Belli Quotes & Sayings

Casus Belli. It means an incident that's used to justify a war ... — Glenn Beck

Getting kicked out of the American Bar Association is like getting kicked out of the Book-of-the-Month Club. — Melvin Belli

Revolutionary law number one," someone said. "Capitalism has cheated us. Books are not to be bought, they are to be repossessed."
"This is robbery," I said. "Let's not kid ourselves. And don't do that to me again. You scared me to death."
"It's not robbery. Books are ideas. They should be able to circulate freely within society. At no price at all, or for pennies. Knowledge is universal. It belongs to all of us. — Gioconda Belli

I grew up in a very difficult country, a very oppressive situation because of the Somoza dictatorship. My family was in opposition to Somoza; Somoza was a liberal, and my family were conservatives. These were the two traditional parties in Nicaragua. — Gioconda Belli

I never thought that sex was wrong, sinful, dirty. When you take away the thought of things being dirty or forbidden, then you can really enjoy your sensuality. — Gioconda Belli

For me, the Revolution sought to end mistreatment, not to democratize it. — Gioconda Belli

Books have the power to be the light we are seeking at crucial moments in our lives. Reading helps us realize we are not alone, that we can change our circumstances and even achieve the impossible. — Gioconda Belli

I am convinced that the reason why my kids have become very fulfilled and achieving human beings is because I wasn't raising them alone. — Gioconda Belli

My son lives in Nicaragua. My daughters live in the United States. — Gioconda Belli

I had headaches for over 30 years until I tried chiropractic. They have completely disappeared. — Melvin Belli

Never was my political stance determined by the men I was with. I had my own ideas. — Gioconda Belli

It's hard to separate art from artists so transgender musicians will never be mainstream until transpeople are looked at as notable as maybe redheads. — Willam Belli

And he was. Suddenly. From not being to being conscious that he was. — Gioconda Belli

Sexuality surrounds us like a dangerous aura. The same reverence that is given to the spirit is not given to the flesh. We have had a sexual revolution, but the sexual revolution only has made sex more pervasive. It hasn't granted the level of reverence and respect that it should have. — Gioconda Belli

Live audiences love me because I'm singing and actually am able to f**k with people live over the mic. — Willam Belli

The fucking angels of memory were out. They had come out of their museums, out of their castles. They'd gone to war against whatever this incoming to-come was. The very facts of retrospection and fate that had various sides fighting were now out themselves, personified or apotheosed and smacking seven bells out of each other directly No longer solely reasons, justifications, teloi, casus belli for others to invoke or believe in: now combatants. The war had just got meta. — China Mieville

The river moved so swiftly and yet it had no purpose other than to flow, just flow. — Gioconda Belli

There are not many intellectuals left of Harold Pinter's stature who dare raise their voices - and with such force - against the menace of U.S. and the unrestricted use of its power. Pinter's voice is an unceasing thunder. — Gioconda Belli

There is a biological power that is intrinsic to the woman, to the female condition. Because you are able to give life. You are the reproducer of the species. Men feel very weak in front of a woman because a woman is capable of eliciting a number of instincts in a man. And that is what has made men very nervous about women. — Gioconda Belli

There is never a deed so foul that something couldn't be said for the guy; that's why there are lawyers. — Melvin Belli

It had never crossed my mind that a man could think he had the right to stop me from being who I was. — Gioconda Belli

Poetry for me is very easy. It's like a lightning bolt. I feel this calling, and the first line of the poem comes into my head, and I just have to go to the page, to the typewriter, to the computer or whatever and write it. — Gioconda Belli

Except perhaps to our God, we all have a facade, even to our closest friends; some of us even to ourselves ... It may not be good that we have it, but I don't believe the state or anyone else has a right to pierce that facade without the individual's consent. — Melvin Belli

It is the right of war for conquerors to treat those whom they have conquered according to their pleasure.
[Lat., Jus belli, ut qui vicissent, iis quos vicissent, quemadmodum vellent, imperarent.] — Julius Caesar

