Quotes & Sayings About Current Events

What, you think that just because we're demons, we don't like to stay current with world events? You think we don't like to be entertained? We're demons, not Nazis! — Katie MacAlister

Whoever relies on the Tao in governing men doesn't try to force issues or defeat enemies by force of arms. For every force there is a counterforce. Violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself. The Master does his job and then stops. He understands that the universe is forever out of control, and that trying to dominate events goes against the current of the Tao. Because he believes in himself, he doesn't try to convince others. Because he is content with himself, he doesn't need others' approval. Because he accepts himself, the whole world accepts him. — Laozi

I like fiction and the kind of history that gives the grace and flavor of fiction to the past. No bloviation on current events, please. I can write that junk myself. — P. J. O'Rourke

Meteorologists have the right perspective. They ground themselves in the current conditions (today's highs/lows). They briefly acknowledge significant events of the past (record temps). And they keep an eye on the future (five-day forecast). Honor your past accomplishments, live in the present moment, and look to the future. — Clifton Anderson

I'm tired of my life, my clothes, the things I say. I'm hacking away at the surface, as at some kind of gray ice, trying to break through to what is underneath or I am dead. I can feel the surface trembling - it seems ready to give but it never does. I am uninterested in current events. How can I justify this? How can I explain it? I don't want to have the same vocabulary I've always had. I want something richer, broader, more penetrating and powerful. — James Salter

For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us. — Noam Chomsky

In today's world hunger for sanity seems to be more intense than our hunger for food. — Munia Khan

I wasn't a great improviser when I started there; I'm not really up on current events. I would always just mug, just try to get my laughs from making faces. So I decided to do a character who should never have become a comic - somebody you would see at the Comedy Store and go, "This person is never going to make it." — Paul Reubens

The wonderful thing about television is the immediate impact of pictures of current events. — Will McDonough

It is important to view current events through Christ-like eyes. — Todd Stocker

In the course of the history of the earth innumerable events have occurred one after another, causing changes of states, all with certain lasting consequences. This is the basis of our developmental law, which, in a nutshell, claims that the diversity of phenomena is a necessary consequence of the accumulation of the results of all individual occurrences happening one after another ... The current state of the earth, thus, constitutes the as yet most diverse final result, which of course represents not a real but only a momentary end-point. — Bernhard Von Cotta

My objective is and has been for years to make the lightest and most compact flying machine that would carry me at 25 or 30 miles per hour for 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour. Current events show this is not at all an ambitious project. Want of an elementary knowledge of oil machines baulks me and causes much misdirected effort. I doubt my ability to acquire that knowledge, and feel like a fireman trying to hew out a donkey pump ... — Lawrence Hargrave

A person's faith goes at its own pace. The trouble with church is the service. A service is conducted for a mass audience. Just when I start to like the hymn, everyone plops down to pray. Just when I start to hear the prayer, everyone pops up to sing. And what does the stupid sermon have to do with God? Who knows what God thinks of current events? Who cares? — John Irving

The news in those days was full of war and migrants and nativists, and it was full of fracturing too, of regions pulling away from nations, and cities pulling away from hinterlands, and it seemed that as everyone was coming together everyone was also moving apart. Without borders nations appeared to be becoming somewhat illusory, and people were questioning what role they had to play. — Mohsin Hamid

I'm convinced that people see the ghosts of themselves all the time, but most just chose to block them out. The words don't even make sense to me, and I know it's true. When I was seven years old I saw the ghost of myself at the age of eighteen. Ever since that day I've kicked myself for not asking questions. I've no idea what my eighteen-year-old self could have told me at that point - perhaps nothing at all. Still, I can't help but think of it as a lost opportunity. Somehow there was a slight fluctuation in the current, and two of me bled through the fabric at once.
Trying to figure out the meaning behind such events can drive you mad, because there is no answer. Perhaps it was some sort of hiccup. Then again, perhaps I was making some Herculean efforts to reach out to myself, and that was all I could manage. — Damien Echols

Inspiration is really all around us. I pay attention to a lot of different fields. I stay up on current events. I go to community meetings to see what concerns the people in my neighborhood. Paying attention to social interactions offline really inform interactions online. The real world is a bottomless source of inspiration for what you can build. — Caterina Fake

