Act After Quotes & Sayings

The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity or Libertad Act of 1996, better known as the Helms-Burton Act, was passed by the 104th United States Congress on March 6, 1996 and enacted into law by President Bill Clinton on March 12, 1996. Its intention was to bolster and continue the United States embargo against Cuba. It also opposes Cuban membership in international institutions, and prohibits commercial television broadcasts from the United States to Cuba. Further, the law provides for protection of the property rights of certain United States nationals and the property formerly owned by U.S. citizens but confiscated by Cuba after the Cuban revolution, The Act is named for the original sponsors, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and Representative Dan Burton of Indiana. — Hank Bracker

In '94, I started writing a novel about an enormous terrorist act that destroyed the United States. The novel takes place twenty years after this destruction, with all the stuff that we're dealing with now - a dirty war, the disappeared, the concept of terrorism. Anyway, 9/11 happened some years into the process, and I was like, OK, I don't have a novel. — Junot Diaz

You dreamed like all mothers do.
Until he began to speak aloud,
Your boy,
calling for justice in the market place,
Demanding integrity and fair play
in the courts and halls of business.
Declaring the Realm of God
Imminent,
Manifest . . .
Jesus leapt into the swelling crowds
like an axe into wood,
Uncompromising and unrelenting
in his passionate call
for peace and justice.
Jesus, your boy,
causing havoc in public,
critiquing and condemning
the status quo,
breaking rule after rule . . .
And with every speech,
with every act of defiance,
with every call to liberation,
with every amazing deed,
Your dreams of peace and liberation,
Your dreams of a secure old age,
Your dreams of grandchildren--
Evaporated. — Edwina Gateley

It was my last act of love (first words to her mother in the hospital after her first major suicide attempt) — Sylvia Plath

Right after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, amid all the cheers and applause, there were a few critical comments questioning the legality of the act. — Noam Chomsky

Children usually have a natural curiosity about the world and everything in it until they get to school and somebody throws them against the locker because they get A's and act intelligent. After that, some kids try to dumb it down and adapt. — Joshua Neik

As much as I think about sex, I can only with extreme difficulty conceive of myself actually performing the act. And here's another thing I wonder about. How could you ever look a girl in the eye after you've had your winkie up her wendell? I mean, doesn't that render normal social conversation impossible? Apparently not. — C.D. Payne

She wanted to slap herself for showing weakness around him. "Why?" he prodded. "Why what?" she snapped. "Why me?" "I was asking myself the same question." "The wide-eyed act won't work with me, cara." "I am not - " "I won't marry you. If that's what you're after, forget it. Not happening." "I'm after what?!" she spluttered. She was at a loss for words. "It takes more than a cherry to make me cough up a wedding ring, " he said with thinly veiled derision. "You should've done your homework. Marriage? Not in my cards. — Kat Madrid

In the words of psychologists John Brebner and Chris Cooper, who have shown that extroverts think less and act faster on such tasks: introverts are "geared to inspect" and extroverts "geared to respond." But the more interesting aspect of this puzzling behavior is not what the extroverts do before they've hit the wrong button, but what they do after. When introverts hit the number nine button and find they've lost a point, they slow down before moving on to the next number, as if to reflect on what went wrong. But extroverts not only fail to slow down, they actually speed up. — Susan Cain

When I came back from France they all wanted me to go to college. I couldn't. After what I'd been through I felt I couldn't go back to school. I learnt nothing at my prep school anyway. I felt I couldn't enter into a freshman's life. They wouldn't have liked me. I didn't want to act a part I didn't feel. And I didn't think the instructors would teach me the sort of things I wanted to know. — W. Somerset Maugham

He's been looking at my file. So the question has to be right there on the tip of his tongue right about now, waiting to be spoken. But he keeps up the 'act professional' charade, makes it feel like he sees this kind of thing all the time, but in reality he's having a little fun with it. I'm the story he's going to tell at a bar after making my name anonymous. I'm the case study that's going to become dinner conversation when he takes some rich bitch out next week. He's going to do it to make himself look well-balanced, prove how normal he is in a world full of weirdoes. In short, he's going to look 'normal' at my expense. — Cyma Rizwaan Khan

