Robinson Quotes

I never met a white person till I was a grown man. I never went to school with a white till I was twenty-six years old, at Harvard Law School. The insult of segregation was searing and unforgettable. It has left a great scar, and will be with me for the rest of my life. ~ Randall Robinson

A voteless people is a hopeless people. ~ Amelia Boynton Robinson

When you're 100 percent certain, you're too late. ~ Charles W. Robinson

My cousin was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, and it's just a really tragic disease, and as of yet there is no cure, so I feel I want to get it as much publicity to do it as I can. ~ Nick Robinson

Where there is faction, there is conflict; where there is conflict, there is anger. And anger distorts judgment. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

You create your own life by how you see the world and your place in it; ~ Ken Robinson

Now that I look back, it seems to me that in all that deep darkness a miracle was preparing. So I am right to remember it as a blessed time, and myself as waiting in confidence, even if I had no idea what i was waiting for. ~ Marilynne Robinson

The truly longstanding tradition in the church is that some are called to celibacy. Some feel called to it. But the church has never supported that celibacy be mandated for someone not called to it. It's never imposed on someone. ~ Gene Robinson

What the Lord is saying here is: "It doesn't matter what you did. Whatever it was, no matter how horrible or vile, is not the issue. The issue here is that whatever your sin was or is I can erase it, I can clean you up and make you innocent, pure, and worthy, and I can do it today; I can do it now. ~ Stephen E. Robinson

Children seem to think that every pleasant thing has to be a surprise. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Trust is just a choice. Someone can't earn your trust if you don't choose to let them, to give them the chance to show you. ~ Sarah Robinson

You never bother me, Glory. It's remarkable how much you don't bother me. Almost unprecedented. ~ Marilynne Robinson

A sermon is a valuable thing now and so impressive when you do hear a good one - and there is a lot of failure in the attempt; it's a difficult form - is because it's so seldom true now that you hear people speak under circumstances where they assume they are obliged to speak seriously and in good faith, and the people who hear them are assumed to be listening seriously and in good faith. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Humans were still not only the cheapest robots around, but also, for many tasks, the only robots that could do the job. They were self-reproducing robots too. They showed up and worked generation after generation; give them 3000 calories a day and a few amenities, a little time off, and a strong jolt of fear, and you could work them at almost anything. Give them some ameliorative drugs and you had a working class, reified and coglike. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

People only invoke history to ballast their arguments in the present." "Maybe ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

If I cry, it means I'm too weak to compete in this sport. That's bull. ~ Shawna Robinson

We cannot trifle with this reality, this cropping-out in our planted gardens of the core of the world. No picture of life can have any veracity that does not admit the odious facts. A man's power is hooped in by a necessity which, by many experiments, he touches on every side until he learns its arc. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

We make a great fuss about national conscience, but it consists mainly in insisting upon everyone ascribing our national policy to highly moral motives, rather than in examining what our motives really are. ~ Joan Robinson

We must apologise to the readers for returning with such insistence to the Robinson Crusoe and Friday story, which properly belongs to the nursery and not to the field of science - but how can we help it? ~ Friedrich Engels

I must catch up to the others, for I am their leader. ~ Linda Robinson

It seems to me, then, that vulnerability and and self-disclosure are at the heart of what we understand about the nature of God. And the reason I believe gay and lesbian people are spiritual people is that we too have participated in vulnerability and self-disclosure, especially in the process of coming-out. When someone shares with you who they really, really are, it is a special offering. To do so when it risks rejection is a profound, holy gift. ~ Gene Robinson

Jackie Robinson is a true legend. ~ Sidney Poitier

The provisions for the poor which structure both land ownership and the sacred calendar in ancient Israel, the rights of gleaners and of those widows, orphans, and strangers who pass through the fields, and the cycles of freedom from debt and restoration of alienated persons and property, all work against the emergence of the poor as a class, as people marked by deprivation and hopelessness. ~ Marilynne Robinson

The so-called risk of the capitalist is merely one of the many privileges of capital ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

Private imaginings may have no outcomes in the world at all. Creativity does. Being creative involves doing something. ~ Ken Robinson

Linneaus imagined his clock of flowers. Ours is a calendar of delicately shifting endocrine levels. ~ Sarah Robinson

Euphemisms are for the differently brained. ~ Spider Robinson

By applauding Robinson, a man did not feel that he was taking a stand on school integration, or on open housing. But for an instant he had accepted Robinson simply as a hometown ball player. To disregard color, even for an instant, is to step away from the old prejudices, the old hatred. That is not a path on which many double back. ~ Roger Kahn

