Sam Westing Quotes

Today I have gathered together my nearest and dearest, my sixteen nieces and nephews (Sit down, Grace Windsor Wexler!) to view the body of your Uncle Sam for the last time. Tomorrow its ashes will be scattered to the four winds. I, Samuel W. Westing, hereby swear that I did not die of natural causes. My life was taken from me–by one of you! ~ Ellen Raskin

Sandy fidgeted with his pen. "There's something I didn't write down. Maybe I shouldn't tell you, you being a judge and all, but, well, Jake Wexler ... he's a bookie."
No, he should not have told her. "A small-time operator, I'm sure, Mr. McSouthers," the judge replied coldly. "It can have no bearing on the matter before us. Sam Westing manipulated people, cheated workers, bribed officials, stole ideas, but Sam Westing never smoked or drank or placed a bet. Give me a bookie any day over such a fine, upstanding, clean-living man. ~ Ellen Raskin

I'm a monomaniac with one goal: clean air from clean energy. ~ Sam Wyly

I believe in a wall between church and state so high that no one can climb over it. When religion controls government, political liberty dies; and when government controls religion, religious liberty perishes. Every American has the constitutional right not to be taxed or have his tax money expended for the establishment of religion. For too long the issue of government aid to church related organizations has been a divisive force in our society and in the Congress. It has erected communication barriers among our religions and fostered intolerance. ~ Sam Ervin

His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god, but then he never claimed not to be a god. ~ Roger Zelazny

It takes rare courage to recognize that feelings are the most perishable of our possessions, even more so than opinions, for an opinion -- that is, a real opinion, which is qualitatively different than a fleeting impression or a borrowed stance -- is arrived at via a well-reasoned argument with oneself. Not so a feeling -- feelings coalesce out of the vapors that escape from the deepest groundwaters of our unreasoned and unreasonable being, and whatever rainbows they may scatter for a moment when touched with the light of another, they diffuse and evaporate just as readily, just as mysteriously.
Love, Margaret implies in her letter to Sam, is never to be taken for granted -- it is to be met moment by moment, on its ever-changing terms. ~ Maria Popova

I thought about puking up all those sandwiches once I saw what I had done, but that's a line I won't cross. If you make yourself puke, you have a problem. ~ Sam J. Miller

A leader does not air a grievance, a leader carry an air of glory. ~ Anyaele Sam Chiyson

Why is it you like to cuss so much, Dante?"
"It's fun," he said.
Mr. Quintana laughted. "It is fun," he said. But then he said, "That kind of fun needs to happen when your mother isn't around."
Mrs. Quintana didn't like Mr. Quintana's advice. "What kind of lesson are you teaching him, Sam? ~ Benjamin Alire Saenz

a good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving" Taoist dictum quoted by Sam Miller ~ Sam Miller

I am not a woman who would be practical in your life, Sam. You need a home and family..."
"I'm a soldier, Azami. That's who I am. What I am. My woman will be my home----my family... ~ Christine Feehan

If Sam told him, I'd have to kill Sam. Since I didn't have the stomach for outright murder, I'd break his coffee maker. ~ Melissa Haag

I came back because I had to. Because there was nothing wrong in the world except that I was getting older in it. Because Sam and Grace had told me I should go if that was what I
wanted.
What I wanted was:
I wanted.
Isabel - ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I've turned into one of those people who go jogging in parks that I used to hate. ~ Sam Taylor-Wood

You told him, huh? Through your secret wizarding network that you still haven't told me about."
"It's called a letter in the mail," he said. ~ T.J. Klune

Any kid who has two parents who are interested in him and has a houseful of books isn't poor. ~ Sam Levenson

High-fliers are people like me and you who fly their colors. ~ Anyaele Sam Chiyson

My jaw went slack. Private rooms? Great, the button thing had been a step too far. Either he was totally getting the wrong impression - at least, not the impression I wanted to give - or ... no. I didn't want to consider the possibility he might know. People didn't hide in forests in the middle of the night to protect themselves from a Binding. I was just weird like that. Rather, I had no choice, but ... argh, what was I going to do now?! ~ Sam Dogra

I think I just love films where men have complete breakdowns. ~ Sam Taylor-Johnson