I don't think I could ever live with either a man or a woman for a long time. Male and female are attractive to my mind, but when it comes to the sexual act I am afraid. In every situation I need a lot of stimulation before I am conquered by the forces of passion and lust. But confusion, before and after, is the dominant factor.
I dreamed many times about a mature man with experience who would have the vigour of a boy but an adult's polished methods. Strangely enough, I also dreamed about women of my mother's age who were ideal lovers. These dreams came superimposed on one another. Sometimes the masculine element was dominant, sometimes the feminine one. At other times I wasn't sure. I saw a female body with male organs or a male body with female ones. These pictures, blended together in my mind, occasionally brought pleasure but more often pain. — Adam Thirlwell

One instance of this failure is the case of smoke, as well as air pollution generally. In so far as the outpouring of smoke by factories pollutes the air and damages the persons and property of others, it is an invasive act. It is equivalent to an act of vandalism and in a truly free society would have been punished after court action brought by the victims. Air pollution, then, is not an example of a defect in a system of absolute property rights, but of failure on the part of the government to preserve property rights. Note that the remedy, in a free society, is not the creation of an administrative State bureau to prescribe regulations for smoke control. The remedy is judicial action to punish and proscribe pollution damage to the person and property of others.48 In — Murray N. Rothbard

Personality is that which is most intimate to me - that by which I must act out my life. It is that by which I belong to man, that by which I amable to reach after God; and He has given to me this pearl of great price. It is an immortal treasure; it is mine, it is His, and no man shall pluck it out of His hand. — Hugh Reginald Haweis

Through repentance the filth of our foul actions is washed away. After this, we participate in the Holy Spirit, not automatically, but according to the faith, humility and inner disposition of the repentance in which our soul is engaged. For this reason it is good to repent each day as the act of repentance is unending. — Symeon The New Theologian

Sometimes, she told herself, life was a series of obstacles that just had to be negotiated, possibly through sheer act of will. She stared out at the muddy blue of the endless sea, gulped in the air, lifted her chin, and decided that she could survive this. She could survive most things. It was nobody's right to be happy, after all. — Jojo Moyes

What I should like to find is a crime the effects of which would be perpetual, even when I myself do not act, so that there would not be a single moment of my life even when I were asleep, when I was not the cause of some chaos, a chaos of such proportions that it would provoke a general corruption or a distubance so formal that even after my death its effects would still be felt. — Marquis De Sade

Among you boys you have a game: you stand a row of bricks on end a few inches apart; you push a brick, it knocks its neighbor over, the neighbor knocks over the next brick
and so on till all the row is prostrate. That is human life. A child's first act knocks over the initial brick, and the rest will follow inexorably. If you could see into the future, as I can, you would see everything that was going to happen to that creature; for nothing can change the order of its life after the first event has determined it. That is, nothing will change it, because each act unfailingly begets an act, that act begets another, and so on to the end, and the seer can look forward down the line and see just when each act is to have birth, from cradle to grave. — Mark Twain

Is the invisible presence of the Christian fellowship a reality and a help to the individual? Is the Word of God close to him as a comfort and a strength? Or does he misuse his aloneness contrary to the fellowship, the Word, and the prayer? The individual must realize that his hours of aloneness react upon the community. In his solitude he can sunder and besmirch the fellowship, or he can strengthen and hallow it. Every act of self-control of the Christian is also a service to the fellowship. One who returns to the Christian family fellowship after fighting the battle of the day brings with him the blessing of his aloneness, but he himself receives anew the blessing of the fellowship. Blessed is he who is alone in the strength of the fellowship and blessed is he who keeps the fellowship in the strength of aloneness. But the strength of aloneness and the strength of the fellowship is solely the strength of the Word of God, which is addressed to the individual in the fellowship. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

After my 1985 appearance on 'The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,' I was wooed by producers in Hollywood, who told me they wanted to turn my act into a sitcom. — Roseanne Barr

