Assassinated Quotes & Sayings

I remember when Martin Luther King was assassinated. I was up early watching television and watched the announcement. I didn't understand what the word 'assassinated' meant. — Henry Rollins

Archbishop Romero of El Salvador was a member of the Salvadoran aristocracy. He could not have risen to the top of the church hierarchy otherwise. But after he began voicing critical remarks about the war and concerned comments about the poor, he was assassinated. — Michael Parenti

Every bloody mark had assassinated my writing along the way. — Jazz Feylynn

Throughout history, big changes always start with a girl meeting a boy."
"No they don't," Jane said. "They start with somebody being assassinated. — Natalie Standiford

In Memory of BPP Comrades Fred Hampton & Mark Clark, both assassinated by the US Government via the state and local government of Chicago, Illinois, December 4, 1969. — Emory Douglas

'Hurt Village' is based on a real housing project in Memphis, about three minutes away from the Lorraine Hotel where Dr. King was assassinated, so in my work I'm focusing on a very specific area in Memphis. I see 'Hurt Village' as a natural extension of 'The Mountaintop.' — Katori Hall

Ask most kids about details about Auschwitz or about how the American Indians were assassinated as a people and they don't know anything about it. They don't want to know anything. Most people just want their beer or their soap opera or their lullaby. — Marlon Brando

Political leaders and presidents were shot at or assassinated about as often as rap artists are today. An unpopular war cost fifty-eight thousand American lives. Those who bravely served our country returned home to be treated with unwarranted scorn. Promiscuous sex and hallucinatory drugs were celebrated as the path to enlightenment. Race riots set major cities aflame. Police were called pigs. And no one over the age of thirty was to be trusted. Worse, some people wore leisure suits - in public - and they were proud of it. — Larry Osborne

A few months ago you assassinated a man who called himself a god; now you're going after a goddess in truth. Unless you can figure out a way to kill continents, after this you're going to have to retire. — Brent Weeks

It is the manner of death that reveals the importance of a man. Ordinary people are murdered while extraordinary people are assassinated. — Ashwin Sanghi

There were stories that the tunnels went for miles. There were monsters down there, blind reptiles and insects that had never seen the light, there were hospitals and brothels, and horrible things, piles of the offal from VC atrocities, dead babies, assassinated priests. — Denis Johnson

While Arab governments and Palestinian leaders were willing to participate in a new and more reasonable UN peace initiative in 1948, the Israelis assassinated the UN peace mediator, Count Bernadotte, and rejected the suggestion of the Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC), a UN body, to reopen negotiations. This intransigent view would continue; Avi Shlaim has shown in The Iron Wall that, contrary to the myth that the Palestinians never missed an opportunity to miss peace, it was Israel that constantly rejected the peace offers that were on the table. — Noam Chomsky

Before he was assassinated in 1948, Gandhi - a senior journalist told me - rebuked Nehru and Patel for not being able to reign in the partition madness and wished that his "other son [Subhas] was here!" Reminded by a Congressman, who had witnesses the dressing down, that Bose was dead and he had himself come to hold that belief, Gandhi shot back: "He's in Russia". — Anuj Dhar

But "Bloody Sunday" was only the beginning of a year of terror. Three weeks later, in February, Grand Duke Serge, the Tsar's uncle and Ella's husband, was assassinated in Moscow. The Grand Duke, who took a harsh pride in knowing how bitterly he was hated by revolutionaries, had just said goodbye to his wife in their Kremlin apartment and was driving through one of the gates when a bomb exploded on top of him. Hearing the shuddering blast, Ella cried, "It's Serge," and rushed to him. What she found was not her husband, but a hundred unrecognizable pieces of flesh, bleeding into the snow. — Robert K. Massie

What country is stabler than Iran? Where else in the world would an assassinated prime minister be so quickly replaced? — Ruhollah Khomeini