The best things that happen I'd never have thought to pray for. In a million years. The worst things just come like the weather. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Certainly the death of Christ has been understood as expiation for human sin through the whole length of church history, and I defer with all possible sincerity to the central tenets of the Christian tradition, but as for myself, I confess that I struggle to understand the phenomenon of ritual sacrifice, and the Crucifixion when explicated in its terms. The concept is so central to the tradition that I have no desire to take issue with it, and so difficult for me that I leave it for others to interpret. If it answered to a deep human need at other times, and it answers now to other spirits than mine, then it is a great kindness of God toward them, and a great proof of God's attentive grace toward his creatures. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Yes! Oh, yes! Of course I forgive you! And I love you, Marnie. I shall never forget you, ever! ~ Joan G. Robinson

The things that bring you peace are the ones that will last forever. ~ Sarah Robinson

I'd like to think that, at the end of the day, you can look at the things that I made as a young person and the things I'll continue to make as I get older and they'll be consistently interesting and soulful things, and if you like them they'll be a part of your dimension, as well. ~ Chris Robinson

If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. ~ Ken Robinson

It was just crazy opportunity to see that whole world and the competitions that we had in the film, like Long Beach, it was just crazy and so much fun. I felt like I lived all those moments in the movie. ~ John Robinson

Extra time was spent on the farms in every biome, and in watching the feed from Earth. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

You have a mind like the rings of Saturn. A million miles wide and an inch deep. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

All technologies are neutral. What counts is who uses them and what they use them for. Any material, any tool in the hands of an artist, can result in a work of art. ~ Ken Robinson

I talked once with a cabdriver who had spent years in prison. He said he had no idea that the world was something he could be interested in. And then he read a book. ~ Marilynne Robinson

It's nice to come into a town and be referred to as the manager of the Cleveland Indians instead of as the first black manager. ~ Frank Robinson

Having a man this good looking begging me for sex was the best therapy I could ask for. ~ Lucy Robinson

Thinking about the things that happened, I don't know any other ball player would could have done what he (Jackie Robinson) did. To be able to hit with everybody yelling at him. He had to block all that out, block out everything but this ball that is coming in at a hundred miles an hour and he's got a split second to make up his mind if it's in or out or down or coming at his head, a split second to swing. To do what he did has got to be the most tremendous thing I've ever seen in sports. ~ Pee Wee Reese

There in the dark and the quiet I felt I could forget all the tedious particulars and just feel the presence of his mortal and immortal being. ~ Marilynne Robinson

I got four volumes of the letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell. He is prominent among the great unread, and treated so oddly by history that I wanted to hear his side of things. ~ Marilynne Robinson

When he (Richard Nixon) took the oath of office, he pledged to be the president for 100% of the people, and I challenge the president to prove that he is being the president for 100% of the people. ~ Jackie Robinson

Historical analogy is the last refuge of people who can't grasp the current situation. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

A taco is an economic good because we will go to a restaurant and buy one. ~ Bill Robinson

Stacy had this more fluid style. You meet him, he's just such a nice guy. Tony's an awesome guy too, but back then, he was a real aggressive kid and they were in such a different place. Stacy was so sensitive and at the same time so competitive when it came to his skating. ~ John Robinson

Every decision inflects an intention, and intentionality is one of the hard problems in determining if there is any such thing as AI, strong or weak. Can an artificial intelligence form an intention? ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

The first boy said, "I bring you gold." The second boy said, "I bring you myrrh." The third boy said, "Frank sent this. ~ Ken Robinson

A system that sets people against each other fundamentally misunderstands the dynamics that drive achievement. Education thrives on partnership and collaboration - within schools, between schools, and with other groups and organizations. ~ Ken Robinson

To be perfect is to be doing the best you can under the circumstances you are in. ~ Stephen Robinson

Sugar Ray Robinson was at the top of the boxing world during the 1950's when it seemed that he would either win or lose the championship about every three or four months. ~ Dick Schaap

The typical entrepreneur is no longer the bold and tireless man of Marshall, or the sly and rapacious Moneybags of Marx, but a mass of inert shareholders, indistinguishable from rentiers, who employ salaried managers to run their concerns. ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson

i've learned to kiss you with my eyes. there are times you do not see me as i kiss you with a quiet desperation that you would never understand. ~ K.Y. Robinson

And as we glided across the ice toward Fingerbone, we would become aware of the darkness, too close to us, like a presence in a dream. The comfortable yellow lights of the town were then the only comfort there was in the world, and there were not many of them. If every house in Fingerbone were to fall before our eyes, snuffing every light, the event would touch our senses as softly as a shifting among embers, and then the bitter darkness would step nearer. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Most people, it seems, think that Robinson Crusoe when he landed on his Island had nothing to keep him from starvation or anything else. As a matter of fact he had twelve raft loads of supplies that he took off the wrecked ship. He had as much food and furniture as if he had had a delicatessen store and Fifth Avenue outside his hut. ~ Will Cuppy