After we were hit on September 11, 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the U.S.A. Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it. — Naomi Wolf

After all, Ignatius of Loyola, a soldier who had killed and whored and made a thorough mess of his soul, said you could judge prayer worthwhile simply if you could act more decently, think more clearly afterward. As D.W. once told him, "Son, sometimes it's enough just to act less like a shithead. — Mary Doria Russell

Resolving to influence and persuade others will require a degree of personal passion and a depth of caring that you are willing to express and act on. I can tell you this: it will make you feel very vulnerable. The only antidote is to believe you are after a worthwhile change and that you are likely to be the right one to lead this particular charge. — Charlotte Beers

I saw Ronnie Hawkins play near my hometown, Port Dover, Ontario, and I saw him play there on New Year's Eve and the following spring I booked myself to be his opening act on maybe five shows, and he hired me after the first night. — Rick Danko

Ever seen that bumper sticker "He who dies with the most toys wins"? Millions of people act as if it were true. The more accurate saying is "He who dies with the most toys still dies - and never takes his toys with him." When we die after devoting our lives to acquiring things, we don't win - we lose. We move into eternity, but our toys stay behind, filling junkyards. The bumper sticker couldn't be more wrong. — Randy Alcorn

The fatalism of the Filipino is usually passive, expressed in the classic proverb about our fortune coming to us though we seek it not. But the more complex form of that fatalism sees a man as being steered in a certain direction by one circumstance after another until he finally reaches a point when, though he acts voluntarily - or he thinks he acts voluntarily - he is actually being pushed by the circumstances that brought him to the point of action. The fatalist, as he looks back before he acts, sees everything as having conspired to make him perform that particular act, and therefore sees it as inevitable, as "fate". This is the amok mentality. Afterwards, what others regard as an act of will, the fatalist regards quite sincerely as a product of circumstances. — Nick Joaquin

Einstein's prediction of light deflection could not be tested immediately in 1915, because the First World War was in progress, and it was not until 1919 that a British expedition, observing an eclipse from West Africa, showed that light was indeed deflected by the sun, just as predicted by the theory. This proof of a German theory by British scientists was hailed as a great act of reconciliation between the two countries after the war. — Stephen Hawking

I was always going to act, literally ever since I was tiny. In fact, I have Doctor Who to thank for that. I wanted to become an actor after being obsessed with Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor Who, in the 1970s. His was the definitive performance of all time in anything. — David Tennant

Life. It's your birthday present. Open it up and play with it. Act like you like it. (The One who gave it to you is watching, after all. Don't want to hurt his feelings.) And if you don't like your life, CHANGE IT. It is all yours. — Jill Conner Browne

Feminism will be just as oppressive to women as the media if it compels us to change who we are. The ends will not justify the means. It is like a corset that, although originally intended to make us feel good, about ourselves, has been pulled so tight that we are not left with enough room to breathe. Feminism often seems to be looking down its nose at us these days, as it militantly tells us how to behave- focusing on appearances according to a male dominated society. Have they forgotten that it is the societal viewpoint which needs to be changed? Somewhere along the line this movement got off track.


After all, we are constantly being told how to look, how to age, how to eat, how to act. Can't we at least think what we want? — Nancy Madore

Less than two centuries later, the Macedonian Greek Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, completing this task in a matter of months, but remaining long enough to found the city of Alexandria, whose site he selected in 331 BC at what was then the western mouth of the Nile delta. After this, in what appeared to be a characteristic act of hubris, but was in fact an attempt to win over the local priesthood, Alexander sacrificed to the sacred bull Apis and had himself crowned pharaoh. — Paul Strathern

It's fun to get away from myself for a while when I take on these roles that have very different personalities from my own. I get to say things I normally wouldn't say or act in ways I normally wouldn't act. After all, such roles are more challenging because you really have to immerse yourself in the character. — Kelsey Chow

Writing for me is not a premeditated act. It just happens - characters keep coming out of nowhere and doing things I never expected them to do. The most persistent and most productive of these has been Paul Christopher, whom I didn't expect to see again after he appeared in 'The Miernik Dossier.' — Charles McCarry