Has no one done my son a service and assassinated you yet?" "No assassins yet," Wit said, amused. "I guess I've already got too much ass sass of my own." ... "Oh really, Wit" she said. "I thought that kind of humour was beneath you." "So are you technically," Wit said, smiling, from atop his high-legged stool. — Brandon Sanderson

ominous murmur ran through the legion of onlookers, who had heretofore maintained an uncharacteristic silence. Their resentment was palpable. Five days later Coligny was assassinated, and the streets of Paris ran with blood as the entire Huguenot wedding party was hunted down and slaughtered in one of the most infamous episodes in French history, known today as the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre. But this horrific mass murder, which claimed more than five thousand martyrs over the course of a week, was no spontaneous bloodletting. Rather, it was the denouement of a carefully constructed plot that utilized the unsuspecting Margot as both victim and bait to lure Coligny and his faction to their doom, an intrigue planned, instigated, and executed by the one individual in France powerful enough — Nancy Goldstone

Tyrants are always assassinated too late. That is their great excuse. — Emile M. Cioran

There is an old Arabic proverb, 'When the king puts the poet on his payroll, he cuts off the tongue of the poet', so throughout the ages, people in power have liked to control music, they used to throw songwriters in jail throughout history, and were assassinated. — Pete Seeger

Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. — Noam Chomsky

There are a whole lot of little tales told in 'Presumed Innocent,' whether it's about the Hobberly kid, who was an important witness who ends up assassinated, or an accountant named Marcy Lupino, who meets a horrible fate in a state penitentiary. There's less of that in 'Innocent,' and deliberately so. — Scott Turow

I think all of us thought that by the '70s, at the latest the '80s, all the world's problems would be solved and everyone would be getting along fine. And instead we saw that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated that year, Robert F. Kennedy died. We saw that it was going to be a lot more difficult than I think we had thought. — Janis Ian

I would rather be assassinated than see a single star removed from the American flag. — Abraham Lincoln

Perhaps George is going to be assassinated," said Lord Caterham hopefully. "What do you think, Bundle-perhaps I'd better go after all. — Agatha Christie

I think what a lot of people don't realize is how much being the leader of this movement weighed upon him. After all, he [Dr. Martin Luter King] was only 39 years-old when he was assassinated, and only 36 during the Selma campaign. He always seemed older than he actually was, and I believe part of that had to do with just how much life he had to live in order to lead this movement. — David Oyelowo

Our nation has come so far since 1968 when Dr. King was assassinated, but I know we can do better to achieve The Dream, and that is why I keep marching on. — Charles B. Rangel

Means of dealing with the Three Furies before they drove her crazy or assassinated each other with rolling pin or knitting needle. — Diana Gabaldon

Truth arises by an invisible hand from our many errors, and both error and truth must be protected. The heretic, however, is now exposed to public intimidation and abuse on a scale inconceivable before the invention of the internet.
Of course, we have moved on a bit from the Middle Ages. It is not the man who is assassinated now, but only his character. But the effect is the same. Free discussion is being everywhere shut down, so that we will never know who is right - the heretics, or those who try to silence them. — Roger Scruton

The Brodie set did not for a moment doubt that she would prevail. As soon expect Julius Caesar to apply for a job at a crank school as Miss Brodie. She would never resign. If the authorities wanted to get rid of her she would have to be assassinated. — Muriel Spark

He smiled tolerantly at her. Rubbing his smooth chin its recently assassinated chin hairs, he studied her. She barely came up to Ronan's shoulder, but she was every bit as big as he, every bit as present. — Maggie Stiefvater

Our leaders were assassinated, one of the things I was reading today was - 28 Panthers were killed by the police but 300 Black Panthers were killed by other Panthers just within - internecine warfare. It just began to seem like we were in an impossible task given what we were facing. — Angela Davis

Kennedy had been assassinated a month or so before. So we walked to the grave of John Kennedy and ended our walking symbolically at the Arlington National Cemetery. — Satish Kumar

Nor is it surprising that three of the first four leaders of Islam were killed by fellow Muslims, though it is important to recognize that both the rebels who murdered Uthman and the Kharijites who assassinated Ali were, like their spiritual successors among the Jihadists of today, far more concerned with maintaining their personal ideal of Muhammad's community than with protecting that community from external enemies. After — Reza Aslan

