Astley Hall Quotes & Sayings

After a victim has reported a crime to the police, many people believe that the decision whether or not to charge the suspect with a crime, and then prosecute the suspect, is the prerogative of the victim. News media often contribute to this misconception in stories about rape victims by reporting that a victim 'declined to press charges.' In fact, the criminal justice system gives victims no direct say in the matter. It's the police, for the most part, who decide whether a suspect should be arrested, and prosecutors who ultimately determine whether a conviction should be pursued. — Jon Krakauer

I maintain myself on the puppet drug of personal technology. Every touch of a button brings the neural rush of finding something I never knew and never needed to know until it appears at my anxious fingertips, where it remains for a shaky second before disappearing forever. My — Don DeLillo

History doesn't repeat itself, but it harmonizes, and what it usually makes is the devil's music. — Stephen King

Quite often ... these little guys, who might be making atomic weapons or who might be guilty of some human rights violation ... are looking for someone to listen to their problems and help them communicate. — Jimmy Carter

The great adventure of our lives. What does it mean to die when you can live until the end of the world? and what is 'the end of the world' except a phrase, because who knows even what is the world itself? I had now lived in two centuries, seen the illusions of one shattered by the other, been eternally young and eternally ancient, possessing no illusions, living moment to moment in a way that made me picture a silver clock ticking in a void: the painted face, the delicately carved hands looked upon by no one, looking out at no one, illuminated by a light which was not a light, like the light by which god made the world before He had made light. Ticking, ticking, ticking, the precision of the clock, in a room as vast as the universe. — Anne Rice

Who has not for the sake of his reputation sacrificed himself? — Friedrich Nietzsche

The earth yields up her stores, of every ill
The instigators; iron, foe to man,
And gold, than iron deadlier. — Ovid

The 'nations,' as they are called, with whom our pretended ambassadors, secretaries, presidents, and senators profess to make treaties, are as much myths as our own. On general principles of law and reason, there are no such 'nations.' ... Our pretended treaties, then, being made with no legitimate or bona fide nations, or representatives of nations, and being made, on our part, by persons who have no legitimate authority to act for us, have intrinsically no more validity than a pretended treaty made by the Man in the Moon with the king of the Pleiades. — Lysander Spooner

It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen? That was when they suspended the Constitution. — Margaret Atwood

He just didn't look like the kind of creep that would messily murder a woman in her hotel room; he looked like the kind of creep that could line her up in the sights of an assassins rifle without a shred of emotion. — Karen Marie Moning

Israel is thirsting for water, and Turkey is overflowing with it. — Stephen Kinzer

Alice's eyes fell to the bundle she carried. But she only said, 'People from the other side of the mirror want to know who and where and why and what is the name. They have to know everything. They are always gnawing at things and at one another.'
'It's good to want to know things,' Jack said defensively.
'It is? What happens when there is no answer?' she sneered. 'Wanting-to-know is always biting at you. Biting and itching. You want to much. Go back to your own world. You don't belong here — Isobelle Carmody

Well, that explained it, then. Secret demon hunter and thief. Man, did I know how to pick 'em. — Rachel Hawkins

When I was building the Vietnam Memorial, I never once asked the veterans what it was like in the war, because from my point of view, you don't pry into other people's business. — Maya Lin

Elvis Jr. watches you with considerable gravitas. He is a piercingly cute carajito. He has all these mosquito bites on his legs and an old scab on his head no one can explain to you. You are suddenly overcome with the urge to cover him with your arms, with your whole body. Later, Elvis Sr. fills you in on the Plan. I'll bring him over to the States in a few years. I'll tell the wife he was an accident, a one-time thing when I was drunk and I didn't find out about it until now. And that's going to work? It will work out, he says testily. Bro, your wife ain't going to buy that. And what the fuck do you know? Elvis says. It ain't like your shit ever works. — Junot Diaz