Surely no rational or realistic person will discount the possibility that [during wartime] the United States might suddenly resort to nuclear weapons. Those who retain the instinct for survival, not to speak of minimal concern for their fellow man, will seek ways to act before rather than after the event. — Noam Chomsky

If someone had told Allie that she would commit a premeditated act of murder, she would not have believed it. She would have spouted off all the reasons how she could never be capable of such a thing - that no matter how dire the circumstances, she would find a better way. She was so naive, so arrogant to think that the laws of necessity and unthinkable circumstance could not apply to her. She could tell herself that this was an act of mercy, but that would be a lie. This was an act of war. An act of terrorism. It was nothing less than an assassination.
If I do this, Allie told herself, I am no better than Mary. I will have sunk to the worst possible place a person can go. After this moment, I will be a cold-blooded killer and it can never be taken back.
So the question was, did Allie Johnson have the strength to sacrifice all that was left of her innocence if it meant she might save the world? — Neal Shusterman

I think movies do play a valuable role in turning people on to the act of reading. I think that phenomenon just creates readers. At first they're going to love 'Harry Potter,' or they may love 'The Hunger Games,' but after that, they're going to love the act of reading and wonder, 'What else can I read?' — Gary Ross

The Etymologiae says that bees are virtuous because they are much loved by all, and sought after with great longing by everyone, because their honey tastes as sweet in the mouths of paupers as in the mouths of kings. Do you think that's logical? That a creature can be virtuous just because it is loved and sought after, that the act of being loved, of being sought after, even if it is passive, is equal to an act of martyrdom or great piety, which is active? That it can confer grace to a whole species? — Catherynne M Valente

Just as a state's police swear to prevent and punish murder, so the signers of the Genocide Convention [in 1948] swore to police a brave new world order. The rhetoric of moral utopia is a peculiar response to genocide. But those were heady days, just after the trials at Nuremberg, when the full scale of the Nazi extermination of Jews all over Europe had been recognized as a fact of which nobody could any longer claim ignorance. The authors and signers of the Genocide Convention knew perfectly well that they had not fought World War II to stop the Holocaust but rather
and often, as in the case of the United States, reluctantly
to contain fascist aggression. What made those victorious powers, which dominated the UN then even more than they do now, imagine that they would act differently in the future? — Philip Gourevitch

There are two angels that attend unseen
Each one of us, and in great books record
Our good and evil deeds. He who writes down
The good ones, after every action closes
His volume, and ascends with it to God.
The other keeps his dreadful day-book open
Till sunset, that we may repent; which doing,
The record of the action fades away,
And leaves a line of white across the page.
Now if my act be good, as I believe it,
It cannot be recalled. It is already
Sealed up in heaven, as a good deed accomplished.
The rest is yours. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Other primates, of course, have none of these problems, but even they strive for a certain kind of society. In their behavior, we recognize the same values we pursue ourselves. For example, female chimpanzees have been seen to drag reluctant males toward each other to make up after a fight, while removing weapons from their hands. Moreover, high-ranking males regularly act as impartial arbiters to settle disputes in the community. I take these hints of community concern as a sign that the building blocks of morality are older than humanity, and that we don't need God to explain how we got to where we are today. On — Frans De Waal

A very poor kid came up to me after a talk and said 'I want to go blow up a factory.' I asked how old he was and he said 17. I said 'have you ever had sex?' He said 'no.' I said 'just remember if you get caught you aren't going to have sex for twenty years at least.' That's not saying that one person having sex is worth the salmon. I'm not saying it's a reason not to act, I'm saying don't be stupid. — Derrick Jensen

I honour your circumspection. A fortnight's acquaintance is certainly very little. One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a fortnight. But if we do not venture somebody else will; and after all, Mrs. Long and her daughters must stand their chance; and, therefore, as she will think it an act of kindness, if you decline the office, I will take it on myself. — Jane Austen