According to historian Ellen Hammer, he (Pres. Kennedy) was, 'shaken and depressed.' to realize that, 'the first Catholic ever to become a Vietnamese chief of state was dead, assassinated as a direct result of a policy authorized by the first American Catholic president.' At one point an aide tried to console him by reminding him that Diem and Nhu had been tyrants.
'No," he replied. "They were in a difficult position.' They did the best they could for their country. — Stephen Kinzer

He's millions in debt. He hasn't stopped drinking and gambling since his father was assassinated. Brilliantly assassinated, Plagueis thought. — James Luceno

The white right is trying to set Barack up to be assassinated ... There are Christians praying for God to kill Obama. — Louis Farrakhan

I don't mean to step on anyone's toes, and I don't mean to seem arrogant, but if you want to be foreverly remembered as anything great you have to live your life alone, hated, ignored, and character assassinated, and if you believe this to be true than you truely are a hater. — B.L. Kennison

I was in Pakistan in Islamabad when Bhutto was assassinated, and the next day, you know, there's just plumes of smoke everywhere. I mean, Islamabad is on fire. — Henry Rollins

Sir. Might I with due respect remind you that Mister Vandemar and myself burned down the City of Troy? We brought the Black Plague to Flanders. We have assassinated a dozen kings, five popes, half a hundred heroes and two accredited gods. Our last commission before this was the torturing to death of an entire monastery in sixteenth-century Tuscany. We are utterly professional. — Neil Gaiman

My father was assassinated by an FBI-CIA connection — Sean Lennon

I found myself thinking about President William McKinley, the third American president to be assassinated. He lived for several days after he was shot, and towards the end, his wife started crying and screaming, "I want to go too! I want to go too!" And with his last measure of strength, McKinley turned to her and spoke his last words: "We are all going. — John Green

President Chavez has always been a loyal friend of Gaddafi, assassinated in the crudest way possible. Europe should think about the bombings and the destruction of Libya that filled the country with terrorists. Who's truly ruling Libya's military and sending thousands of armed men to fight in Syria? It's Al Qaeda. — Nicolas Maduro

To the source), they griped as much as they pleased. The King would stand at a window (during halftime or the seventh-inning stretch) and stare apprehensively at the creeping tide of brambles. "I may be the first monarch in history to be assassinated by blackberries," he would grumble. His Teflon valve grumbled with him. The Queen caressed her Chihuahua. "You know who lifed — Tom Robbins

The media character-assassinated me and perceived me as this monster. When you look at my record ... I jumped a taxi as a 21-year-old, which I'm sorry for, and I urinated twice in public. That's in 11 years of football. I've never assaulted women and never been done for drink driving. My conscience is clear. — Willie Mason

Given that Socrates was effectively assassinated by poison, you might think twice before accepting his invitation to breakfast. — Robert Rowland Smith

My supporters and family have limited resources, very limited resources; but the FBI has the unlimited resources of the most powerful government in the world today. It's amazing that they haven't successfully had me assassinated since I have been in here. There have been plots uncovered in the past that I know of to have me killed. — Leonard Peltier

It's when I have to acknowledge the past and all of those nameless, faceless people I'd assassinated, that I unravel inside. — Cheyenne McCray

There was one occasion when I was very young - eight years or seven years old - that Jewish businessmen went through the forest, and they were assassinated. And that was for the first time I saw in our paper where there were assassinations in our place. — Shimon Peres

Only cowards cave. The brave get assassinated. — Donna Lynn Hope

Surprise is when a prime minister is assassinated during his speech. Suspense is when an assassin lurks while the prime minister speaks. Balancing surprise and suspense is the job of the thriller writer. — Ashwin Sanghi

Then, upon turning their heads,they realised that they had unwittingly been following a succession of winding paths more complicated than those of a mine. There was no end to Harcamone's interior. It was more decked with black than capital whose king has just been assassinated. A voice from the heart declared: "The interior is grieving," and they swelled with fear, which rose within them like a light wind above the sea. — Jean Genet

I, who have also been betrayed, assassinated and cast into a tomb, I have emerged from that tomb by the grace of God and I owe it to God to take my revenge. He has sent me for that purpose. Here I am. — Alexandre Dumas

People talk about the 1960s in a nostalgic way, but to me it was terrifying. People were getting assassinated. There was Vietnam. There were race riots. It felt like everything was going to get blown up sky-high. It didn't feel like flower power. It felt like Armageddon. — Sam Shepard

