Quotes & Sayings About Explosives

Alfred Nobel's discoveries are characteristic; powerful explosives can help men perform admirable tasks. They are also a means to terrible destruction in the hands of the great criminals who lead peoples to war. — Pierre Curie

There are very few personal problems that can't be solved with a suitable application of high explosives. — Darynda Jones

Semtex, PE4, C-4, Plastrite, Netrolit, Spring Korper, Rowanex
Cono felt slightly shameful about his familiarity with plastics, and yet seeing them here, even so amateurishly arranged, gave him a perverse comfort. — Victor Robert Lee

To be totally honest? I don't know if I'll keep doing more impressions. People told me I had a facility for it, and I was like, 'Okay, I'm the impression guy.' So you imagine the cast at 'SNL' is an A-Team, and you've got the explosives guy, and I'm the impression guy. — Bill Hader

Who wants to read a book when you can blow something up? — Rick Yancey

The leaders were less willing to fight. It is always the young and impressionable who strap on the explosives and blow themselves up. — Mark Owen

They [politicians] have defined the war simply in terms of the detonation of explosives. When you look at the broader picture, America is mired in two wars that we're losing at the moment. We have a political environment that is as poisonous as anything I've seen, at least since the end of Vietnam. — Michael Scheuer

The most striking impression was that of an overwhelming bright light. I had seen under similar conditions the explosion of a large amount - 100 tons - of normal explosives in the April test, and I was flabbergasted by the new spectacle. We saw the whole sky flash with unbelievable brightness in spite of the very dark glasses we wore. Our eyes were accommodated to darkness, and thus even if the sudden light had been only normal daylight it would have appeared to us much brighter than usual, but we know from measurements that the flash of the bomb was many times brighter than the sun. In a fraction of a second, at our distance, one received enough light to produce a sunburn. I was near Fermi at the time of the explosion, but I do not remember what we said, if anything. I believe that for a moment I thought the explosion might set fire to the atmosphere and thus finish the earth, even though I knew that this was not possible. — Emilio Segre

Hermes and I sat in the back of the delivery truck on a couple of boxes labeled TOXIC SERPENTS. THIS END UP. Maybe that wasn't the best place to sit, but it was better than some of his other deliveries, which were labeled EXPLOSIVES, DO NOT SIT ON, and DRAKON EGGS, DO NOT STORE NEAR EXPLOSIVES. — Rick Riordan

Where's Hauk?"
"I'm right here."
"Not you, Fain. My wingman."
"He's in the hallway. You know how he is about explosives."
"Yeah, I do, which is why I asked. Send him on a bullshit and long errand across the station. We don't want Grandma freaking out on us."
-Darling & Fain — Sherrilyn Kenyon

What are wanted ... are not Constitutions and Revolutions, nor all sorts of Conferences and Congresses, nor the many ingenious devices for submarine navigation and aerial navigation, nor powerful explosives, nor all sorts of conveniences to add to the enjoyment of the rich, ruling classes ... but one thing only is needful: the knowledge of the simple and clear truth ... that for our life one law is valid - the law of love, which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well as to all mankind. — Leo Tolstoy

After the revolution of 1979, Iran embarked on a policy of sectarianism. Iran began a policy of expanding its revolution, of interfering with the affairs of its neighbors, a policy of assassinating diplomats and of attacking embassies. Iran is responsible for a number of terrorist attacks in the Kingdom, it is responsible for smuggling explosives and drugs into Saudi Arabia. And Iran is responsible for setting up sectarian militias in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen, whose objective is to destabilize those countries. — Adel Al-Jubeir

There is a peculiar burning odor in the room, like explosives. the kitchen fills with smoke and the hot, sweet, ashy smell of scorched cookies. The war has begun. — Alison Lurie

When something explosive is kept hidden away, a tension builds within that must ultimately be released. — Orhan Pamuk