I write all my own songs and they are just simple melodies with a lot of lyrics. They usually have to do with current events and what is going on in the news. You can call them topical songs, songs about the news, and then developing into more philosophical songs later. — Phil Ochs

There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch of the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not. — Oscar Wilde

When Bruce had used the word "brilliant" about Uncle Monty, he meant "having a reputation for cleverness or intelligence." But when the children used the word - and when they thought of it now, staring at the Reptile Room glowing in the moonlight - it meant more than that. It meant that even in the bleak circumstances of their current situation, even throughout the series of unfortunate events that would happen to them for the rest of their lives, Uncle Monty and his kindness would shine in their memories. Uncle Monty was brilliant, and their time with him was brilliant. Bruce and his men from the Herpetological Society could dismantle Uncle Monty's collection, but nobody could ever dismantle the way the Baudelaires would think of him. — Lemony Snicket

A more serious concern would be if the United States turned inward and seriously curtailed immigration. With its current levels of immigration, America is one of the few developed countries that may avoid demographic decline and keep its share of world population, but this might change if reactions to terrorist events or public xenophobia closed the borders. Fears over the effect of immigration on national values and on a coherent sense of American identity have existed since the early years of the nation. — Joseph S. Nye Jr.

I've always believed that as an author, I do 50% of the work of storytelling, and the reader does the other 50%. There's no way I can control the story you tell yourself from my book. Your own experiences, preferences, prejudices, mood at the moment, current events in your life, needs and wants influence how you read my every word. — Shannon Hale

Children are prepared for democracy by being led to discuss current events without first learning the systematic subjects (politics, economics, history) which are necessary in order to discuss them. The Mole effect is to substitute slogans and superficial opinion for considered individual thought. And the opinion is that of the lowest common denominator of the group. — Murray Rothbard

Landscapes, heads and naked women are called artistic photography, while photographs of current events are called press photography. — Alexander Rodchenko

There is a relation between persons and role. But the relationship answers to the interactive system - to the frame - in which the role is performed and the self of the performer is glimpsed. Self, then, is not an entity half-concealed behind events, but a changeable formula for managing oneself during them. Just as the current situation prescribes the official guise behind which we will conceal ourselves, so it provides where and how we will show through, the culture itself prescribing what sort of entity we must believe ourselves to be in order to have something to show through in this manner. — Erving Goffman

But the perception of life as an organic unity is a slow achievement, and depends for its growth on a people's entry into the main current of world-events. — Muhammad Iqbal

Most of the oppression of Muslims in the world right now is carried out by other Muslims. — Salman Rushdie

I am excited to share my archive pictures and footage. I'll also share announcements about current events and success stories from the Sugar Ray Leonard Foundation to help fight diabetes and child obesity. — Sugar Ray Leonard

Instead of trying to connect the signs of the end to current events, the church is to be about its divinely commissioned task of preaching the gospel. Jesus has not called us to speculate about his coming. Instead, he has called us to persevere to the end during the calamity of nations, the groaning of the earth, the rise of false teachers, and in the face of persecution. He has called us to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. — Kim Riddlebarger

Because emotion clouds the rational, and many perspectives guide the full reality. To view current events as an historian is to account for all perspectives, even those of your enemy. It is to know the past and to use such relevant history as a template for expectations. It is, most of all, to force reason ahead of instinct, to refuse to demonize that which you hate, and to, most of all, accept your own fallibility. And — R.A. Salvatore

Emotion clouds the rational, and many perspectives guide the full reality. To view current events as a historian is to account for all perspectives, even those of your enemy. It is to know the past and to use such relevant history as a template for expectations. It is, most of all, to force reason ahead of instinct, to refuse to demonize that which you hate, and to, most of all, accept your own fallibility. — R.A. Salvatore

I am delighted to be joining 'Guardian U.S.'s team as a weekly columnist, and to have the chance to address American and global current events on its distinguished platform. 'Guardian U.S.' brings the 'Guardian's hard-hitting investigative brand to a new focus on American news and opinion. — Naomi Wolf

