Miernik Quotes & Sayings

The world breaks everyone or nearly everyone, of their childish illusions, assumptions and wishes, often painfully and afterwards due to the personal growth in practical experience, insight and the resulting wisdom many are strong at the broken places just like mended broken bones often are, and some people even have the great insight to be grateful for the purifying fire. — Ernest Hemingway,

The older America, until the 1890s and in some respects until 1914, was wrapped in the security of continental isolation, village society, the Protestant denominations, and a flourishing industrial capitalism. But reluctantly, year by year, over several decades, it has been drawn into the twentieth century and forced to cope with its unpleasant realities: first the incursions of cosmopolitanism and skepticism, then the disappearance of American isolation and easy military security, the collapse of traditional capitalism and its supplementation by a centralized welfare state, finally the unrelenting costs and stringencies of the Second World War, the Korean War, and the cold war. As a consequence, the heartland of America, filled with people who are often fundamentalist in religion, nativist in prejudice, isolationist in foreign policy, and conservative in economics, has constantly rumbled with an underground revolt against all these tormenting manifestations of our modern predicament. — Richard Hofstadter

- Most distinguished voyager, what was your eon like?
- Comic. Terror is forgotten.
Only the ridiculous is remembered by posterity.
Death from a wound, from a noose, from starvation
Is one death, but folly is uncounted and new every year. — Czeslaw Milosz

Even the most understated ceremony involves a certain respect for ritual and pageantry. No one plays more of a significant role than the bride's attendants. — Vera Wang

I think the spirit of America, one American wanting to make another American's life better, or internationally our desire to see countries do better, or people in countries do better, coming from this concept of volunteerism is a very valid and important part of our internal being. — George H. W. Bush

I'm the football coach around here and don't you remember it. — Bill Peterson

Writing for me is not a premeditated act. It just happens - characters keep coming out of nowhere and doing things I never expected them to do. The most persistent and most productive of these has been Paul Christopher, whom I didn't expect to see again after he appeared in 'The Miernik Dossier.' — Charles McCarry

I loved the solar smile he would turn on his friends at times
and on me
nonplussing us when he simply left it on us, full-beam, for such a long, long moment that we'd finally have no choice but to realize this was no social smile, no rote kind of friendliness: this was what it felt like to be completely seen and loved for a moment. — David James Duncan

Stay here." "Yeah, fuck that. I'm sticking to you like glue. I've seen this horror movie, the person waiting in the hallway dies." Meryn shook her head. Aiden turned to stare at her. "Later we're going to talk about your movie choices. — Alanea Alder

There was still plenty of water in the basement, and I felt it soaking me from the knees on down. If someone wanted to torture me until I told them a critical piece of information, all they would have to do is get my socks wet. It feels terrible. — Lemony Snicket

Worse, I convinced myself our tragedy was entirely her making. I spent years working myself into the very thing I swore she was: a righteous ball of hate. — Gillian Flynn

What goes out always returns; remember to be kind to yourself. — Janni Styles

The problem with prostitution in my experience is that it's often unsatisfying. — Eric Drooker

There are many who say more than the truth on some occasions, and balance the account with their consciences by saying less than the truth on others. But the fact is that they are in both instances as fraudulant as he would be that exacted more than his due from his debtors, and paid less than their due to his creditors. — Charles Caleb Colton

What a graphic designer tries to do is make sure the typography is emotionally consistent with the brand. — Michael Ian Kaye