I had known Mubarak and his wife, Suzanne, for nearly twenty years. He was a career Air Force officer who had risen through the ranks to become Vice President under Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian ruler who fought the Yom Kippur War with Israel in 1973 and later signed the Camp David Accords. Mubarak was injured in the extremist attack that assassinated Sadat in 1981, but he survived, became President, and cracked down hard on Islamists and other dissidents. He ruled Egypt like a pharaoh with nearly absolute power for the next three decades. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

When we started the show, 'Dallas' was known as the city where JFK was assassinated. By the end it was known as JR's home town. — Larry Hagman

One of us might be assassinated and then my heir will be king. Don't give up hope just because chances are slim."
"For the assassination or the heir, your majesty? — Megan Whalen Turner

Anyone can win a slam-dunk contest. The real Superman is dead. He was assassinated by Pat Riley. I'm the Big Cactus now and ready to roll again. — Shaquille O'Neal

I can remember when I was a bit of an ETA fan myself. It was in 1973, when a group of Basque militants assassinated Adm. Carrero Blanco. The admiral was a stone-faced secret police chief, personally groomed to be the successor to the decrepit Francisco Franco. His car blew up, killing only him and his chauffeur with a carefully planted charge, and not only was the world well rid of another fascist, but, more important, the whole scheme of extending Franco's rule was vaporized in the same instant. The dictator had to turn instead to Crown Prince Juan Carlos, who turned out to be the best Bourbon in history and who swiftly dismantled Franco's entire system. If this action was 'terrorism,' it had something to be said for it. Everyone I knew in Spain made a little holiday in their hearts when the gruesome admiral went sky-high. — Christopher Hitchens

We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. — Hillary Clinton

Little had changed after independence. Jomo Kenyatta's face hung in a framed portrait in every shop where Queen Elizabeth's had been. Some schools were built, some streets renamed. But educated people are a liability in a dictatorship: all the schools were underfunded, few of them succeeded. A great deal of foreign money was given to the government and most of it ended up in the pockets of politicians, some of whom were assassinated. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the fatness of corrupt African politicians. — Paul Theroux

For that matter," said Toussaint, "it's true. We would be assassinated before we'd have time to say Boo!
And then, since Monsieur doesn't sleep in the house. But don't be afraid, mademoiselle, I fasten the windows like
Bastilles. Women alone ! I'm sure that's enough to make us shudder! Just imagine! To see men come into the room
at night and say Hush ! to you and set themselves about cutting your throat. It isn't so much the dying, people
die, that's all right, we know very well that we have to die, but it is the horror of having such people touch yhaving such people touch you. And then their knives, they must cut badly ! 0 God ! — Victor Hugo

My response to those who still try to justify Castro's tyranny with the excuse that he has built schools and hospitals is this: Stalin, Hitler and Pinochet also built schools and hospitals, and like Castro, they also tortured and assassinated opponents. They built concentration and extermination camps and eradicated all liberties, committing the worst crimes against humanity. — Armando Valladares

You will serve the Cyrstal Throne well. It would be a shame to see you assassinated too early. I will make certain that the first I send after you are newly trained, so that you may stop them with ease.
-General Galgan to Mat — Robert Jordan

All critics should be assassinated. — Man Ray

Hindsight sucked. In fact hindsight should be assassinated. — Samantha Young

Beware of generalizations about any faith because they sometimes amount to the religious equivalent of racial profiling. Hinduism contained both Gandhi and the fanatic who assassinated him. — Nicholas Kristof

Rowan swallowed once. Twice. "There was ... there was an uprising at the Calaculla labor camp," he said.
Her heart stumbled on a beat.
"After Princess Nehemia was assassinated, they say a slave girl killed her overseer and sparked an uprising. The slaves seized the camp." He took a shallow breath. "The King of Adarlan sent two legions to get the slaves under control. And they killed them all. — Sarah J. Maas

