not harbor any false hopes. ~ Andre Vltchek

I'd heard "Rhapsody in Blue" a thousand times and it always amazed me. It was so humble and then so bombastic. It was beautiful, bright, and terrifying: old and new, European and American. At times it sounded like Debussy, at times it sounded like Stravinsky, and at times it sounded like the Lower East Side in 1910.
"Rhapsody in Blue" was a quintessentially New York work of art, but it was also about moving from east to west, from the old world to the new... ~ Moby

All over India, all over the world, as the sun or the shadow of darkness moves from east to west, the call to prayer moves with it, and people kneel down in a wave to pray to God. Five waves each day - one for each namaaz - ripple across the globe from longitude to longitude. The component elements change direction, like iron filings near a magnet - towards the house of God in Mecca. ~ Vikram Seth

I'm concerned with China growing at double or triple the rate of the West, that there will be tensions. One needs to do something to start addressing misunderstandings and frustration. ~ Stephen A. Schwarzman

There's no doubt West Point impacted who I am ... It has an enormous emphasis, not only on military aspects, but character development. Whether it's the honor code, or the interactions you have, both with the cadet leadership and the academy leadership, every place you are is a character test. ~ Mike Pompeo

But fathers are soft on daughters. Look how Dad favors Angela. He gave her ten times more. Because she reminded him of Mae West. He was always smiling at her boobs. He wasn't aware of it. Mother and I saw it. ~ Saul Bellow

Certain kinds of things that the novel used to do, which was, "Oh, I'm living out here in West Nowhere, Nebraska and I'm curious how the upper class in New York City lives, I guess I'll read a novel about it." We don't have to do that now. You just turn on the TV. Turn on Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous. You can get that information anywhere. Novels don't have to do that anymore. ~ Jonathan Franzen

They saw how the wall around Eden stretched away on either hand, with only the one opening, as though to guard those within from hungry hordes who might wish to come inside. And next to the cherubim they saw the flaming sword. … The flaming sword turned this way, to prevent any intruder entering from the east, and that way, to prevent any intruder entering from the west. But it did not ever turn in the direction of the garden. The mouse and the beetle stood together watching it for a long time. Beyond it the country stretched away, with winding rivers and low hills and stands of trees and no moving thing in sight. The beetle said, 'These are formidable defences. No one can enter Eden. But I do not see that there is anything to prevent us leaving. ~ Lucy Hughes-Hallett

I never set out to make men a career; it just happened that way. ~ Mae West

Well, let's put in this way, I grew up in West New York, New Jersey. ~ Jason Alexander

Your life is important. Fight for it. Honour your highest potentials. ~ Nathaniel Branden

We must never forget why we have, and why we need our military. Our armed forces exist solely to ensure our nation is safe, so that each and every one of us can sleep soundly at night, knowing we have 'guardians at the gate.' ~ Allen West

The missile that downed the Malaysian plane, they say, is a Russian-made missile. But the weapons that are used in the barbarism in the barbaric act against the Palestinians were made by the West, and nobody is blaming them. Nobody talks about it; not even the U.N. Security Council can pass a resolution against Israel! ~ Yahya Jammeh

Unfortunately for our esteem, societies of the West are not known for their conduciveness to the surrender of pretensions, to the acceptance of age or fat, let alone poverty and obscurity. ~ Alain De Botton

It was easy for me to be ridiculed and for both men and women to perceive that maybe I'm a bit crazy because I'm educated in the West and I have lost some of my basic decency as an African woman. ~ Wangari Maathai

I went to several different grade schools all over the West Coast. I got polio when I was 8 and spent eight months in the hospital and a rehab clinic in Seattle. ~ Dennis Washington

The myth of the "liberal elite" strategically frames liberal values - environmentalism, racial and gender equality, gay and trans liberation, immigrants' rights, the social safety net-as inherently frivolous, dishonest, a joke. By extension, the people who would benefit from the actualization of those values are "fake" Americans- the nation's most vulnerable groups being called decadent effetes ~ Lindy West

Money should not be spent according to what the West considers the most dramatic kind of suffering. ~ William Easterly

Fiction and poetry are the only way one can stop time and give an account of an experience and nail it down so that it lasts for ever. ~ Rebecca West

He who travels west travels not only with the sun but with history. ~ Hal Borland

Faith is stepping out on nothing and landing on something. ~ Cornel West

In the West, especially after World War II, the government came to be seen as so successful that it could fulfill all the obligations that in less modern societies are fulfilled by the family. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

The summer day is closed, the sun is set: Well they have done their office, those bright hours, The latest of whose train goes softly out In the red west. ~ Bear Bryant

The contribution of West African languages to Ebonics is absolutely infinitesimal. What it actually is is a very interesting hybrid of regional dialects of Great Britain that slaves in America were exposed to because they often worked alongside the indentured servants who spoke those dialects that we often learn about in school. ~ John McWhorter

It is a comfortable thought, that the smallest and most turbid mud-puddle can contain its own picture of Heaven. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Let me be candid. If I had to rank book-acquisition experiences in order of comfort, ease, and satisfaction, the list would go like this: 1. The perfect independent bookstore, like Pygmalion in Berkeley. 2. A big, bright Barnes & Noble. I know they're corporate, but let's face it - those stores are nice. Especially the ones with big couches. 3. The book aisle at Walmart. (It's next to the potting soil.) 4. The lending library aboard the U.S.S. West Virginia, a nuclear submarine deep beneath the surface of the Pacific. 5. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. ~ Robin Sloan

Kotak Mahindra Bank has very significant presence in the West and the North, and our total branch network between these two regions is 80 per cent, and in case of ING Vysya Bank, their network in South is 64 per cent of their total branch network. ~ Uday Kotak

I'll go home and write my own backstory. It will be easier to remember. ~ Kasie West

Janet Jackson is an icon, I've been honored to meet her a few times, working with her would be amazing. ~ Eric West

I knew when I wrote the line "light-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson" [from the song "Slow Jamz"] I was going to be a big star. ~ Kanye West