White Water Quotes

First of all, skim? That's white water. That's all skim milk is: they take out all the wonderful stuff that makes milk taste like milk and replace it with white water and people actually drink that shit. ~ MaryJanice Davidson

White nationalist, white supremacis feel like this is a watershed moment in the history of white supremacy in which something that had been cordoned off to the kind of white supremacist back waters, an idea like banning all Muslims from coming to the country is going to be . ~ Chris Hayes

Being the Stream
Meditation is not just a rest or retreat from the turmoil of the
stream or the impurity of the world. It is a way of being the stream,
so that one can be at home in both the white water and the eddies.
Meditation may take one out of the world, but it also puts one totally
into it. ~ Gary Snyder

I drank from colored water fountains and from the white water fountain just to see what it was like when I was a kid. What shocks me is that these kids today don't realize that this happened in many of our lifetimes. ~ Lee Daniels

They came there regularly every evening drawn by some need. It was as if the water floated off and set sailing thoughts which had grown stagnant on dry land, and gave to their bodies even some sort of physical relief. First, the pulse of colour flooded the bay with blue, and the heart expanded with it and the body swam, only the next instant to be checked and chilled by the prickly blackness on the ruffled waves. Then, up behind the great black rock, almost every evening spurted irregularly, so that one had to watch for it and it was a delight when it came, a fountain of white water; and then while one waited for that, one watched, on the pale semicircular beach, wave after wave shedding again and again smoothly, a film of mother-of-pearl. ~ Virginia Woolf

Beware, Underlanders, time hangs by a thread.
The hunters are hunted, white water runs red.
The Gnawers will strike to extinguish the rest.
The hope of the hopeless resides in a quest.
An Overland warrior, a son of the sun,
May bring us back light, he may bring us back none.
But gather your neighbors and follow his call
Or rats will most surely devour us all.
Two over, two under, of royal descent,
Two flyers, two crawlers, two spinners assent.
One gnawer beside and one lost up ahead.
And eight will be left when we count up the dead.
The last who will die must decide where he stands.
The fate of the eight is contained in his hands.
So bid him take care, bid him look where he leaps,
As life may be death and death life again reaps. ~ Suzanne Collins

The black stream, catching on a sunken rock, Flung backward on itself in one white wave, And the white water rode the black forever. - ROBERT FROST ~ Kevin Fedarko

When you write your first novel you don't really know what you're doing. There may be writers out there who are brilliant, incisive and in control from their first 'Once upon a time'. I'm not one of them. Every once upon a time for me is another experience of white-water rafting in a leaky inner tube. And I have this theory that while the Story Council has its faults, it does have some idea that if books are going to get written, authors have to be able to write them. ~ Robin McKinley

I started out thinking of America as highways and state lines. As I got to know it better, I began to think of it as rivers. ~ Charles Kuralt

In the current [Carter] administration, who can use the White House swimming pool and tennis courts is decided at the very highest level. President Ford did not bother himself with such minor details. He let me swim in the pool. He only got upset when I tried to walk across the water. ~ Henry A. Kissinger

So who has more at stake? A young man trying to get laid with the least amount of white water before he ships off to his next assignment and has nothing but a memory of a nice month on the beach, or a family that desperately needs and wants old heartaches to disappear? ~ Roxanne St. Claire

I mean, in the last few months alone, I've been pinned in a big set of white-water rapids, been bitten by an angry snake in a jungle, had a close escapewith a big mountain rockfall, narrowly avoided being eaten by a huge croc in the Australian swamps, and had to cut away from my main parachute and come down on my reserve, some five thousand feet above the Arctic plateau.
When did all this craziness become my world?
It's as if - almost accidentally - this madness had become my life. And don't get me wrong - I love it all.
The game, though, now, is to hang on to that life.
Every day is the most wonderful of blessings, and a gift that I never, ever take for granted.
Oh, and as for the scars, broken bones, aching limbs and sore back?
I consider them just gentle reminders that life is precious - and that maybe, just maybe, I am more fragile than I dare to admit. ~ Bear Grylls