Last night the United States dropped four 2,000 pound bombs on Saddam Hussein. I don't know anything about explosives, but, my God, do those things even need to explode? — David Letterman

My ears were mostly gone from the concussion of the explosives and shotguns, — Faith Hunter

But something doesn't feel right. My mind is attempting sabotage, refusing to find the beauty, the fun, the exciting in watching what are essentially pretty explosives. — Louise Gornall

Okay. Morality in a nutshell. Don't hurt people if you can avoid it. Don't steal stuff unless you're starving or it's really, really important. Work hard. Pay your bills. Try to help others. Always double-check your math if there are explosives involved. If you screwed it up, you need to see it gets fixed. And don't eat anything that talks. If it doesn't fall under one of those categories, just do the best you can. — Ursula Vernon

Words Matter
What people write and say affects others. Don't believe me? Consider these examples.
--Jihadists persuade everyday people to strap explosives to themselves and wreak havoc in public places.
--Words start wars and end marriages.
Words matter. — Fedora Amis

About five, six FBI agents walked into the courthouse and arrested me. They said I was being arrested for distribution of information related to explosives over the Internet. — Sherman Austin

The most lethal of manmade explosives can't touch it. Stand in awe not of Communism, my idiot child, but of ordinary, everyday loneliness. On May Day go out and march with your friends to its greater glory, the superpower of superpowers. — Philip Roth

Today, we will hear from federal law enforcement agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, who will discuss the problem of ELF and ALF and law enforcement's reaction to their dangerous and destructive tactics. It is these tactics, particularly the widespread use of arson, which makes ELF and ALF the #1 domestic terror concern over the likes of white supremacists, militias, and anti-abortion groups. — James Inhofe

The Bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives. — William D. Leahy

A demonic horde. Upended sacks of beans. A hundred broken rosaries. There are a thousand metaphors and all of them are inadequate: forty bombs per aircraft, four hundred and eighty altogether, seventy-two thousand pounds of explosives. — Anthony Doerr

I opened a writing app and began typing what I knew about Pierce.
Vain. Terminal fear of T-shirts or any other garment that would cover his pectorals.
Deadly. Doesn't hesitate to kill. Holding him at gunpoint would result in me being barbecued. Whee.
Likes burning things. Now here's an understatement. Good information to have, but not useful for finding him.
Antigovernment. Neither here nor there.
Hmm. So far my best plan would be to build a mountain of gasoline cans and explosives, stick a Property of US Government sign on it, and throw a T-shirt over Pierce's head when he showed up to explode it. Yes, this would totally work. — Ilona Andrews

Andre had never mastered the art of ironing. He usually ironed more wrinkles in than out. Pistols, knives, and explosives he could handle, but put a hot iron in his hands and chances were that he'd get hurt. — Toby Joyce

In 1945, there were more people killed, more buildings destroyed, more high explosives set off, more fires burning than before or since. — Stephen Ambrose

[Christopher:] You cannot conceive of the quantity of explosives the armies throw at each other for each man killed! The shells make a continuous noise, sometimes like an enormous machine breaking apart. At other times, they come whistling towards you in a thoughtful sort of way and then go crump and the screw cap flies off, hurtling through the air, screaming. There's a kind of shell which comes with a crescendo like an express train, only faster. Another kind which makes a noise like tearing calico, louder and louder. The largest kind are the ones which burst in the sky and make a double crack, like a wet canvas being shaken out by a giant. Such immense explosions to kill such small, weak animals. — Tom Stoppard

Skulduggery: You won't want to move any sudden moves until we reach the road - I'll know if you crazy kids disturbs the air around the nice bag of explosives
Valkyrie: Blow it up
Skulduggery: Can't do that
Valkyrie: Why not?
Skulduggery: Not a bomb. It's a bag with collapsible jacks; for changin tyres
Valkryie: What about the remote?
Skulduggery: It opens my garage door. Don't tell them, but it doesn't even have any batteries in it — Derek Landy