We now have a president who draws up kill lists of those individuals he believes should be assassinated - and the killings are carried out around the world by drones and other means. Snowden's life is endangered but much less so now that public opinion has swung in his favor. But that's a far cry from believing it's safe for him to return to United States or that he would have a fair trial in America. Sadly, truth comes with great cost and risk. The more authoritarian the government, the greater its hostility toward truth telling. — Ron Paul

When Malcolm X was assassinated I was working at the Apollo. They brought his body to the Unity Funeral Home, which was around the corner. — Etta James

The Central Intelligence Agency, America's best-known spy shop. In that fearful post-Joe McCarthy era, when assassinated JFK had publicly loved James Bond and secretly been entangled in covert intrigues like assassination plots against Cuba's Fidel Castro outsourced to the Mafia by our spies, the CIA was a myth-shrouded invisible army. In those pre-Internet days before electronic books, Web sites with varied credibility, and search — James Grady

In return for financial support will advocate admission of Jews to England; This however impossible while Charles living. Charles cannot be executed without trial on adequate grounds for which do not presently exist. Therefore advise that Charles be assassinated, but will have nothing to do with arrangements for procuring an assassin, though willing to help in his escape. [King Charles I was in prison at the time]. — Oliver Cromwell

My first real awareness of Chechnya came when I was a college student studying in Russia. I arrived in St. Petersburg about two months after Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated for her reports on Chechnya. I lived with an elderly woman and her grown children in an apartment that was not too far from the neighborhood military cadet school. — Anthony Marra

I see men assassinated around me every day. I walk through rooms of the dead, streets of the dead, cities of the dead; men without eyes, men without voices; men with manufactured feelings and standard reactions; men with newspaper brains, television souls and high school ideas. Kennedy himself was 9/10ths the way around the clock or he wouldn't have accepted such an enervating and enfeebling job
meaning President of the United States of America. How can I be concerned with the murder of one man when almost all men, plus females, are taken from cribs as babies and almost immediately thrown into the masher? — Charles Bukowski

After he was assassinated, his family and the men who had served him continued the lying and began the destruction, censoring and hiding of JFK's medical records. — Richard Reeves

When my father was assassinated, I decided that I would not compete with his memory, but the priority would be to achieve his dream. — Benigno Aquino III

I especially object to having my character assassinated by reference to events from my past which bear absolutely no relationship to the question of who the anthrax killer is. — Steven Hatfill

Assassinated just four days before. It was like — Nancy Gibbs

When Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Detroit caught fire. Atlanta caught fire. Los Angeles caught fire. Memphis didn't catch fire... [...] We went under curfew, tanks went up and down the streets, all of that's true. [...] ...And... The city fathers chose this opportunity to tear down a black community that represented black history... — James Luther Dickinson

Keeping the Union together, freeing slaves and being assassinated all added up to creating 'Lincoln the myth.' He overcame a lot of his own prejudices and became what many would consider the first black man's president. — Henry Louis Gates

Christianity indeed has equaled Judaism in the atrocities, and exceeded it in the extent of its desolation. Eleven millions of men, women, and children have been killed in battle, butchered in their sleep, burned to death at public festivals of sacrifice, poisoned, tortured, assassinated, and pillaged in the spirit of the Religion of Peace, and for the glory of the most merciful God. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

The most intimidating world leader was Lyndon Johnson, who became U.S. President when John Kennedy was assassinated. He exulted in this power and liked to inspire fear. — Paul Johnson

With its passive and unobtrusive despotism, the camera governed the smallest spaces of our lives. Even in the privacy of our own homes we had all been recruited to play our parts in what were little more than real-life commercials. As we cooked in our kitchens we were careful to follow the manufacturer's instructions, as we made love in our bedrooms we embraced within a familiar repertoire of gestures and affections. The medium of film had turned us all into minor actors in an endlessly running daytime serial. In the future, airliners would crash and presidents would be assassinated within agreed conventions as formalised as the coronation of a tsar. — J.G. Ballard

Whenever I can't sleep, I like to lie in the darkness and pretend I've been assassinated. I've found this is the best way to get comfortable. I imagine I'm in the coffin at my funeral, and people from my past are walking by my corpse and making comments about my demise. — Chuck Klosterman

I think Kennedy being assassinated changed the world. That shot changed everything about America, and made us cynical, made people discontent and angry. — Robert Osborne