It is a popular error that bureaucracy is less flexible than private enterprise. It may be so in detail, but when large scale adaptations have to be made, central control is far more flexible. It may take two months to get an answer to a letter from a government department, but it takes twenty years for an industry under private enterprise to readjust itself to a fall in demand. ~ Joan Robinson

There's a mystery in the thought of the re-creation of an old man as an old man, with all the defects and injuries of what is called long life faithfully preserved in him, and all their claims and all their tendencies honored, too … I have thought sometimes that the Lord must hold the whole of our lives in memory, so to speak. Of course He does. And 'memory' is the wrong word, no doubt. But the finger I broke sliding into second base when I was twenty-two years old is crookeder than ever, and I can interpret that fact as an intimate attention, taking [George] Herbert's view. ~ Marilynne Robinson

I pulled a book by Robinson Jeffers off the shelf one day. It was powerfully moving. Tears ran down my face. That's when I became a poet. ~ William Everson

Everybody who I ever cared about has told me that they like my music: Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Al Green, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson. Everybody that matters. ~ Daryl Hall

But historically, "white" is a catchall with one very important, toxic difference, in America especially: We're the good ones. The normal ones. The not yous. Even if we're poor, even if we're servants, even if we have no education, even if we're Jewish, we're the ones you can't enslave. We're the ones you can't beat without repercussion, who get to vote, and are protected by laws no matter what. ~ Phoebe Robinson

Robinson was important to all blacks. To make it into the majors and to take all the name calling, he had to be something special. He had to take all this for years, not just for Jackie Robinson, but for the nation. ~ Willie Mays

not in any single system, but in the stack of all systems, the accidental megasystem. It ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

Poets and kings are but the clerks of Time,
Tiering the same dull webs of discontent,
Clipping the same sad alnage of the years. ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson

There is a mysterious dance that happens in the family between privilege and responsibility, between trust and accountability. One step forward of responsibility allows for a step forward of privilege. The weight of trust requires the counterweight of accountability. Cloistered parents allow space between themselves and their children for this dance to take place. We don't smother our kids. Neither do we abandon them. We dance together with them. ~ David Robinson

One of the things about writing fiction is that you create people that you feel, more or less, as though you know. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Robinson had long mastered the art of coming instantly awake, a skill which had proved invaluable when his children were young. He could be out of his bed, supplying nutriment, water, or a story, before his wife turned over in her sleep. He attributed his long and happy marriage to the fact that unlike most mothers, his wife got to sleep through the night when he was at home. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Her father was soothed by these attentions, as if pain were an appetite for comforting of just this kind. ~ Marilynne Robinson

I've lost my point. It was to the effect that you can assert the existence of something - Being - having not the slightest notion of what it is. Then God is at a greater remove altogether - if God is the Author of Existence, what can it mean to say God exists? There's a problem in vocabulary. He would have to have had a character before existence which the poverty of our understanding can only call existence. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Associate with those who help you believe in yourself. ~ Brooks Robinson

Progress is something with no pity, and no purpose. It just happens. It chews up all you ever knew, and spits out things you can't understand, and the only value it seems to have is to make a few people a lot of money. ~ Spider Robinson

But I'm not going to walk Barry Bonds, like some teams do, in the first inning with nobody on. ~ Frank Robinson

To become historically-minded is to be grown-up. ~ James Harvey Robinson

The cold passion for truth hunts in no pack. ~ Robinson Jeffers

Maybe the proper response to standing on the side of a planet, in the open air of its atmosphere, very near to the local star, is always terror. Maybe everything humans ever did or planned to do was designed to dodge that terror. Maybe their plan to go to the stars was just one more expression of that terror. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

Sometimes the visionary aspect of any particular day comes to you in the memory of it, or it opens to you over time. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Peace, I leave with you. My peace I give you," I whispered ~ M. Robinson

I want you to be with someone who really, really loves you. A wild love! A crazy love! I want yours to be the greatest love story of all time! ~ Lucy Robinson

It started back in '79,
My whole darn future was on the line.
I created a brand new sensation
Through my mind and the whole darn nation ... ~ Sylvia Robinson

i am good at holding onto nothing like it's all i have and running away from something like it's the plague. i ~ K.Y. Robinson

The aim of human rights, if I may borrow a term from engineering, is to move beyond the design and drawing-board phase, to move beyond thinking and talking about the foundations stones - to laying those foundation stones, inch by inch, together. ~ Mary Robinson

The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the heartbreaking beauty
Will remain when there is no heart to break for it. ~ Robinson Jeffers

We should conceive of ourselves not as rulers of Earth, but as highly powerful, conscious stewards: The Earth is given to us in trust, and we can screw it up or make it work well and sustainably. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

The idea that each corporation can be a feudal monarchy and yet behave in its corporate action like a democratic citizen concerned for the world we live in is one of the great absurdities of our time - ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