At low tide, much of the sea changes to land, and then more than seven hundred islands can be counted. People come here to hide, to find something they can't find on the mainland, to get religion through solitude. From June till September, nearly every day is perfect, with the 10,778-foot volcano of Mount Baker rising from the tumble of the Cascades to the west, blue herons and bald eagles crowding the skies, killer whales breaching offshore. The water is exceptionally clear, the result of a twice-daily shift-change in tide, when it sweeps north toward the Strait of Georgia, then back south toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca. In some places, the rip tides create white water like rapids on a foaming river. Being is bliss. But then the winters come and the tourists all go home and clouds hang on the horizon and unemployment doubles and the island dweller is left with whatever it is that led him to escape the rest of the world. ~ Timothy Egan

The dragon is withered
His bones are now crumbled;
His armour is shivered,
His splendour is humbled!
Though sword shall be rusted
And throne and crown perish
With strength that men trusted
And wealth that they cherish,
Here grass is still growing,
And leaves are yet swinging,
The white water flowing,
And elves are yet singing
Come! Tra-la-la-lally!
Come back to the Valley!

The stars are far brighter
Than gems without measure,
The moon is far whiter
Than silver in treasure:
The fire is more shining
On hearth in the gloaming
Than gold won by mining,
So why go a-roaming?
O! Tra-la-la-lally
Come back to the Valley!

O! Where are you going,
So late in returning?
The river is flowing,
The stars are all burning!
O! Wither so laden,
So sad and so dreary?
Here elf and elf-maiden
Now welcome the weary
With Tra-la-la-lally
Come back to the Valley,
Tra-la-la-lally
Fa-la-la-lally
Fa-la! ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Have you ever stood where a stream spills into a river? The two become one. They laugh over the stones together, twist through the sharp canyons together, plunge down the waterfalls together. It is the same when a man and woman love one another. It is not always a pleasant thing, but when it happens, a man has little to say about it. Women, like streams, can be smooth one minute and make a man feel like he's swimming through white water the next. ~ Catherine Anderson

Nature seemed to have adorned herself for our departure with a profusion of fringes and curls, mingled with the bright tints of flowers, reflected in the water. But we missed the white water-lily, which is the queen of river flowers, its reign being over for this season ... Many of this species inhabit our Concord water. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Look for a wave shaped like an A.

An A.

Hmm.

I saw Zs and H's and Vs. I saw the Hindi alphabet and the Thai alphabet. I saw Arabic script. I saw no As.

Finally I gave up, and chose the next wave that would have me, which turned out to be a poor move.

There is a moment, shortly after one accepts the imminence of one's demise, when it occurs that you could be elsewhere: that if you simply left the house a little later, or lingered over a Mai Tai, you would not be here now confronting your mortality. This moment occurred just as I encountered a very large (from my perspective), rare and surprising wave. A wave that was pitching and howling, and it really had no business being where it was - underneath me.

The demon wave picked me up, and after that I have only a a vague recollection of spinning limbs, a weaponized surf board, and chaotic white water, churning together over a reef.

I decided surfing was not for me. I generally no longer engage in adrenaline rush activities that carry with them a strong likely hood of life-altering injury. (p. 138)
~ J. Maarten Troost

Water from clay pipes is much more wholesome than that which is conducted through lead pipes, because lead is found to be harmful for the reason that white lead is derived from it, and this is said to be hurtful to the human system. ~ Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

After a long while he sat upright with great effort, exhaled a sigh and reached for a clean sheet of lined paper, smoothing it out on the desk. He unscrewed the lid of his fountain pen, laid it perpendicular to his paper, and began to write. Often he compared his writing to white water. He had only to leap in to be dragged away on its rapids, thrown this way and that with his own will rendered impotent. While writing he found the words came from the muscles in his hands, the feel of the shaft of his pen, the locked joint of his elbow. the scratching noise of the nib marking paper and, underneath all that, some coordinating impulse in his guts. Certainly not from his mind. ~ Ali Shaw

