May Lamberton Becker Quotes & Sayings

She [Joni Mitchell] wanted to have that (jazz) element in her music. Of course, when she heard Jaco's [Jaco Pastorius'] music and met him, that floored her
really grabbed her. She decided that Wayne Shorter was really conducive to her music. She would speak metaphorically about things. "I want this to sound like a taxicab driver, or a taxi in New York," or "I want this to sound like a telephone ringing." She would speak to musicians like that, and we really tuned into what she would want our music to be. — Don Alias

He'd shoved his toque and mitts into the sleeve of his parka when he'd come in the night before, and now, thrusting his right arm into the armhole, he hit the blockage. At a practiced shove the pompom of the toque crowned the cuff followed by his mitts, like a tiny birth. — Louise Penny

Quantity is not necessarily synonymous with quality and brilliant ideas are not a function of the number of titles printed. — Carlo M. Cipolla

According to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible ... The essence of perestroika lies in the fact that it unites socialism with democracy and revives the Leninist concept of socialist construction both in theory and in practice. We want more socialism and, therefore, more democracy. — Mikhail Gorbachev

If capitalist realism is so seamless, and if current forms of resistance are so hopeless and impotent, where can an effective challenge come from? A moral critique of capitalism, emphasizing the ways in which it leads to suffering, only reinforces capitalist realism. Poverty, famine and war can be presented as an inevitable part of reality, while the hope that these forms of suffering could be eliminated easily painted as naive utopianism. Capitalist realism can only be threatened if it is shown to be in some way inconsistent or untenable; if, that is to say, capitalism's ostensible 'realism' turns out to be nothing of the sort. — Mark Fisher

I never had a conscious fear of death, but I did have a conscious fear of sickness. By the time I completed medical school, that fear was gone. — Sherwin B. Nuland

Like infants, when they are born into the world, God's children are not born again in the full possession of their spiritual faculties; and it is well and wisely ordered that it is so. What we win easily, we seldom value sufficiently. The very fact that believers have to struggle and fight hard before they get hold of real soundness in the faith, helps to make them prize it more when they have attained it. The truths that cost us a battle are precisely those which we grasp most firmly, and never let go. — J.C. Ryle

I do not have any political commitments anymore. I'm politically a total agnostic; I'm one of the few writers in Italy who refuses to be identified with a specific political party. — Italo Calvino

First, it was some students who were for free sex and against the Vietnam War. As far as that went, this was OK with the president because students will always find something to complain about. But — Jonas Jonasson

I go on the presumption that everyone's full of shit until proven otherwise, and this usually serves me in good stead. — Dennis Lehane

Yes, I once was the toast of two continents! ( ... Greenland & Australia). — Dorothy Parker

most. If I could be alone, I would. Gratefully. I'd rather be alone than have to pretend I'm okay. But they won't give me that option. So I'll settle for being with someone who at least doesn't love me as much. I'm thankful for Margot. Not that I tell her this. Not that I tell her anything. I don't. — Katja Millay

Don't argue: you will lose, and even if you win, you lose. — Irvin D. Yalom

And you know what people immediately start looking for, five minutes after they arrive someplace new? You know what's on their minds? I'll tell you: How are they gonna get laid, and where are they gonna find some mind-altering substances. — Michel Faber

Cinderella had to dress up so that the Prince could see her inner beauty. — Ljupka Cvetanova