When you make sex to a person, woman or man, you think it unites you. For a moment it gives you the illusion of unity, and then a vast division suddenly comes in. That's why after every sex act, a frustration, a depression sets in. One feels that one is so far away from the beloved. Sex divides, and when love goes deeper and deeper and unites more and more, there is no need for sex. Your inner energies can meet without sex, and you live in such a unity. — Rajneesh

I didn't know I wanted to act until it was around 21. I had just come back to Los Angeles after two and half years of traveling and working as a dancer and singer and was looking for a new performing art to study. I started taking acting classes and fell in love. — Caity Lotz

I'll tell them how I survive it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in things because I'm afraid it could be taken away. That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've seen someone do. It's like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.
But there are much worse games to play. — Suzanne Collins

The Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the suspension of the Weimar constitution after the Reichstag Fire Decree. — Srda Trifkovic

One of the best tricks a garden plays is that you never quite remember how it's going to be, that first day after winter has gone, when you go outside and can stay outside all day fiddling with jobs that aren't pressing enough to weigh heavily but will nevertheless pay dividends. A garden is made up of a thousand small inventions, but each small act is a defence (defiance even) against a world without anchors or safe harbours. — Anna Pavord

A man writing a letter is a man in the act of thinking, and it was an exercise Reagan obviously enjoyed. After his first meeting with Gorbachev, for example, he sent a 'Dear Murph' letter about it to his old friend George Murphy, a former senator and actor who had once played Reagan's father in a film. — Russell Baker

After the man had left, the mothers who had sold their children felt empty and sad. They felt as if this act, done freely by themselves (no one had forced them, no one had threatened them) had not been performed willingly. They felt cheated as well, as if the price had been too low. Why hadn't they demanded more? — Margaret Atwood

I started acting when I was 13, but it really wasn't my plan. The actual decision to become an actor was when I was 17, after I didn't act for half a year because I came to an exchange student program in the US, and I realized how much I missed it. — Meital Dohan

She was making the case that we should resist on principle, even though it might be futile. I had just begun trying to make the case for hope in writing, and I argued that you don't know if your actions are futile; that you don't have the memory of the future; that the future is indeed dark, which is the best thing it could be; and that, in the end, we always act in the dark. The effects of your actions may unfold in ways you cannot foresee or even imagine. They may unfold long after your death. That is when the words of so many writers often resonate most. — Rebecca Solnit

The Patriot Act, passed overwhelmingly but hastily after 9/11, allows the FBI to obtain telecommunication, financial, and credit records without a court order. — Rebecca MacKinnon

The failures are not due to any injustice, but to an inner defect. It is always caused by the person himself. Yes, I know, you think you are doing an act of justice. But they will only suck you dry, wear out your energy, nourish themselves on your ideas. After being the most compassionate man in the world, I say to you today: Let the weak ones die, let them commit suicide. — Anais Nin

The American war is over; but this far from being the case with the American revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the drama is closed. It remains yet to establish and perfect our new forms of government, and to prepare the principles, morals, and manners of our citizens for these forms of government after they are established and brought to perfection. — Benjamin Rush

( ... ) then went into his room in the middle of the night after a long, heavy day of footwork and drinking; a coward's fight. She'd trussed him up and cut off his cock. She considered the act her formal resignation. — Kameron Hurley

The Safe Drinking Water Act was passed in 1974 after tests discovered carcinogens, lead and dangerous bacteria flowing from faucets in New Orleans, Pittsburgh and Boston and elsewhere. — Charles Duhigg

People who love horror films are people with boring lives ... when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether, I bet you'd see a big leap in the number of serial killers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news. — Ryu Murakami

After using the 'good offices' of UN diplomacy (economic sanctions and weapons inspections) to ensure that Iraq was brought to its knees, its people starved, half a million of its children killed, its infrastructure severely damaged, after making sure that most of its weapons have been destroyed, in an act of cowardice that must surely be unrivalled in history, the 'Allies' / 'Coalition of the Willing' (better known as the Coalition of the Bullied and Bought) - sent in an invading army! — Arundhati Roy