Swift or smooth, broad as the Hudson or narrow enough to scrape your gunwales, every river is a world of its own, unique in pattern and personality. Each mile on a river will take you further from home than a hundred miles on a road. ~ Bob Marshall

Now would you please stop giving me a hard time – because I swear –I'm yours baby – I have no interest in anyone else

Joshua, Kallie's Secret, White Water #3 ~ Heather Mar-Gerrison

A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I used to take my car and go down to the South Island for five or six days and climb glaciers and jump out of planes and jump off bridges and go white water rafting - a bit of thrill-seeking. ~ Luke Evans

Sometimes you come to a fall and sometimes you come to white water. Your rowing has to adapt to the situation. You can't do the same stroke coming down a small stream as you would coming down Niagara Falls. Even if you're only rowing down a stream, different things happen: maybe the wind changes, maybe the current, and suddenly everything's different. So gently is really important. Don't power yourself or blast through; rock with the way things are. ~ Bernie Glassman

After you're dead and buried and floating around whatever place we go to, what's going to be your best memory of earth? What one moment for you defines what it's like to be alive on this planet. What's your takeaway? Fake yuppie experiences that you had to spend money on, like white water rafting or elephant rides in Thailand don't count. I want to hear some small moment from your life that proves you're really alive. ~ Douglas Coupland

I eat healthy and drink a lot of water. I eliminated most white sugar and dairy from my diet. It's done wonders for me not only in maintaining a healthy weight, but it's increased my energy levels and immunity. ~ Candace Cameron

Time was a funny thing ... Instead of marching in at a measured pace, it seemed to flow like a river. Quiet days pooled together, languid with a sense of sameness, and events swirled and eddied, and time seemed to pick up its pace. Then there was the tumbling, dangerous rush of white water over the rocks, and the heart-stopping terror of relentless inevitability as the water fell over the edge, and you knew that no matter what you might do or wish, you could not stop that flow from falling.
All you could do was surrender to the experience and flow with it. ~ Thea Harrison

When a black person has no electricity, no water, they call it the ghetto. When white people have no electricity and no water, they call it camping. ~ Carlos Mencia

I've done plenty of daredeviling - from white-water rafting to bungee jumping. But I think the most fearless was hosting the Emmy Awards. It was overwhelming, and I definitely had to leave fear at the door. ~ Neil Patrick Harris

He walked on down the dark, empty street. Suddenly an idea came to him. Immediately, with his whole being, he knew it was true. He had glimpsed a new and improbable explanation for the atomic phenomena that up until now had seemed so hopelessly inexplicable; abysses had suddenly changed into bridges. What clarity and simplicity! This idea was astonishingly graceful and beautiful. It seemed to have given birth to itself – like a white water-lily appearing out of the calm darkness of a lake. He gasped, reveling in its beauty…
And how strange, he thought suddenly, that this idea should have come to him when his mind was far away from anything to do with science, when the discussions that so excited him were those of free men, when his words and the words of his friends had been determined only by freedom, by bitter freedom. ~ Vasily Grossman

Because you can be lazy if you don't know the truth. ~ Meg White

The Negro loves America enough to criticize her fundamentally. Most white Americans simply can't be bothered. ~ John Oliver Killens

Hades

Where we go when he closes my eyes
and under what country;
some blue darkness, farther from hell;
a landscape of absense and root and stone.

There are no bodies here,
we dream shapeless dreams--
a constant, cloudless storm.