This is what entertainment is all about- idiots, explosives and falling anvils. — John Calvin

She considers pit traps and high explosives the appropriate solution to almost every problem. — Seanan McGuire

At the height of Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons program, which nearly succeeded in building a bomb in 1991, Tuwaitha incorporated research reactors, uranium mining and enrichment facilities, chemical engineering plants and an explosives fabrication center to build the device that detonates a nuclear core. — Barton Gellman

If anyone wants a hole in the ground, nuclear explosives can make big holes — Edward Teller

It was called the Reclaim Guide. It was just a general protest guide that went over security culture and stuff like that. A small portion of that guide dealt with explosives information. — Sherman Austin

May there not be methods of using explosive energy incomparably more intense than anything heretofore discovered? Might not a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings-nay, to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke? Could not explosives even of the existing type be guided automatically in flying machines by wireless or other rays, without a human pilot, in ceaseless procession upon a hostile city, arsenal, camp or dockyard? — Winston Churchill

The mechanic had laid out two suits of their Martian-made light combat armour, a number of rifles and shotguns, and stacks of ammunition and explosives.
"What," Holden said, "is all this?"
"You said to gear up for the drop."
"I meant, like, underwear and toothbrushes. — James S.A. Corey

ONE I GO CRUISING WITH EXPLOSIVES — Rick Riordan

At dusk, Wakefield "had my most important thought that day." Wading into chest-deep water at first light that morning, "I found that my legs would hardly hold me up. I thought I was a coward." Then he had discovered that his sea bags with their explosives had filled with water and he was carrying well over 100 pounds. He had used his knife to cut the bags and dump the water, then moved on to do his job. "When I had thought for a moment that I wasn't going to be able to do it, that I was a coward, and then found out that I could do it, you can't imagine how great a feeling that was. Just finding out, yes, I could do what I had volunteered to do. — Stephen E. Ambrose

It's hard for people to get their hands around fame, because it's heady stuff, and you have to look at it as being dangerous explosives, and you have to handle it with care. — George Hamilton

We never announced a scorched-earth policy; we never announced any policy at all, apart from finding and destroying the enemy, and we proceeded in the most obvious way. We used what was at hand, dropping the greatest volume of explosives in the history of warfare over all the terrain within the thirty-mile sector which fanned out from Khe Sanh. Employing saturation-bombing techniques, we delivered more than 110,000 tons of bombs to those hills during the eleven-week containment of Khe Sanh. — Michael Herr

Hellfire missiles, the explosives fired from drones, are not always fired at people. In fact most drone strikes are aimed at phones. The SIM card provides a person's location; when turned on, a phone can become a deadly proxy for the individual being hunted. When a night raid or drone strike successfully neutralizes a target's phone, operators call that a touchdown. — Jeremy Scahill

It can even be thought that radium could become very dangerous in criminal hands, and here the question can be raised whether mankind benefits from knowing the secrets of Nature, whether it is ready to profit from it or whether this knowledge will not be harmful for it. The example of the discoveries of Nobel is characteristic, as powerful explosives have enabled man to do wonderful work. They are also a terrible means of destruction in the hands of great criminals who lead the peoples towards war. I am one of those who believe with Nobel that mankind will derive more good than harm from the new discoveries. — Pierre Curie

Hauk:tell me again why i can't kill him?
Nykyrian: you're afraid of handling explosives
( Born of night, sherrilyn Kenyon) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I'm in my 60s now, and just running almost 50 meters with explosives going on, it was kind of like, "Oh, my god! What am I doing here?" — Antonio Banderas

Flammable. An oddity, chiefly useful in saving lives. The common word meaning "combustible" is inflammable. But some people are thrown off by the in- and think inflammable means "not combustible." For this reason, trucks carrying gasoline or explosives are now marked FLAMMABLE. Unless you are operating such a truck and hence are concerned with the safety of children and illiterates, use inflammable. — E.B. White