Some Christians need encouragement to think before they act. Others need encouragement to act after they think. — Kevin DeYoung

God is waiting eagerly to respond with new strength to each little act of self-control, small disciplines of prayer, feeble searching after him. And his children shall be filled if they will only hunger and thirst after what he offers. — Richard Holloway

Once a person has taken their life, in the inner realms, the suicide will repeat automatically the feelings of despair and fear which preceded his self murder, and go through the act and the death struggle time after time with ghastly persistence ... They remain conscious - often entangled in the final scene of the earth life for a very long time, unaware that they have lost the physical body. — Annie Besant

With Angela drawn to the hangdog look and Malachy lonely after three months in jail, there was bound to be a knee-trmbler.
A knee-trmbler is the act itself done up against a wall, man and woman up on their toes, straining so hard their knees tremble with the excitement that's in it. — Frank McCourt

For me, writing is a job. I do not separate the work from the act of writing like two things that have nothing to do with each other. I arrange words one after another, or one in front of another, to tell a story, to say something that I consider important or useful, or at least important or useful to me. — Jose Saramago

There were loads of plays which were very popular before and after the war, where everybody wore a dinner jacket in the third act and it was in a house that you wished you'd owned with people that you wish you knew. It was life seen through a very privileged way. — Timothy West

Active beneficence is a virtue of easier practice than forbearance after having conferred, or than thankfulness after having received a benefit. I know not, indeed, whether it be a greater and more difficult exercise of magnanimity, for the one party to act as if he had forgotten, or for the other as if he constantly remembered the obligation. — George Canning

Agents are deal makers, and they're really, really good at making deals. But they're also exceptionally helpful after the deal is made - agents act as a good intermediary between authors and publishers whenever disagreements come up. — John Romaniello

If you ever face a significant disaster, do your best to keep up the spirits of those around you, act flexibly and creatively to help, try to sort rumors from truth, and remember that the decisions you make will have repercussions after the disaster has passed. — Sheri Fink

In America, after 9/11, and after the death of bin Laden, and after two wars, one of them fought, a lot of people think, on false pretenses, and definitely post the Patriot Act, there are a lot of these questions about what can we do to our citizens in order to prevent the next attack. — Gideon Raff

I loved county fairs in the South. It was hard to believe that anything could be so consistently cheap and showy and vulgar year after year. each year I thought that at least one class act would force its way into a booth or sideshow, but I was always mistaken. The lure of the fair was the perfect harmony of its joyous decadence, its burned-out dishonored vulgarity, its riot of colors and smells, its jangling, tawdry music, and its wicked glimpse into the outlaw life of hucksters, tattoo parlors, monstrous freaks, and strippers. — Pat Conroy

dwelling. A soul built up in God will think, act and bear fruit after God. The natural man or the Christian, who has not been spiritually edified, will think, — Ana Mendez Ferrell

The moments when I first made something, like when I first wrote a song please me so intensely. Everything else after that is just the act of communication. — Ben Lee

The whole life of Christ was a continual Passion; others die martyrs but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha even in Bethlehem, where he was born; for to his tenderness then the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after, and the manger as uneasy at first as his cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas day and his Good Friday are but the evening and morning of one and the same day. And as even his birth is his death, so every action and passage that manifests Christ to us is his birth, for Epiphany is manifestation. — John Donne

When I met couples whose marriages were thriving after thirty and forty years, none of them were riding an emotional roller coaster of passion and then resentment. Instead, they loved each other as an act of their conscious will. They were more in control of their love than their "love" was in control of them. — Donald Miller

I think it's a mistake to go after someone just based on looks. But I always respond to people who don't act that interested in me. — Navi Rawat

Jill and I have known each other our whole lives. One house separates our houses but we act as if it doesn't exist. We met before we were born and we'll probably still know each other after we die. At least, that's the way we're planning it. — Alice Hoffman