Mother, I'll never wake up from him.
I have already traveled too far.
My mouth is the color of his mouth
and his arms are no longer his arms;
they're mute as smoke, as my first white dress,
and the spear of his name, once ferocious,
dissolves on my tongue
like sugar, like birdsong, I whisper it:
Hades ~ Cecilia Woloch

If you consume too much salt, it can cause water retention. When this happens, your body usually responds by raising your blood pressure to push excess fluid and salt out of your system. ~ Michael Greger

I think I could be a cook. Everybody always says I'm good, though I think it's quite gruelling as a profession. ~ Edmund White

Try as we might, we cannot force our children to reach their full potential. Theirs is the life that they alone must live. The role of the parent is to prepare the most fertile soil and appropriately water the seedling so it can most fully blossom. ~ Gabriel Cousens M.D.

It's a Belgian beer, sweetie. Please tell me you've at least heard of it. (Blaine)
Boy, I was born in Brussels and the last time I checked, this was my new homeland, America, not my birthplace. So you can either order an American-made beer or I'll bring you water and you can sit there and act all superior until you puke, okay? (Aimee) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

You know the world is messed up when the tallest man in the NBA is Chinese, the best golfer is black, and the best rapper is white. ~ Chris Rock

The heel of my white kidskin boot ripped a six-inch gash in the hem of my skirt as I whipped around the corner. ~ Rysa Walker

Nothing is black and white, and there is no purity and there is no such thing has justice. ~ Banksy

There was nothing I wanted to do more than be unconscious again, wrapped in black, gone away. I was raw. I felt swollen with potential tears, like a water balloon filled to burst. Begging for a pin prick. ~ Gillian Flynn

On the downside, to paraphrase Thom Yorke talking about the music business, we're still having to deal with the stench of the last fart of the dying corpse of this regressive vision that America is a white, middle-aged, male, conservative country. ~ Edward Norton

My dad called the cops and told them I stole his car."
I roll my eyes. "Your old man put you in this hellhole? On purpose?"
"He thought it would teach me a lesson."
"Yeah," I say. "The lesson is that your old man's an asshole." The dad should have taught his son how to dress better instead.
"My mom'll bail me out."
"You sure?"
White Guy straightens. "She's a lawyer, and my dad's done this before. A few times. I think to piss off my mom and get her attention. They're divorced."
I shake my head. White people. ~ Simone Elkeles

Please don't let it be another cop. I'm outta bail money. Wait a minute ... I could sell you on eBay and make a killing. (Mark)
Not in my current condition. You'd have to sell Caleb or Madaug. I'm sure there's someone willing to buy two perfectly good white boys. (Nick) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

The conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. ~ William Golding

Logan opens his beautiful brown eyes and sparkling drops of water cling to his heavy, dark lashes. And his voice is clear and deliberate.
"I think of you."
My breath catches. "Really?"
He brushes my wet hair back, his forehead still pressed to mine. "All the time."
Logan strokes my cheek. "I like you."
And then I'm crying and smiling at the same time. "I was hoping you'd say that."
He sweeps his thumb across my lower lip and looks into my eyes. "I feel it too, lovely Ellie."
"You do?"
He nods against me. "I always have. From the very first. ~ Emma Chase

In Montreal spring is like an autopsy. Everyone wants to see the inside of the frozen mammoth. Girls rip off their sleeves and the flesh is sweet and white, like wood under green bark. From the streets a sexual manifesto rises like an inflating tire, the winter has not killed us again! ~ Leonard Cohen

Did he happen to select a color too?"
"Blue."
"Blue?" Victoria burst out, prepared to do physical battle for white.
Madame nodded, her finger thoughtfully pressed to her lips, her own hand plunked upon her waist. "Yes, blue. Ice blue. He said you are glorious in that color-'a titian-haired angel,' he said"
Victoria abruptly decided ice blue was a lovely color to be married in. ~ Judith McNaught

Being called Black in America is the struggle to keep us moving and breathing over bloody water. Being a Nig**r or [Ni**a] without the context of history is like drowning in bloody water, dragging down those yet knowing to swim. ~ Chuck D