The money factor had been kind of my excuse as to why I hadn't put out any music. So I just found the cheapest way to make music and get it to people, and that was via the Internet. ~ Sam Hunt

As a first-time director in America, I feel I've been very fortunate. ~ Sam Mendes

Oh, isn't it cool? It's so cool being an actor! It's so cool having my face on a bus. ~ Sam Worthington

Have you ever traveled, beyond all mere metaphors, to the Mountain of Shame and stayed for a thousand years? I do not recommend it. ~ Sam Harris

A good scientist must accept the challenge that one day everything he believes could be wrong. ~ Sam Hawksmoor

She crashed. I think she was literally high on sugar.
Seriously I thought she was going to start free basing pixy stix. ~ Kristin Walker

I'm a sailor, Lettie, I go where the wind takes me. And it led me to you, didn't it? I was born ten thousand miles away, but the wind brought me to Barter, and now we're friends. We're on this boat for a reason. ~ Sam Gayton

First love, may the gods save us from such stupidity. ~ Sam Argent

You can run on a football field but you can't hide out there. ~ Sam Huff

You don't choose to choose what you choose in life! ~ Sam Harris

Hollywood is geared toward teenage idiocy. ~ Sam Shepard

Somewhere fate laughs in her far-off country, because now I am the human and it is Grace I will lose again and again, immer wieder, always the same, every winter, losing more of her each year, unless I find a cure. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

the English explorer Richard Burton told the story of an Englishman finding his new wife unconscious on the marital bed, having chloroformed herself. She had pinned a note to her nightdress which read: 'Mama says you're to do what you like. ~ Sam Miller

It seems profoundly unlikely that our universe has been designed to reward individual primates for killing one another while believing in the divine origin of a specific book. ~ Sam Harris

Consider it: every person you have ever met, every person will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime? ~ Sam Harris

We've carried that over into the visual development as well. We've designed quite an exotic cast of characters, but the last thing we want is to dictate to the players how their PCs should look. What we want to do is inspire. ~ Sam Wood

You guys are ridiculous," he says, retreating back to the kitchen.
"Your flirting just scared the hell out of me."
"Scared the hell out of me too. ~ Pittacus Lore

I prefer to invest in a company that's going after a small but rapidly growing market than a big but slow growing one. ~ Sam Altman

There is one principle which is eternal; it is the duty of all men to protect their lives and the lives of the household, whenever necessity requires, and no power has a right to forbid it, should the last extreme arrive ... ~ Sam Smith

I get over-excited by every opportunity that comes my way. I end up doing too much. ~ Sam Taylor-Johnson

Creating a huge personal fortune was never particularly a goal of mine, and the proof of that lies in the fact that even to this day most of my, and my family's, wealth remains in the form of Wal-Mart stock. I think most people in our position would have hedged their bets a long time ago and diversified into all kinds of investments. As it's happened, though, our very simplistic, very personal investment strategy has turned out far better than anyone could ever have expected. So Wal-Mart stock has made the Waltons a very wealthy family - on paper anyway. I ~ Sam Walton

Obviously I'm not a role model for impressionable youth. ~ Sam Kinison

The first time you meet someone, the conversation is sort of on life support. You're just trying to live another moment in the life of the conversation. ~ Sam Yagan

Do things that give you access to the world so that you can at least rule your world. ~ Anyaele Sam Chiyson

I didn't become successful until I became myself ~ Sam Smith

How did it feel, Fliss? Knowing I was watching that little tosser taste you? Knowing I was watching when you wrapped your lips around the that Sam bloke's cock? ~ Sibylla Matilde

A person could, for instance, distinguish his bodily movements from those of another person without feeling a sense of self at all, for to do so merely requires that he distinguish one body (as an object) from another. ~ Sam Harris

We have this kind of shibboleth which says: what wasn't reasoned into existence can't be reasoned out. The truth I think is rather much closer to this: that people are making desperate efforts, rather heroic efforts, to be reasonable, to have a coherent worldview, and when those efforts become too costly or too embarrassing ... dogma loses. ~ Sam Harris

In the beginning, I was so chintzy I really didn't pay my employees well. ~ Sam Walton