That's because true travel, the kind with no predetermined end, is one of the most selfish endeavors we can possibly undertake-an act in which we focus solely on our own fulfillment, with little regard to those we leave behind. After all, we're the ones venturing out into the big crazy world, filling up journals, growing like weeds. And we have the gall to think they're just sitting at home, soaking in security and stability.
It is only when we reopen these wrapped and ribboned boxes, upon our triumphant return home, that we discover nothing is the way we had left it before. — Stephanie Elizondo Griest

I do not know what, in the end, makes a person who they are. If we're all born one way, or if we only arrive there after as series of chioces. The bible claims that the wicked act on their own desires and impulses, because God is good, only good, and He would never compel a soul to wickedness. That I'm supposed to count on justice in the next life, even if I can't have it in this one. — Alexandra Bracken

So we still need a permanent fix. The president would sign the Dream Act tomorrow, the next day, the day after that. That's ultimately the only way to fix this, is for congressional action. — David Plouffe

Anything can be an instrument, Chugurh said. Small things. Things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. It's just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. to separate the act from the the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it's just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it? — Cormac McCarthy

The relationship between violence and nonviolence in this country is interesting. The fact of the matter is, you know, people do respond to riots. The 1968 Housing Act was in large response to riots that broke out after Dr. Martin Luther King was killed. They cited these as an actual inspiration. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Then, as we ascend into the fifth and final act of the show, we can choose what we want to take back with us: a piece of our underworld self that, frankly, the cheating boyfriend may need to meet, or the boss that doesn't appreciate you, or the terrorizing Bitch at school - or maybe you're the terrorizing Bitch, maybe I am. Some fragments that took their masks off while we were on this underworld journey sometimes walk quietly with me. Only I know that after the show they will be staying with me as my figurative New Renter in my seafront condo, down the street from Pituitary Lane, behind Heart Terrace. Then again, some unmasked Beings that I see during a performance find me once I'm back in my dressing room and receive from me the Okay you, thank you for the perspective and the vision, but in this century you can't just chop people's heads off and feed them to your cats, and I know these guys are bad guys, and thank you for the vision. So you can haunt me during the show again in Indy — Tori Amos

You heard him say it? 'Pain's the only evil I know about.' You heard that?"
The monk nodded solemnly.
"And that society is the only thing that determines whether an act is wrong or not? That too?"
"Yes."
"Dearest God, how did those two heresies get back into the world after all this time? Hell has limited imaginations down there. 'The serpent deceived me, and I did eat. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

People were excited by violence. What, after all, was the sexual act but a voluntarily endured assault, a momentary death? — P.D. James

People are important too, however, and what a terrible impact a total ban on hunting would have on the rural economy, which is still reeling from the after-effects of foot and mouth disease. With average net farm income having fallen to 5,200 per farm in England and 4,100 in Wales, it seems an act of spiteful vandalism to destroy literally thousands of jobs in deeply rural areas, when it is simply not necessary to do so and where no meaningful alternative employment exists. — Ann Winterton

Often, even after years, mental states once present in consciousness return to it with apparent spontaneity and without any act of the will; that is, they are reproduced involuntarily. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

History is, after all, something that happened to people. No 'force' whether economic or political can act except as it acts through the minds and bodies of human beings. — Priscilla Smith Robertson

Her function in existence was to carry blasting destruction at high speed to floating islands of men; and her intended destiny, at the opposite pole from that of the male bee, was to die in this act of impregnating her enemy with death. It was, perhaps, for this reason that she carried her distinctly feminine bow, which was very high and sharp, with graceful arrogance and some slight vindictiveness, after the manner of a perfectly controlled martyr selected for spectacular and aristocratic sacrifice. Her name was Delilah. — Marcus Goodrich

Concealed in every new situation we face is a spiritual lesson to be learned and a spiritual blessing for us if we learn that lesson. It is good to be tested. We grow and learn through passing tests. I look upon all my tests as good experiences. Before I was tested, I believed I would act in a loving or non-fearing way. After I was tested, I knew! Every test turned out to be an uplifting experience. And it is not important that the outcome be according to our wishes. — Peace Pilgrim