A lawyers performance in the courtroom is responsible for about 25 percent of the outcome; the remaining 75 percent depends on the facts. — Melvin Belli

Dare to change the world
There is nothing quixotic or romantic in wanting to change the world. It is possible. It is the age-old vocation of all humanity. I can't think of a better life than one dedicated to passion, to dreams, to the stubborness that defies chaos and disillusionment. — Gioconda Belli

I'm not an ambulance chaser. I'm usually there before the ambulance. — Melvin Belli

The world has always gone forward when people have dared to have crazy ideas. — Gioconda Belli

Peace is the respect for the rights of the other person. — Gioconda Belli

In his head he felt the confused whirling of images seeking a name. Words, sounds, surged up inside him, clean and clear, and settled on everything around him. He named, and saw what he named recognize itself. — Gioconda Belli

A beautiful woman is a casus belli; a pretty woman is flagrant misdemeanour. All the invasions of history have been determined by petticoats. — Victor Hugo

I had a very good sexual education. My mother was very advanced in that regard. She conveyed to me the sense of reverence and wonder about my body and the powers of my sexuality not only to give life, but also to be a whole person and to enjoy pleasure. It was put to me as an almost holy act. — Gioconda Belli

I'm just trying to get a window seat on the way to Hell. — Willam Belli

You could be born into love or rejection, into want or abundance,although life itself was certainly not to blame. The vital principle did its job when it united egg and sperm; it was people who created the conditions in which life followed its course. And human beings seemed marked by destiny to trample one another, to make life difficult for one another, to kill one another. — Gioconda Belli

We have built our identities in many respects based on the guilt-ridden stories we have been told about our creation. For women, it is a very damning knowledge to be portrayed as curious and careless seductresses. — Gioconda Belli

I always perform live. I've even received a cortisone injection when I was losing my voice before a big gig so I could fulfill my obligation to the promoter. I felt it the days following after the gig in my throat, but it was nice to know I didn't let anyone down. The show must go on. — Willam Belli

The clock is Shandy's first symbol: under its influence, he is conceived and his misfortunes begin, which are the same thing according to this sign of time. Death is hidden in clocks, as Belli said, along with the unhappiness of individual life, of this fragment, of this thing that is divided, disintegrated, deprived of wholeness - death, which is time, the time of individuation, of separation, the abstract time that rolls toward its end. Tristram Shandy doesn't want to be born because he doesn't want to die. Any means, any weapon, can be used to save oneself from death and time. If a straight line is the shortest distance between two fatal, inescapable points, then digressions lengthen that line - and if these digressions become so complex, tangled, tortuous, and so rapid as to obscure their own tracks, then perhaps death won't find us again, perhaps time will lose its way, perhaps we'll be able to remain concealed in our ever-changing hiding places. These — Italo Calvino

Our intention to regard the closing of the Straits as a casus belli was communicated ... to the foreign ministers of those states which had supported international navigation in the Straits in 1957 and thereafter. There can be no doubt that these warnings reached Cairo. One thing was now clear. If Nasser imposed a blockade, the explosion would ensue not from 'miscalculation', but from an open-eyed and conscious readiness for war. — Abba Eban

There is nothing quixotic or romantic in wanting to change the world. It is possible. It is the age-old vocation of all humanity. — Gioconda Belli

Novels give you the opportunity to create a whole world. Because you create people, you make them talk ... You decide who they are, whether they live or die. It's the closest thing to feeling like a god that you can come to. — Gioconda Belli

About 2500 years ago Aeschylus, the Greek playwright, wrote, He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. These remarkable photos and the stories that accompany them should be on billboards from sea to shining sea, so the pain and suffering they represent might fall drop by drop upon the American psyche and against our will, by the awful grace of God, wisdom might come to these United States and her foreign policy. — Gioconda Belli

In the struggle for everyone's happiness, the first happiness one found was one's own — Gioconda Belli