I've often noticed" Fiona said, "that when people say, 'This can't happen in this day and age', they say it because it is happening. — Diana Wynne Jones

Running for office was definitely something I've thought about. When I was younger, I wanted to major in political science. And I've been engaged in current events since I was a kid. If I can make a difference and feel passionately and capable, then I would. Why not? — Queen Latifah

Reality looks much more obvious in hindsight than in foresight. People who experience hindsight bias misapply current hindsight to past foresight. They perceive events that occurred to have been more predictable before the fact than was actually the case. — Hersh Shefrin

It is a fact of history and of current events that human beings exaggerate, misinterpret, or wrongly remember events. They have also fabricated pious fraud. Most believers in a religion understand this when examining the claims of other religions. — Dan Barker

Having told the truth for years as a first-rate reporter, Jason Leopold now comes completely clean about himself and also sheds light on his imperiled profession. A riveting account of just how hard the truth can be. — Mark Crispin Miller

If we define optimism broadly as the tendency to maintain a positive outlook, then realistic optimism is the tendency to maintain a positive outlook within the constraints of the available "measurable phenomena situated in the physical and social world" (DeGrandpre, 2000, p. 733). With respect to fuzzy meaning, realistic optimism involves enhancing and focusing on the favorable aspects of our experiences. Examples include being lenient in our evaluation of past events, actively appreciating the positive aspects of our current situation, and routinely emphasizing possible opportunities for the future. With respect to fuzzy knowledge, realistic optimism involves hoping, aspiring, and searching for positive experiences while acknowledging what we do not know and accepting what we cannot know. — Sandra L. Schneider

One posthumous measure of a person's life is how often you imagine his impossible return to deal with some event he never lived to encounter. You picture his reactions, his advice, his sage commentary and humorous asides. For instance, I think about Mark Twain's hypothetical take on current events several times a week. — Paul Di Filippo

The enthusiasm that characterizes our time is, unlike current events, hopeful and, like all enthusiasms, playful. The energy that flashes through our electronics has leapt into most of our bloodstreams and brains. — Edward M. Hallowell

From Olsen's Nation: "Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran's nuclear program now stands as one. Standing as one, the world now sincerely regrets Iran's nuclear program." - President Bodvar Olsen, fifth State of the Union address — Randy Quarles

I'm really not a journalist, and I don't do a ton of newsy pieces. Occasionally I'll write about something that's going on recently, but I really don't do a ton of stuff that's tied to current events. — Mallory Ortberg

Man cannot control the current of events. he can only float with them and steer — Otto Von Bismarck

"Little Brother" sounds an optimistic warning. It extrapolates from current events to remind us of the ever-growing threats to liberty. But it also notes that liberty ultimately resides in our individual attitudes and
actions. In our increasingly authoritarian world, I especially hope that teenagers and young adults will read it - and then persuade their peers, parents and teachers to follow suit. — Dan Gillmor

Each of us believes himself to live directly within the world that surrounds him, to sense its objects and events precisely, and to live in real and current time. I assert that these are perceptual illusions ... Each of us lives within the universe - the prison of his own brain. — Vernon Benjamin Mountcastle

...forgetting and perfecting freely, with open hand giving back to the world the gifts received, thus it is that the Ego stands in the current of life's events. Because a man bears this and no other Ego he has particular experiences, out of which certain deeds--and misdeeds--issue. — Hermann Poppelbaum

I have spent time discussing the American political system and current events in Taiwan with the junior diplomats, and they have repeatedly expressed their country's desire to avoid confrontation with China. — Michael K. Simpson

The control of events has been taken out of our hands ... we have fallen into the mighty current of eternal principles-invisible forces-which are shaping and fashioning events as they wish, using us only as instruments to work out their own results in our national destiny. — Frederick Douglass

If one sentence were to sum up the mechanism driving the Great Stagnation, it is this: Recent and current innovation is more geared to private goods than to public goods. That simple observation ties together the three major macroeconomic events of our time: growing income inequality, stagnant median income, and the financial crisis. — Tyler Cowen

But I don't think that poetry is a good, to use a contemporary word, venue, for current events. — Diane Wakoski