Modern money is almost altogether credit money. ~ John Buchanan Robinson

The baby is fine. The only problem is that he looks like Edward G. Robinson. ~ Woody Allen

I always tell my students that you can do anything you can get away with, that implausibility is a problem of style. If people bring issues of plausibility to bear on what you're doing, you're not doing it well enough. ~ Marilynne Robinson

But he couldn't feel self-pity in the face of the memorial. He hadn't lost nearly enough as these children, who'd lost their homeland and, in many cases,their whole families. Perhaps they had gained something, too, though. They had at least escaped the concentration camps, been taken in by good, caring families, and had grown up to live their lives in relative freedom. ~ Peter Robinson

Faith for her was habit and family loyalty, a reverence for the Bible which was also literary, admiration for her mother and father. And then that thrilling quiet of which she had never felt any need to speak. ~ Marilynne Robinson

So I decided a little waltzing would be very good, and it was. I plan to do all my waltzing here in the study. I have thought I might have a book ready at hand to clutch if I began to experience unusual pain, so that would have been a special recommendation from being found in my hands. That seems theatrical, on consideration, and it might have the perverse effective of burdening the book with unpleasant associations. The ones I considered, by the way, were Donne and Herbert and Barth's Epistle to the Romans and Volume II of Calvin's institutes. Which is by no means to slight volume I. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Inevitably, this is how Christianity has come to be understood by a great many good people who have no better instruction in it than they receive from ranters and politicians. Under such circumstances, it is only to their credit that they reject it. Though I am not competent to judge in such matters, it would not surprise me at all to learn in any ultimate reckoning that these "Nones" as they are called, for the box they check when asked their religion, are better Christians than the Christians. But they have not been given the chance even to reject the beautiful, generous heritage that might otherwise have come to them. The learned and uncantankerous traditions seem, as I have said, to have fallen silent, to have retreated within their walls to dabble in feckless innovation and to watch their numbers dwindle. ~ Marilynne Robinson

a collection that included, among other items, an Allen wrench set, some pliers, a power drill, several clamps, some hacksaws, an impact-wrench set, a brace of cold-tolerant bungie cords, assorted files and rasps and planes, a crescent-wrench set, a crimper, five hammers, some hemostats, three hydraulic jacks, a bellows, several sets of screwdrivers, drills and bits, a portable compressed gas cylinder, a box of plastic explosives and shape charges, a tape measure, a giant Swiss Army knife, tin snips, tongs, tweezers, three vises, a wire stripper, X-acto knives, a pick, a bunch of mallets, a nut driver set, hose clamps, a set of end mills, a set of jeweler's screwdrivers, a magnifying glass, all kinds of tape, a plumber's bob and ream, a sewing kit, scissors, sieves, a lathe, levels of all sizes, long-nosed pliers, vise-grip pliers, a tap-and-die set, three shovels, a compressor, a generator, a welding-and-cutting set, a wheelbarrow - and so on. And ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

How is it possible that this woman can be so irritating and so irresistible at the same time? ~ Sarah Robinson

The life of a star is surrounded by the qualities of a Galaxy;I am that Galaxy. ~ Slicktor Victor Robinson

Soon the cottage was filled with the familiar, homely smell of frying onions. It escaped from the stove, crept through the kitchen, sniffed along the bottom of the closed front room door and wound its way stealthily up the crooked staircase, even under the door of Anna's bedroom. But even this, the most delicious, hungry-making smell in the world, was unable to rouse her. ~ Joan G. Robinson

So for me having that element of being able to be competitive wasn't a problem. I'm very competitive. I thought if I could skate first, acting would come second. I could say my lines and then go do what I was saying. You don't have to fake it, you're not really acting. ~ John Robinson

But no. That was analogy rather than homology. What in the humanities they would call a heroic simile, if he understood the term, or a metaphor, or some other kind of literary analogy. And analogies were mostly meaningless - a matter of phenotype rather than genotype (to use another analogy). Most, of poetry and literature, really all the humanities, not to mention the social sciences, were phenotypic as far as Sax could tell. They added up to a huge compendium of meaningless analogies, which did not help to explain things, but only distorted perception of them. A kind of continuous conceptual drunkenness, one might say. Sax himself much preferred exactitude and explanatory power, and why not? If it was 200 Kelvin outside why not say so, rather than talk about witches' tits and the like, hauling the whole great baggage of the ignorant past along to obscure every encounter with sensory reality? It was absurd. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

We are called to reveal the glory of God through living with excellence in the mundane places of life. ~ David Robinson

Harm to you is not harm to me in the strict sense, and that is a great part of the problem. He could knock me down the stairs and I would have worked out the theology for forgiving him before I reached the bottom. But if he harmed you in the slightest way, I'm afraid theology would fail me. ~ Marilynne Robinson