I want to marry you, Malda - because I love you - because you are young and strong and beautiful - because you are wild and sweet and - fragrant, and - elusive, like the wild flowers you love. Because you are so truly an artist in your special way, seeing beauty and giving it to others. I love you because of all of this, because you are rational and highminded and capable of friendship - and in spite of your cooking!"
"But - how do you want to live?"
"As we did here - at first," he said. "There was peace, exquisite silence. There was beauty - nothing but beauty. There were the clean wood odors and flowers and fragrances and sweet wild wind. And there was you - your fair self, always delicately dressed, with white firm fingers sure of touch in delicate true work. I loved you then. ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

What can God do for a liar who refuses to repent? Can the Lord save him? He can't claim salvation. Baptizing him in water will not settle the trouble, unless you keep him under. ~ J. Golden Kimball

It was a black and white film [at first]. And then it changed to colour film, and I was surprised and culture shocked when I was six or seven years old. And then HD, then 3D now. So what's going? What's coming next? It's so exciting. ~ Hiroyuki Sanada

I know that God is putting me through the fire of afflictions. I've accepted the blows that life has dealt me, and sometimes I feel as cold and indifferent as the water that inflicts such pain on the steel. But my one prayer is this: 'Please, God, my Mother, don't give up until I've taken on the shape that you wish for me. Do this by whatever means you think best, for as long as you like but never ever throw me on the scrap heap of souls. ~ Paulo Coelho

But these men had become object lessons for me, men I might love but never emulate, white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela. And if later I saw that the black men I knew - Frank or Ray or Will or Rafiq - fell short of such lofty standards; if I had learned to respect these men for the struggles they went through, recognizing them as my own - my father's voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval. ~ Barack Obama

Another danger is that - as is already happening to some extent - authors and editors run scared and go to absurd lengths to avoid giving offence. (An American editor rejected Polar, a picture book about a toy polar bear which is published in England by Andre Deutsch, on the ground that the text, written by Elaine Moss, states explicitly that the bear is white). A demand to avoid stereotypes can easily become in effect a demand for a different stereotype: for instance that girls should always be shown as strong, brave and resourceful, and that mothers should always have jobs and never, never wear an apron. And books written to an approved formula, or with deliberate didactic aim, do not often have the breath of life. Some members of women's groups in North America have published their own anti-sexist books, featuring such characters as fire-fighting girls or boys who learn to crochet. Good luck to them; but those I have seen are far below professional standard.

("Are Children's Books Racist and Sexist?" from Only Connect, 2nd ed., 1980) ~ John Rowe Townsend

Day by day, month by month, doubt by doubt, law and order became fascism; education, constraint; work, alienation; revolution, mere sport; leisure, a privilege of class; marijuana, a harmless weed; family, a stifling hothouse; affluence, oppression; success, a social disease; sex, an innocent pastime; youth, a permanent tribunal; maturity, the new senility; discipline, an attack on personality; Christianity... and the West... and white skin... ~ Jean Raspail

You don't drown by falling in water; you only drown if you stay there. ~ Zig Ziglar

But more and more often I caught myself feeling comfortable in the warmth of the sun, with my readings, with the reflections in the water. Life became ordinary, even beautiful, tranquil. It seemed that I really was forgetting; a quiet reigned within me. But then, unexpectedly, for no apparent reason, unaccompanied by any thoughts that might have summoned it, a fiery stab would pierce through me, like a hidden, torturous pain, like a cramp. ~ Mesa Selimovic

As Reagan's first budget director, Stockman, a former two-term congressman from Michigan, was the point man for the supply-side economics the new administration was pushing - the theory that taxes should be lowered to stimulate economic activity, which would in turn produce more tax revenue to compensate for the lower rates.