The earth is parched and cracked. Men and women come together like broods of vultures over a stinking carcass, to mate and fly apart again. Vultures who drop from the clouds like heavy stones. Talons and beak, that's what we are! A huge intestinal apparatus with a nose for dead meat. Forward! Forward without pity, without compassion, without love, without forgiveness. Ask no quarter and give none! More battleships, more poison gas, more high explosives! More gonococci! More streptococci! More bombing machines! More and more of it
until the whole fucking works is blown to smithereens, and the earth with it! — Henry Miller

You know, Dar, there's no problem so big that an adequate supply of explosives can't cure it. There was that. But people tended to protest being blown up. Bunch of krikken weirdos. He — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I have known you for an entire year now, Lord Waxillium," Steris said. "I can accept you for who you are, but I am under no illusions. Something will happen at our wedding. A villain will burst in, guns firing. Or we'll discover explosives in the altar. Or Father Bin will inexplicably turn out to be an old enemy and attempt to murder you instead of performing the ceremony. It will happen. I'm merely trying to prepare for it." "You're serious, aren't you?" Wax asked, smiling. "You're actually thinking of inviting one of my enemies so you can plan for a disruption." "I've sorted them by threat level and ease of access," Steris said, shuffling through her papers. — Brandon Sanderson

The profession of magician, is one of the most perilous and arduous specializations of the imagination. On the one hand there is the hostility of God and the police to be guarded against; on the other it is as difficult as music, as deep as poetry, as ingenious as stage-craft, as nervous as the manufacture of high explosives, and as delicate as the trade in narcotics. — William Bolitho

I lay on my back, surprised at how calm and focused I felt, strapped to four and a half million pounds of explosives. — Ron Garan

Saturday, December 12, 8 p.m., the Loft
I WILL PASS ALGEBRA THIS SEMESTER, and NOTHING IS GOING TO DISTRACT ME FROM STUDYING FOR THE FINAL!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, December 12, 9 p.m., the Loft
I just had to go out and see the part where Bruce Willis throws the explosives down the elevator shaft, but now I am back to work. — Meg Cabot

Jesper struck a match and one, two, three, four, five of the rockets Wylan had prepared were screaming toward the sky, exploding in crackling bursts of color. The last was a shimmer of pink. Strontium chloride, Wylan had told him, working away on his collection of fireworks and explosives, flash bombs, weevils, and whatever else was needed. In the dark, it burns red.
Things are always more interesting in the dark, Jesper had replied. He hadn't been able to help it. Really, if the merchling was going to offer those kinds of opportunities, he had a duty to take them. — Leigh Bardugo

Swords, Lances, arrows, machine guns, and even high explosives have had far less power over the fates of nations than the typhus louse, the plague flea, and the yellow-fever mosquito. Civilizations have retreated from the plasmodium of malaria, and armies have crumbled into rabbles under the onslaught of cholera spirilla, or of dysentery and typhoid bacilli. Huge areas have bee devastated by the trypanosome that travels on the wings of the tsetse fly, and generations have been harassed by the syphilis of a courtier. War and conquest and that herd existence which is an accompaniment of what we call civilization have merely set the stage for these more powerful agents of human tragedy. — Hans Zinsser

Innumerable entirely new compounds have been produced in the last century. The artificial dye-stuffs, prepared from materials occurring in coal-tar, make the natural colours blush. Saccharin, which is hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, is a purely artificial substance. New explosives, drugs, alloys, photographic substances, essences, scents, solvents, and detergents are being poured out in a continuous stream. — Frederick Soddy

Psychology is a soft weapon but you can take out
more enemy battalions with leaflets and radio broadcasts than with high explosives. — Nelson DeMille

example. Every effort to get the Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations even to consider our denunciations was fruitless. We sent that organization detailed information about the tortures, the murders, the plans to blow us up with the explosives installed in the Circulars, but it did nothing. The prestigious Commission on Human Rights had deaf ears and blind eyes for what was happening in the Cuban political prisons. — Armando Valladares