We owe Clint Eastwood a debt of thanks. Not only because it was truly a hilarious twelve minutes of improvised "awesome" in a week of scripted "blah".
But because it advanced our understanding.
This president has issues, and there are very legitimate debates about his policies and actions, and successes and or failures as president - I mean, tune in next week. But I could never wrap my head around why the world, and the president republicans describe, bears so little resemblance to the world and the president that I experience. And now I know why :
There is a president Obama that only republicans can see — Jon Stewart

The master does his job and then stops. He understands that the universe is forever out of control, and that trying to dominate events goes against the current of the Tao. — Laozi

Is this a book club? How do they join? Do they ever pay? These are the things I ask myself when I sit here alone, after Tyndall or Lapin or Fedorov has left. Tyndall is probably the weirdest, but they're all pretty weird: all graying, single-minded, seemingly imported from some other time or place. There are no iPhones. There's no mention of current events or pop culture or anything, really, other than the books. I definitely think of them as a club, though I have no evidence that they know one another. Each comes in alone and never says a word about anything other than the object of his or her current, frantic fascination. — Robin Sloan

Indeed, he [Augustine] wrote, what we call three tenses are only one. Past, present, and future don't exist per se; they are all present in the mind - in our current memory of past events, in our current attention to the present, and in our current expectation of what's to come. "There are three tenses or times: the present of past things, the present of present things, and the present of future things". — Alan Burdick

Because history became his (Keenan's) genuine passion, he tended to see the world in terms of deep historical forces that, in his mind, formed a nation's character in ways almost beyond the consciousness of the men who momentarily governed it, as if these historical impulses were more a part of them than they knew. — David Halberstam

When I am working on a painting, everything that I am thinking about at the time be it current events, the books I am reading, personal events, influences, emotions, etc. all find their way into my work. — Ali Banisadr

I do not read newspapers. I do not watch television. I am not interested in current events, although I will occasionally discuss them if other people want to discuss them. — Diane Wakoski

All citizens need to arm themselves with a basic knowledge of American history and stay abreast of current events, analyzing them with respect to history. Knowledge is power and at a time when the people are becoming increasingly impotent while the government grows larger and more powerful, it is vital that we arm ourselves with knowledge. — Ben Carson

All power is of one kind, a sharing of the nature of the world. The mind that is parallel with the laws of nature will be in the current of events, and strong with their strength. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

To dismiss the current extinction wave on the grounds that extinctions are normal events is like ignoring a genocidal massacre on the grounds that every human is bound to die at some time anyway. — Jared Diamond

To view current events as a historian is to account for all perspectives, even those of your enemy — R.A. Salvatore

I talk about any number of things on my Facebook space. Politics. Current events. The writing life. The latest tempests in a teapot centering on fandom. Daily doings from my own life. My cats, for crying out loud. Flights of humorous fantasy. Books, both those I've read and those I've written. Movies. And occasionally, TV shows. — Adam-Troy Castro

Emme and Deck talked as well as argued all the time about politics, current events, historical events, whatever. The good-natured arguing that got your heart pumping, made you think, made you listen, made you feel just that bit more alive. Elsbeth — Kristen Ashley

The Engineer smiled (internally, for of course it had no mouth). It was feeling good. It was feeling optimistic. Moving at its current speed, it would arrive back in Ireland in plenty of time to shut everything down before a series of overloads and power loops inevitably led to a sequence of events which would, in turn, eventually lead to the probable destruction of the world. The Engineer wasn't worried.
And then the truck hit it. — Derek Landy

I'm fascinated about how past events shape our perception of current events and how they make us the people we are. — Maggie Stiefvater

Bond is the longest-running franchise ever and there's a reason for that: they are action movies but they are also touched by current events without being political or too serious. — Javier Bardem

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away. — Marcus Aurelius

Give me a small intimate gathering of five people, a dinner party, where one-on-one conversations can be had, where people talk about current events, good books, good food, and weird news. That was my idea of a good time. — Penny Reid

Time is a river, a violent current of events, glimpsed once and already carried past us, and another follows and is gone. — Marcus Aurelius

We didn't have a TV in the living room and all my friends thought we were kind of weird. When they'd come over, my mom wanted to talk to them about current events. — Eliza Dushku

