People From Chicago

"The dark and distant drumming The pounding of the hooves The silence of everything that moves Late at night you'll see them decked out in shiny jewels the coming of the caravan of fools"

"Love and devotion, deep as any ocean don't play by anybody's rules With your carousel of horses and your unforeseen forces, you're running with the caravan of fools Caravan of fools, caravan of fools You're running with the caravan of fools"

"A bitter wind blows through the country A hard rain falls on the sea If terror comes without a warning There must be something we don't see What fire begets this fire? Like torches thrown into the straw If no one asks, then no one answers That's how every empire falls."

"We made love In every way love can be made And we made time Look like time Could never fade Friday Night We both made the guitars hum Saturday made Sunday feel Like it would never come Gonna be a long Monday Sittin' all alone on a mountain By a river that has no end"

"Padlock the door and board the windows Put the people in the street "It's just my job," he says "I'm sorry." And draws a check, goes home to eat But at night he tells his woman "I know I hide behind the laws." She says, "You're only taking orders." That's how every empire falls."

"There's a girl in the white house I don't even know her name Her disheveled appearance Speaks volumes of shame It's an embarrassing situation But a situation just the same The way she walks on others And never takes the blame Upsets my constitution Beyond its mortal frame."

"When I get to heaven, I'm gonna shake God's hand Thank him for more blessings than one man can stand Then I'm gonna get a guitar and start a rock-n-roll band Check into a swell hotel, ain't the afterlife grand?"

"God bless this kitchen said the knick-knack chef The dinner's almost ready Go and wash yourself Jimmy's growing up now and Wanda's growing old The time is growin' shorter the nights are long and cold C'mon, baby, spend the night with me. Sneaking in the closet and through the diary Now, don't you know all he saw was all there was to see The whole town saw Jimmy on the six o'clock news His brains were on the sidewalk and blood was on his shoes"

"Caught a train from Alexandria Just a broken man in flight Running scared with his devils Saying prayers all through the night Oh but mercy can't find him Not in the shadows where he calls Forsaking all his better angels That's how every empire falls"

"Some humans ain't human Some people ain't kind You open up their hearts And here's what you'll find A few frozen pizzas Some ice cubes with hair A broken Popsicle You don't want to go there..."

"I've been down this road before I remember every tree Every single blade of grass Holds a special place for me And I remember every town And every hotel room Every song I ever sang On a guitar out of tune"

"I remember everything Things I can't forget The way you turned and smiled on me On the night that we first met And I remember every night Your ocean eyes of blue How I miss you in the morning light Like roses miss the dew"

"On a dusty pew in a vestibule Sits the Devil playing pocket pool He's waiting for the next poor fool Who forgot that it was Sunday"

"We are the lonely all together All together we're all alone We are the lonely all together All together we're all alone"

"The cashier at the pump & pay Knows everything's gonna be okay The all night all right rent-a-cop Is across the street at the donut shop The waitress waits with whiskey sour At the single mingle happy hour The one man band begins to sing Accompanied by a drum machine"

"And the old men sit round the cracker barrels The children hum their Christmas carols The train tracks all run parallel But they'll all meet up one day"

"Many years later I found myself talking to this girl Who was standing there with her back turned to Lake Marie The wind was blowing especially through her hair ...Many years later we found ourselves in Canada Trying to save our marriage and perhaps catch a few fish Whatever seemed easier, that night she fell asleep in my arms Humming the tune to, "Louie Louie" Aah baby, we gotta go now"

"I am an old woman named after my mother My old man is another child that's grown old If dreams were lightning thunder was desire This old house would have burnt down a long time ago Make me an angel that flies from Montgom'ry Make me a poster of an old rodeo Just give me one thing that I can hold on to To believe in this living is just a hard way to go When I was a young girl well, I had me a cowboy He weren't much to look at, just free rambling man But that was a long time and no matter how I try The years just flow by like a broken down dam."

"We were standing, Standing by peaceful waters Standing by peaceful waters Whoa, wah, oh wha, oh Whoa, wah, oh wha, oh"

"Ya' know that old trees just grow stronger And old rivers grow wilder every day Old people just grow lonesome Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there, hello"... So if you're walking down the street sometime And spot some hollow ancient eyes Please don't just pass 'em by and stare As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello""

"Sam Stone came home To the wife and family After serving in the conflict overseas. And the time that he served, Had shattered all his nerves, And left a little shrapnel in his knees. But the morphine eased the pain, And the grass grew round his brain, And gave him all the confidence he lacked, With a purple heart and a monkey on his back. There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes, Jesus Christ died for nothin I suppose, Little pitchers have big ears, Don't stop and count the years, Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios."

"Why just before last Christmas My baby went away And I find it real surprising For myself to hear me say That everything is cool Everything's okay"

"Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into? I'm a human corkscrew and all my wine is blood They're gonna kill me Mama. They don't like me Bud. So Jesus went to Heaven and he went there awful quick All them people killed him and he wasn't even sick So come and gather around me my contemporary peers And I'll tell you all the story of Jesus, the missing years"

"Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River To the abandoned old prison down by Airdrie Hill Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols But empty pop bottles was all we would kill. Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man."

"I know a man who's got a lot to lose A pretty nice fella, kinda confused Got muscles in his head that've never been used He thinks he owns half of this town He goes out drinkin' gets a big red nose Beats his old lady with a rubber hose Then he takes her out to dinner Buys her new clothes That's the way that the world goes 'round You're up one day, the next you're down It's a half-an-inch of water and you think you're gonna drown That's the way that the world goes 'round"

"I wish you love - and happiness I guess I wish - you all the best I wish you don't - do like I do And never fall in love with someone like you Cause if you fell - just like I did You'd probably walk around the block like a little kid But kids don't know - they can only guess..."