Okeydokey," I said to myself. "Provisions, check. Clothes, check. Enough explosives to pose a legitimate threat to multiple small countries-" I eyed the duffel bags that Gazzy and Iggy had packed- "check. — James Patterson

When I'd begun my last relationship, nearly two decades ago, I'd been unaware of the rule that new lovers must hoard the 'L Word' the way atomic nations hoard their explosives, like something that, once detonated, would change their world forever. — Anya Ulinich

All that had been trivial, that had been comforting and familiar and safe, now seemed to be strapped with explosives. — Louise Penny

The U.S. dropped more high explosives on Vietnam than the Allies used on Germany and Japan together in the Second World War. — Nick Davies

The Internet doesn't like you to learn too much about explosives. — John Updike

The Occidental snobbery which is invading us, the gunboats, rapid-fire guns, long-range rifles, explosives ... what else? Everything which makes death collective, administrative and bureaucratic - all the filth of your progress, in fact - is destroying, little by little, our beautiful traditions of the past. — Octave Mirbeau

My god! It's a hamster with explosives taped around it's waist! — Colin Mochrie

Living in a bookshop is like living in a warehouse of explosives. Those shelves are ranked with the most furious combustibles in the world
the brains of men. — Christopher Morley

The only one disappointed by the ease of entry was the team's explosives and demolitions expert. "Aw, man," Kowalski groused. "I was all set to blow some crap up. — James Rollins

What we're going to see is the emergence of the lone wolf rather than the planning of large numbers of people to carry out large attacks ... Explosives are getting more sophisticated. — Dianne Feinstein

For me, the most ironic token of [the first human moon landing] is the plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to the moon. It reads, 'We came in peace for all Mankind.' As the United States was dropping seven and a half megatons of conventional explosives on small nations in Southeast Asia, we congratulated ourselves on our humanity. We would harm no one on a lifeless rock. — Carl Sagan

Funny how easily you could look this shit up online. Explosives, bombs, Molotov cocktails, IEDs . . . anything you wanted. Learning how to blow someone up was easier than buying a frigging beer. — Lauren Oliver

Is Darling still awake?" She stepped back so that he could see Ryn. "He is." Hauk headed for the bed. "Fain sent me a note about what's going on with the locals. I'm here with backup." Darling growled. "Not helpless, people." "Not people, human," Hauk said in an exasperated tone. Darling made an obscene gesture at him. "I thought I got rid of you when I left the hospital." Hauk clutched his chest as if those words wounded him. "Aww now, Dar, you're going to hurt my feelings." "You don't have feelings." "True. Just think of me like a bad STD. I always show up at the worst time." He glanced back at Zarya. "So much for your hot date, huh?" Darling groaned. "You are ever a pain in my ass, Hauk. Should I reset the timers on my explosives in the city? Might give the Resistance pause if they think I'm going to take them or their families with me." Ryn — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I admire one to my left, the bronze sun is behind him as he falls, silhouetting him, immortalizing him in that singular moment - one I know I shall never forget - so that he looks like a Miltonian angel falling with wrath and glory. His exoskeleton sheds its friction armor, as Lucifer might have shed the fetters of heaven, feathers of flame peeling off, fluttering behind. Then a missile slashes the sky and high-grade explosives christen him mortal once again. — Pierce Brown

The phrase surgical strike might be more acceptable if it were common practice to perform surgery with high explosives. — George Carlin

The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches. — Eric Hoffer

In Southern West Virginia we live in a war zone. Three and one-half million pounds of explosives are being used every day to blow up the mountains. Blasting our communities, blasting our homes, poisoning us, trying to intimidate us. I don't mind being poor. I mind being blasted and poisoned. There ARE no jobs on a dead planet. — Judy Bonds

Unbelievable. I'm in a fucking Outside Context situation, the ship thought, and suddenly felt as stupid and dumb-struck as any muddy savage confronted with explosives or electricity. — Iain M. Banks

Plans change, Iktomi said. Got a plan that doesn't require explosives.