The rules of the betting are intelligent: recent events and the current context have the most weight in determining an interpretation. When no recent event comes to mind, more distant memories govern. — Daniel Kahneman

A life path may change because of important decisions or events. Those were what drove my current path.
But sometimes the smallest event can also drive a turn. In the case of Eli Vanto, that force was a single, overheard word.
Chiss. Where had Cadet Vanto heard that name? What did it mean to him? He had already spoken one reason, but there might well be others. Indeed, the full truth might have several layers. But what were they?
On a ship as large as this, there was only one practical way to find out.
Thus did my path take yet another turn. As, certainly, did his. — Timothy Zahn

Well, our concern has to do with the period prior to 9/11, up to and including the catastrophe that occurred. And thank goodness, we're not obliged to make assessments of what's going on now and deal with these current events. — Richard Ben-Veniste

[Footnote:]Each male has from 2 to 790 females with whom he discusses current events. Of these he marries from 3 to 17. — Will Cuppy

9/11/01
Gina:
Especially today, with the enormity of current events, I want to convey to you again, how much you mean to me and how proud I am to be your husband. The hard work that you are engaged in right now is exhausting, invisible and largely thankless in the short term.
But honey, please know that buried at the core of this tedium is the most noble and important work in the world- God's work; the fruits of which you and I will be lucky enough to enjoy as we grow old together. Watching these little guys grow into men is a privilege that I am proud to share with you, and the perfect fulfillment of our marriage bonds.
You are a great mom.
You are a great wife.
You are my best friend.
You are very pretty.
Happy Birthday.

-Matt — Michael Spehn

The answer is that there are two varieties of rare events: a) the narrated Black Swans, those that are present in the current discourse and that you are likely to hear about on television, and b) those nobody talks about, since they escape models - those that you would feel ashamed discussing in public because they do not seem plausible. I — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

What is good about America is all our doing; what is not is all our fault. — Christopher Holshek

Yeah, I don't deal with current events or pop culture, and I avoid politics like the plague. — Max Cannon

2. The Book of Revelation. Does the book of Revelation give us a blueprint of coming world turmoil (the futurist position)? Or have some of the events in Revelation already taken place throughout church history, with some still to come (the historicist or historical approach)? Or does Revelation report events that were current at the time of writing but are now completed (the preterist view)? Or does Revelation speak in a timeless, symbolic way of the life of the church between the comings of Christ (the symbolic or idealist view)? Or is some combination — Robert L. Plummer

Three days a week she helped at the Manor Nursing Home, where people proved their keenness by reciting received analyses of current events. All the Manor residents watched television day and night, informed to the eyeballs like everyone else and rushed for time, toward what end no one asked. Their cupidity and self-love were no worse than anyone else's, but their many experiences' having taught them so little irked Lou. One hated tourists, another southerners; another despised immigrants. Even dying, they still held themselves in highest regard. Lou would have to watch herself. For this way of thinking began to look like human nature
as if each person of two or three billion would spend his last vital drop to sustain his self-importance. — Annie Dillard

Is your Christianity ancient history
or current events? — Sam Shoemaker

I've always wanted to do more significant stuff. I think of myself as well-informed, but the hardest thing to do is talk about politics and current events and be funny and not just preachy. — Gary Gulman

With comedy, the jokes will come out, and people will see them coming. Changes in daily life or current events can change the consciousness of audiences and can make the show less funny or feel more stale. — Robert Lopez

I'm very lucky, because my beat is current events. And events are changing all the time. — Rick Mercer

In these times there is a powerful demarcation between the surface and the deep currents of human development. Events and upheavals, which seem more profound than they really are, are happening on the surface. But there is another and deeper change in progress. It is of long, steady persistent growth, very little affected and not at all disturbed by surface conditions. The artist of today should be alive to this deeper evolution on which all growth depends, has depended and will depend. On the surface there is the battle of institutions, the illustration of events, the strife between peoples. On the surface there is propaganda and there is the effort to force opinions. The deeper current carries no propaganda. The shock of the surface upheaval does not deflect it from its course. It is in search of fundamental principle; that basic principle of all, which in degree as it is apprehended points the way to beauty and order, and to the law of nature. — Robert Henri

