Gethen Quotes & Sayings

Mother, monogamy, romance. High spurts the fountain; fierce and foamy the wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder those poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn't allow them to take things easily, didn't allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty - they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable? — Aldous Huxley

You get to a place where you do your job, and then you dust your hands off and say, 'Okay, my job is done. Now, it's in the stars. We'll see what happens.' There's nothing I can do to affect it. — Sam Huntington

It is a commonplace of American life that immigrants have made our country great and continue to make a very important contribution to the fabric of American life. But ... under the pressures we face today, we can't afford to lose control of our borders, or to take on new financial burdens, at a time when we are not adequately providing for the jobs, the health care, and the education of our own people. Therefore, immigration must be a priority for this administration. — William J. Clinton

The Law of Detachment: 1) Allow yourself and others the freedom to be who they are. 2) Do not force solutions - allow solutions to spontaneously emerge. 3) Uncertainty is essential, and you path to freedom. — Deepak Chopra

But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflection on human nature? — James Madison

Until then I had rejected him, refused him his own reality. He had been quite right to say that he, the only person on Gethen who trusted him, was the only Gethenian I distrusted. For he was the only one who had entirely accepted me as a human being: who had liked me personally and given met entire personal loyalty: and who therefore had demanded of me an equal degree of recognition, of acceptance. I had not been willing to give it. I had been afraid to give it. I had not wanted to give my trust, my friendship to a man who was a woman, a woman who was a man. — Ursula K. Le Guin

We can read a good spiritual book in search of information or in search of God. We will find only what we're looking for. — Ron Brackin

Rose worked and played so hard that kids all across the country - not just in Cincinnati - were emulating him on sandlots everywhere, proud to dirty their jerseys doing a headfirst "Pete Rose" dive into cardboard boxes used for bases ... whether they needed to slide or not. — Tucker Elliot

A sculptor is supposed to be a dull dog anyway, so why should he not break out in colour sometimes, and in my case I'd as soon be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. — Jacob Epstein

Gethen shouted threats as they left, but the warnings were as empty as his sandy cell. His final words to Keefe were the only ones with any impact. "You're choosing the wrong side, boy. You'll regret it when you see your mother's vision realized. But then it'll be too late. — Shannon Messenger

She loved him. She really did. And he knew it. and you can't leave a thing like that. — John Steinbeck

Chickens are true creatures of zen - they live only and absolutely for the moment. Their actions one particular second will not necessarily have any influence or bearing on their actions in the next second, nor are they necessarily influenced by their actions of the prior second. Chicken thoughts arrive in their tiny mad little minds like flashes of a strobe light, each light being an action, each flashing with the brilliance of a not very brilliant thing. Each action utterly random. The complete randomness of chaos. Chickens are notorious escape artists, not due to their ability to devise cunning plans as they huddle together in their coop beneath a bare light bulb, scratching out complex diagrams in the dirt, but simply out of sheet unpredictability. They are the pachinko balls of the animal kingdom, effecting their escapes through the simple device of, say, turning left for no particular reason. — Jeffery Russell

It's special, grandparents and grandchldren. So much simpler. Is it always so, I wonder? I think perhaps it is. While one's child takes a part of one's heart to use and misuse as they please, a grandchild is different. Gone are the bonds of guilt and responsibility that burden the maternal relationship. The way to love is free. — Kate Morton