Are you confident in that? Mangas asked.

I'm a god, Iktomi replied. I'm always confident.

I'm a human, Mangas thought, and we know shit happens. — Brandon Nolta

So slow is moral progress. True, we have the bicycle, the motor-car, the dirigible airship and other marvellous means of breaking our bones; but our morality is not one rung the higher for it all. One would even say that, the farther we proceed in our conquest of matter, the more our morality recedes. The most advanced of our inventions consists in bringing men down with grapeshot and explosives with the swiftness of the reaper mowing the corn. — Jean-Henri Fabre

We should note that almost every technological transformation of consequence has taken place under Western auspices - if not Western in the strict geographical sense, then Western in the notion of a cultural landscape shaped by free thought and the chance for profit. Even non-Western innovations, like stirrups and gunpowder, have been quickly modified and improved by Western militaries. Jet fighters, GPS-guided bombs, and laser-guided munitions are all products of Western expertise. Even the jihadists' most innovative and lethal weapons - improvised explosive devices and suicide belts - are cobbled together from Western-designed explosives and electronics. — Victor Davis Hanson

There is explosive power in virtue. — Corrie Ten Boom

Remember, as a responsible junior scientist, you must exercise caution before you ignite your gunpowder," the warning sternly cautioned.

Duly noted, sir. So let's get busy making explosives. — Rick Garvia

a breakaway backhander that went top shelf over Flyer goalie Ron Hextall and showed that he had some sweet sauce in his mitts and not just C4 explosives. The — Todd Smith

I do believe that it's the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics that World Trade Center tower 7-building 7, which collapsed in on itself-it is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved. World Trade Center 7. World Trade [Center] 1 and 2 got hit by planes-7, miraculously, the first time in history, steel was melted by fire. It is physically impossible. — Rosie O'Donnell

a collection that included, among other items, an Allen wrench set, some pliers, a power drill, several clamps, some hacksaws, an impact-wrench set, a brace of cold-tolerant bungie cords, assorted files and rasps and planes, a crescent-wrench set, a crimper, five hammers, some hemostats, three hydraulic jacks, a bellows, several sets of screwdrivers, drills and bits, a portable compressed gas cylinder, a box of plastic explosives and shape charges, a tape measure, a giant Swiss Army knife, tin snips, tongs, tweezers, three vises, a wire stripper, X-acto knives, a pick, a bunch of mallets, a nut driver set, hose clamps, a set of end mills, a set of jeweler's screwdrivers, a magnifying glass, all kinds of tape, a plumber's bob and ream, a sewing kit, scissors, sieves, a lathe, levels of all sizes, long-nosed pliers, vise-grip pliers, a tap-and-die set, three shovels, a compressor, a generator, a welding-and-cutting set, a wheelbarrow - and so on. And — Kim Stanley Robinson

People are cruel. They like to kill. It's the war that has taught them that. And there are explosives lying around everywhere — Agota Kristof

But mining is also an intellectual exercise, requiring the combined skills of a plumber, a carpenter, and an electrician as well as an explosives expert. You had to be able to judge the load strength of a beam or the friability of rock at a glance and do instant calculations in your head, because one false step or misplaced stick of dynamite could blow you into body parts or at least send a few digits flying off on their own. So this was the mental procedure, which even a little girl could learn: First, size up the situation. Make sure you have all the facts, and nothing but the facts - no folklore, no conventional wisdom, no lazy assumptions. Then examine the facts for patterns and connections. Make a prediction. See if it works. And if it doesn't work, start all over again. — Barbara Ehrenreich

The news today about 'Atomic bombs' is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world! Such explosives in men's hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope 'this will ensure peace'. But one good thing may arise out of it, I suppose, if the write-ups are not overheated: Japan ought to cave in. Well we're in God's hands. But He does not look kindly on Babel-builders. — J.R.R. Tolkien