Why shouldn't rap be esoteric, able to take in current events, history and criticism? I guess it's this old idea of containment - that rappers, because they're black, can't and shouldn't aspire to look outside the ghetto for influence. — Saul Williams

In this hour, Siddhartha stopped fighting his fate, stopped suffering. On his face flourished the cheerfulness of a knowledge, which is no longer opposed by any will, which knows perfection, which is in agreement with the flow of events, with the current of life, full of sympathy for the pain of others, full of sympathy for the pleasure of others, devoted to the flow, belonging to the oneness. — Hermann Hesse

Even to current-events junkies, the notion of a 24-hour news channel sounded like a gimmick when the Cable News Network launched more than 30 years ago. — Steve Erickson

Heroic poetry tends in its simplest form to be concerned with immediate events and local heroes. A certain length of tradition is required before the epic poem, telling the story of the hero, becomes current. Heroic poetry assumes that the audience knew what the outcome of the battle was, and is concerned with individual feats; the context is of little importance. Epic poems only become attractive as a form when the audience needs to be told who the heroes were. — Richard Barber

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. — Robert F. Kennedy

From all these friends, I could not escape learning some of the statistics that I preferred not to know. Forty-one people at the mall had been wounded. Nineteen had died.
Everyone said it was a miracle that only nineteen perished.
What has gone wrong with our world when nineteen dead can seem like any kind of miracle? — Dean Koontz

Time if the inner form of animal sense that animates events-the still frames-of the spatial world. The mind animates the world like the motor and gears of a projector. Each weaves a series of still pictures-a series of spatial states-into an order, into the 'current' of life. Motion is created in our minds by running "film cells" together. Remember that everything you perceive-even this page-is actively, repeatedly, being constructed inside your head. It's happening to you right now. Your eyes cannot see through the wall of the cranium; all experience including visual experience is an organized whirl of information in your brain. If your mind could stop its "motor" for a moment, you'd get a freeze frame, just as the movie projector isolated the arrow in one position with no momentum. In fact, time can be defined as the inner summation of spatial states. — Robert Lanza

Discovering various economists, economic works, reading financial periodicals and keeping up on current events in geopolitics and economics around the world opened my eyes to many facets of how the extended order works. — Kurt Bills

Issues of power, control, energy fuels, and political strength have become key themes in our current events. We have come a long way from iron spearheads to nuclear warheads, yet the disease of power used for control and domination has remained. — Anodea Judith

Wisdom is looking at life from God's point of view. You look at life's difficulties and tests as God looks at them. You look at family life and child rearing as God looks at them. You interpret current events as God would interpret them. You see the truth even though all around you are deception and lies. — Charles R. Swindoll

It's not her fault she can't cook."
"You are too nice natured, darling. You won't get anywhere in this world being kind and generous. You must turn into a lioness like me and gobble up people who disagree with you."
"I'm not very good at gobbling," I said. "And I want to like people, and be liked by them."
She sighed. "The sooner you get married and have babies to adore the better. — Rhys Bowen

An important book for understanding the history of our economic boom & bust cycles. It's an eye-opening account of how we are repeating the mistakes of the 1760's, 1850's, and 1920's. The author is a brilliant writer and is so good at explaining even the most complex subjects in a compelling & easy to understand way. The next crash will be painful but it's important to understand what is being done to us, and how we can learn from history and take action. — Thom Hartmann

To me, the real 'state of the union' is found in how Americans react to current events. — Henry Rollins

Dogs need to sniff the ground; it's how they keep abreast of current events. The ground is a giant dog newspaper, containing all kinds of late-breaking dog news items, which, if they are especially urgent, are often continued in the next yard. — Dave Barry

Also unfortunately, Congress is far too busy asking if baseball players are really as strong as they seem and trying to choke bankers with wads of cash to grant more funds to such trifling matters as the avoidance of space bullets, so they won't give NASA the money — Robert Brockway

It turns out that one can perpetrate all manner of heinous villainy under a cloak of courtesy and good cheer ... a man will forfeit all sensible self-interest if he finds you affable enough to share your company over a flagon of ale. — Christopher Moore