With his wonky whiz-kid persona, computer-like mental powers, and combative style, he browbeat Democratic congressmen and senators who challenged his views. But he soon incurred the wrath of political conservatives when he confessed to Atlantic reporter William Greider that supply-side economics was really window dressing for reducing the rates on high incomes. Among other acts of apostasy, he called doctrinaire supply-siders "naive." The 1981 article created a sensation and prompted Reagan to ask him over lunch, "You have hurt me. Why?" Stockman famously described the meeting as a "trip to the woodshed." Though the president himself forgave him, Stockman's loose lips undercut his power at the White House, and in 1985 he left government to become an investment banker at Salomon Brothers. ~ David Carey

The great bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre
what there was, if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed emancipation. Under the old regime they were looked down upon by those who controlled all the affairs in the interest of slave-owners, as poor white trash who were allowed the ballot so long as they cast it according to direction. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

She trained the girls in her Girl Scout troop to believe that they could be anything, and she went to lengths to prevent negative stereotypes of their race from shaping their internal views of themselves and other Negroes. It was difficult enough to rise above the silent reminders of Colored signs on the bathroom doors and cafeteria tables. But to be confronted with the prejudice so blatantly, there in that temple to intellectual excellence and rational thought, by something so mundane, so ridiculous, so universal as having to go to the bathroom...In the moment when the white women laughed at her, Mary had been demoted from professional mathematician to a second-class human being, reminded that she was a black girl whose piss wasn't good enough for the white pot. ~ Margot Lee Shetterly

The Skeleton: We have wisdom, if you like - a dull and dusty wisdom, and I would give it all for a good draught of Chian wine.4 Perchance 'tis something to know that bodies are made of dust and water, the last of which is evaporable, and the former capable of dissolvement. For this is all our knowledge, in spite of much that is known and spoken of hierophant and philosopher. However, unlike the lore and wisdom of these, it may be contained without discommodation by one skull. ~ Clark Ashton Smith

But then Lalita did something odd. Well, not odd, but beautiful. She shifted the clay pot of water from her right hip to her left. She pushed it up against the curve of her waist, wrapped her arm around the neck of the pot, and disappeared around the bend. Mohan knelt to the ground; he could taste the earthen dampness clinging to her waist. He knew then that he'd been wrong: she wasn't simply happy; happiness could not possibly explain the strange loveliness, the utter seductiveness, of that gesture. No, what Lalita had was something even more audacious than happiness. What was it? Mohan trembled....

Sitting on his bed that afternoon, after lunch, Mohan decided that the clay of the pot and the bronze of Lalita's skin were the only true substances. They were why the rains fell, why the sun rose. His fingers traced them all his life. Then he knew. He knew what Lalita had that the others didn't, that he didn't; she had sex. In fact, he realized, what she had was the opposite of what he had. But what was it that he had? What was the opposite of sex? It seemed like a question without an answer. Like where does reality stop and unreality begin? Or, what goes deeper, the human soul or the human imagination? But this one had an answer. That much Mohan knew. He knew that the opposite of sex was fear. And fear was something he had an abundance of. ~ Shobha Rao

It is wretched business to be digging a well just as thirst is mastering you. ~ Plautus

It's all still there: the pool with its blue and yellow tiles from Portugal, water laughing softly down a black stone wall. The house is the same, except quiet. The quiet makes no sense. Nerve gas? Overdoses? Mass arrests? I wonder as we follow a maid through a curve of carpeted rooms, the pool blinking at us past every window. What else could have stopped the unstoppable parties? But it's nothing like that. Twenty years have passed. ~ Jennifer Egan

At last Fingon stood alone with his guard dead about him; and he fought with Gothmog, until another Balrog came behind and cast a thong of fire about him. Then Gothmog hewed him with his black axe, and a white flame sprang up from the helm of Fingon as it was cloven. Thus fell the High King of the Noldor; and they beat him into the dust with their maces; and his banner, blue and silver, they trod into the mire of his blood. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

I don't know much about auctions. I sometimes go to previews and see art sardined into ugly rooms. I've gawked at the gaudy prices, and gaped at well-clad crowds of happy white people conspicuously spending hundreds of millions of dollars. ~ Jerry Saltz

The three agents were hard guys, the youngest of them in his twenties, a man whose IQ was so low I figured they had to water him twice a day. ~ Terry Hayes

You're an absolute genius! I'm the best Daphne ever!"
"And so humble,too. ~ Kiersten White