In February, 1945, American bombers reduced this treasure to crushed stone and embers; disemboweled her with high-explosives and cremated her with incendiaries. The atom bomb may represent a fabulous advance, but it is interesting to note that primitive TNT and thermite managed to exterminate in one bloody night more people than died in the whole London blitz. — Kurt Vonnegut

How terribly easy it had turned out to be to transform naturally occurring uranium into hollow spheres of plutonium, pack the spheres with tritium and surround them with explosives and deuterium, and do it all in such miniature that the capacity to incinerate a million people could fit on the bed of Cody Flayner's pickup. — Jonathan Franzen

There is no natural phenomenon that is comparable with the sudden and apparently accidentally timed development of science, except perhaps the condensation of a super-saturated gas or the explosion of some unpredictable explosives. — Eugene Wigner

It's like having explosives on board 24/7, the way I feel. I can't believe when I touch things they don't blow to bits. I can't believe I was so way off.
I thought, I don't know, I thought wrong. — Jandy Nelson

The 4th of July combines the two things Americans love most in one day: alcohol and explosives. — David Letterman

The story of mountaintop mining - why it happens, and what its consequences are - is still new to most Americans. They have no idea that their country's physical legacy - the purple mountain majesties that are America - is being destroyed at the rate of several ridgetops a week, by three million pounds of explosives every day. — Michael Shnayerson

When the bomb doors are open and you're flying straight and steady over battery upon battery of radar guided guns with ten thousand pounds of explosives and two thousand gallons of high octane petrol exposed under your seat it feels like you're dangling a piece of raw red meat to a great white shark. That's how he once described the bomb run in a letter to his father. — Glenn Haybittle

You are all alike, you respectable people. You can't tell me the bursting strain of a ten-inch gun, which is a very simple matter;but you all think you can tell me the bursting strain of a man under temptation. You daren't handle high explosives; but you're all ready to handle honesty and truth and justice and the whole duty of man, and kill one another at that game. What a country! What a world! — George Bernard Shaw

I watched, for the 17th and hopefully the last time, The 'Guns of Navarone' on New Year's Eve. I always watch just in case the explosives don't go off in the end. You have to watch the end, just to make sure it's OK. — David Cameron

Yo, dumbass. What do you think she'd be doing with them? Giving them ballet lessons? (Darling) Tell me again why I can't kill him? (Hauk) You're afraid of handling explosives. (Nykyrian) One day I'm going to get over that and when I do ... (Hauk) I'll wisely stop annoying you. (Darling) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

You have to make something good. Just because all the hot actors show up and the money is there and the explosives are ready, it doesn't matter. — Steve Zahn

Increased and better screening for explosives is necessary - and Congress should fund it and TSA should implement it as quickly as possible - however that screening doesn't reduce the risk posed by a trained terrorist with an unconventional weapon. — Dave Reichert

Nationwide Manhunt After Explosives — Anonymous

THIS book is radioactive. And so are you. Unless you are dead, in which case we can tell how long ago you died by how much of your radioactivity is left. That's what radiocarbon dating is - the measurement of the reduction of radioactivity of old bones to deduce the time of death. Alcohol is radioactive too - at least the kind we drink. Rubbing alcohol usually isn't, unless it was made organically - that is, from wood. In fact, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tests wine, gin, whiskey, and vodka for radioactivity. A fifth of whiskey must emit at least 400 beta rays every minute or the drink is considered unfit for human consumption. Biofuels are radioactive. Fossil fuels are not. Of those killed by the Hiroshima atomic bomb, the best estimate is that fewer than 2% died of radiation-induced cancer. These statements are all true. They are not even disputed, at least by experts. Yet they surprise most people. — Richard A. Muller

We're seeing the development of tactics in Iraq, such as suicide bombing. Insurgents have been driving cars with explosives into hotels and office buildings. The recruitment may be even more prolific outside Iraq. — Rand Beers