Rule #4 is entitled "Think Small, Act Big." It's in this understanding of career capital and its role in mission that we get our explanation for this title. Advancing to the cutting edge in a field is an act of "small" thinking, requiring you to focus on a narrow collection of subjects for a potentially long time. Once you get to the cutting edge, however, and discover a mission in the adjacent possible, you must go after it with zeal: a "big" action. Pardis — Cal Newport

In the final analysis, real suspense comes with moral dilemma and the courage to make and act upon choices. False suspense comes from the accidental and meaningless occurrence of one damned thing after another. — John Gardner

Only God was able to create a free creature, and freedom could only arise by the act of creation. Freedom is not the result or product of evolution. Freedom and product are disparate ideas. God does not produce or construct. He creates. We used to say the same for artists, for the artist who constructs does not create a personality but rather a poster of man. A personality cannot be constructed. Maybe sooner or later, during this century or after a million years of continued civilization, man will succeed in constructing an imitation of himself, a kind of robot or monster, something similar to its constructor. This human-looking monster may look very much like man, but one thing is certain: it will never have freedom. Without a divine touch, the result of evolution would not have been man, but rather a developed animal, a super-animal, a creature with a human body and intelligence but without a heart and personality. — Alija Izetbegovic

Jean following close behind. The plan was for them to cover us as we entered. Getting in was easy. The door was unlocked. I went in low, clearing the first visible area. After Bear entered, I moved past the door. I had to trust that Pierre and Jean would act accordingly. A feat more difficult due to the necessary silence. We'd never worked together, but tactics were tactics, and training was training. They'd done this before. Room by room, floor by floor, we investigated the house. And we found it empty. The thought of Bashir al-Sharaa slipping out of my grasp once again gnawed at my gut. — L.T. Ryan

Being sorry is the highest act of selfishness, seeing value only after discarding it. — Douglas Horton

The sexual act - thinking about the sexual act, the telling about the sexual act, after the sexual act, is so much more important than the actual sexual act - just in time. It's like of the whole sexual act, you probably spend 95% of the time thinking about it, talking about it afterwards. The actually sexual act, especially when you're 17, is minutes. — Will Gluck

My mother taught me that reading is a kind of work, and that every paragraph merits exertion, and in this way, I learned how to absorb difficult books. Soon after I went to kindergarten, however, I learned that reading difficult books also brings trouble. I was punished for reading ahead of the class, for being unwilling to speak and act "nicely." I didn't know why I simultaneously feared and adored my female teachers, but I did know that I needed their attention — Hope Jahren

Obedience had never been deemed a pure virtue among the Tiste Andii. To follow must be an act born of deliberation, of clear-eyed, cogent recognition that the one to be followed has earned the privilege. So often, after all, formal structures of hierarchy stood in place of such personal traits and judgements. A title or rank did not automatically confer upon the one wearing it any true virtue, or even worthiness to the claim. Nimander — Steven Erikson

Donna learned quickly that there's no point in beating yourself up when you screw up or fail to follow through. Guilt trips and self-criticism don't motivate you to make meaningful changes; they just keep you stuck, dwelling on the past. So after each relapse, Donna came back to the basic ACT formula: A = Accept your thoughts and feelings and be present. C = Connect with your values. T = Take effective action. — Russ Harris

Vampire Kellan Barstow is tired of watching his best friend Lucas Phillips pine after his one true mate. Though he's jealous that Lucas found his before he found his own, he wants him to be happy and hopes to spur him on to make a move toward his chosen human, librarian Emily Yost. But Kellan's sick of Lucas's moping and decides one thing will convince Luke he needs to act. Sleeping with another woman. — Pippa DaCosta

The Recovery Act is working, but it's going to continue to work. It's not over. A lot's going to happen this summer. And even after the summer, there's more to come with the act. — Joe Biden

You're well enough looked after now' says Farouq. 'We are your friends. Don't we care about you? All this bitterness, it's in your own mind. To be accepted as a human being, you must behave like one. The more human you act, the more human you'll be.' He spoils the effect of this decent speech by adding with a smirk, 'Four-foot cunt. — Indra Sinha