Jefferson's love of control was evident when he was at home. He was precise and demanding about his horses. When he was younger and his mount was brought to him, he would use a white cambric handkerchief to brush the horse's shoulders.63 If there were dust, the horse was returned to the stables. Only the perfect would suffice. His horses were sources of immense pleasure, but he also disliked animals with wills of their own, and his mask of equanimity could slip occasionally when it came to his horses. "The only impatience of temper he ever exhibited was with his horse, which he subdued to his will by a fearless application of the whip on the slightest manifestation of restiveness," said a grandson.64 ~ Jon Meacham

... I keep looking for one more teacher, only to find that fish learn from the water and birds learn from the sky. (p.275) ~ Mark Nepo

Stale water is a poor drink,' said Annlaw. 'Stale skill is worse. And the man who walks in his own footsteps only ends where he began. ~ Lloyd Alexander

Ruby Bates, one of the young white girls, was a remarkable person. She told me she had been driven into prostitution when she was thirteen. She had been working in a textile mill for a pittance. When she asked for a raise, the boss told her to make it up by going with the workers. She told me there was nothing else she could do ... Ruby Bates was a remarkable woman. Underneath it all - the poverty, the degradation - she was decent, pure. Here was an illiterate white girl, all of whose training had been clouded by the myths of white supremacy, who, in the struggle for the lives of these nine innocent boys, had come to see the role she was being forced to play. As a murderer. She turned against her oppressors ... I shall never forget her. ~ Studs Terkel

But white Americans do not believe in death, and this is why the darkness of my skin so intimidates them. ~ James Baldwin

But…but that's tragic! To go through life without color? Unable to appreciate art, or beauty?"
He laughed. "Now, sweet-hold your brush before you paint me a martyr's halo. It's not as though I'm blind. I have a great appreciation for art, as I believe we've discussed. And as for beauty…I don't need to know whether your eyes are blue or green or lavender to know that they're uncommonly lovely."
"No one has lavender eyes."
"Don't they?" His gaze caught hers and refused to let go. Leaning forward, he continued, "Did that tutor of yours ever tell you this? That your eyes are ringed with a perfect circle a few shades darker than the rest of the…don't they call it the iris?"
Sophia nodded.
"The iris." He propped his elbow on the table and leaned forward, his gaze searching hers intently. "An apt term it is, too. There are these lighter rays that fan out from the center, like petals. And when your pupils widen-like that, right there-your eyes are like two flowers just coming into bloom. Fresh. Innocent."
She bowed her head, mixing a touch of lead white into the sea-green paint on her palette. He leaned closer still, his voice a hypnotic whisper. "But when you take delight in teasing me, looking up through those thick lashes, so saucy and self-satisfied…" She gave him a sharp look.
He snapped his fingers. "There! Just like that. Oh, sweet-then those eyes are like two opera dancers smiling from behind big, feathered fans. Coy. Beckoning."
Sophia ~ Tessa Dare

That little walk powerfully reminded me that nature is our touchstone. However sophisticated and technologically advanced we may be, we are biological creatures, utterly dependent on her beneficence for clean air, water and food. ~ David Suzuki

When we build the Temple healing water flow. ~ Paul Gitwaza

As a revolutionary people, we Americans won a probable victory over the best and biggest army in the world because we learned to fight from the Indians. You can do a lot of damage with a Kentucky rifle from behind a tree. You don't put on a peaked hat and a red coat and white leggings and crossed white bandoleers with a big silver buckle in the center of the X and march uphill into a line of Howitzers loaded with chain and chopped horseshoes. ~ James Lee Burke

A sign above the sink said "Non-potable." I couldn't imagine anyone drinking out of a sink in such a nasty place, but all signs are there for a reason, usually because someone has tried it. Don't use a hair dryer in the bathtub, don't stick forks in the toaster, and don't drink the water in a Kuwaiti latrine cube. ~ Yancy Caruthers