"Kiss a little baby Give the world a smile If you take an inch Give 'em back a mile Cause if you lie like a rug And you don't give a damn You're never gonna be As happy as a clam So I'm sitting in a hotel Trying to write a song My head is just as empty As the day is long."

"I can see the fire burning Burning right behind your eyes I can see the fire burning, baby Burning right behind your eyes You must've swallowed a candle Or some other kind of surprise."

"It's a measure of treasure that gives me the pleasure Of loving you the way I do And you know I would gladly say I need your love badly And bring these little things to you. Cause you got gold Gold inside of you You got gold Gold inside of you Well I got some Gold inside me too"

"Linda's angle was all wrong to hit the gunman, so as the window lowered she thrust her upper body out of the truck, bracing herself by gripping the big side mirror with her left hand. She then fired. She was cycling the trigger so fast the distinctive whip-crack of the Five-seveN sounded like a string of firecrackers."

""So it's here or never, eh?" " 'Fraid so." Cabrillo braked the big truck far enough from the makeshift roadblock so the car could pass him once the cops were satisfied. In a concealed pocket to the right of his seat he could feel the butt of his preferred handgun, the Fabrique Nationale (FN) Five-seveN. The military-grade SS190 rounds had unbelievable penetrating power, and, because of their small size, twenty could be loaded into a comfortable grip magazine. He left it for the moment."

"The Draeger could be dangerous at depths much below thirty feet, so Juan planned to stay close to the surface. In a slim waterproof pouch strapped under his right arm he had a minicomputer, a flashlight, and a Fabrique Nationale Five-seveN double-action automatic. The pistol fired the new 5.7mm ammunition. The advantage of the small, needlelike cartridges was that the matte-black weapon's grip held twenty rounds with one in the chamber. Also, the bullets were designed to blow through most ballistic vests while at the same time not overpenetrate a target."

"In addition to his politically incorrect rhetoric, Trump seems so much like a foreign policy radical because he is tampering with long-held maxims. One such maxim is that China should not be taken on directly."

"This is a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology, and the United States hasn’t had that before, it’s also striking that this is the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian."

"I’m dead, Jorl. You can’t tell me what to do."

"There will be paperwork, no government action can occur without it, but that can come later."

"The Archetype of Man had not leaped to any false conclusions, had not mistaken Jorl for a deity. Rather, it withheld judgment until it had compiled sufficient explanation."

"I gave destiny a push to make it happen. You study history, so stop your pathetic whining. You know better than most that destiny happens to us, it is never something we call forth."

"Prophecy is first and foremost a self-serving gift."

"“You didn’t do any of these things because they were necessarily good unto themselves, but because you saw them as means to shape events to serve your own ends. The entire legacy of the Matriarch is the exploitation of others like pieces in some great game.” She laughed in his face. “You can see it that way if you like. The weak usually do, if they see it at all. But you disappoint me. Despite your study of history, you fail to understand power. It’s obvious you never will...There’s really only one choice you ever have to make in any act of creation. Will you be the instrument or the artist? If you’re only now coming to realize that you’ve been a tool all your life, there’s no one to blame for it but yourself. If you don’t like that state of affairs, then act! Impose your will upon the world and walk your own path. If you don’t, you’ll just end up being a token in someone else’s game; you’ll continue to be used as they see fit. That’s how the universe works. You don’t have to like it, but you’d do well to get used to it.”... “No, maybe that’s the way the world looks once you’ve already decided to take your path. Or maybe it’s just you’re so jaded, or you’ve bought into your own delusions. I don’t know which, and I don’t care. Those aren’t the only choices: use of be used. There is more than being tyrant or servant. I reject both options and I reject you. You’ve been dead for centuries, Margda, it’s about time you accepted that.”"

"I’m not accusing you of anything, but we both have studied too much history to ignore coincidence."

"It seems to me, that the most unlikely events almost have to happen, or life would just be dull and no one would write anything down."

"In all the rest of my life’s wanderings, I never met another person who spoke words to rival the beauty of mathematics."

"As a historian, he understood that what in hindsight were taken to be grand events really consisted of a myriad of tiny, seemingly inconsequential choices. Often as not, great moments hung on coincidences and random luck."

"Your sense of volition, or the lack of it, is an illusion. Everything you’ve done needed doing and was set in motion long ago. Let go of your self-pity. Your feelings in these events matter no more than a leaf’s desire to steer the wind!"

"She hated politics and she had no patience for the ultra-serious, wide-eyed dreamers who wanted to change your world whether you wanted to live with those changes or not."

"“So you’re saying, people not only may not want to hear a thing that’s true, that sometimes they make sure other people can’t either?” “Yeah. Not all people, and not all the time, but yeah.”"

"“Besides, prophecies are tricky stuff. It’s only after that people recognize them as important. At the time they’re spoken most people don’t want to hear about them.” “Really? But aren’t they truth?” “Especially then. Truth is tough.” “Why? I mean, it’s the truth. It just is.” “I think that’s so, in the abstract, but none of us get to really know the abstract. We only know what we think.”"

"Ah, self-interest at last. Despite all of our differences, of race and time and distance, we achieve commonality. I understand self-interest."

"I mean, sure, like all prophecy the wording is vague."