People From Saint Paul

"The sun is up, and all that money out there won’t steal itself."

"Sabetha threw her own shoes and costume components on the tiles near the bath. She retained only her black hose and a dressing gown. Locke did his best to look like he wasn’t staring, and she did an admirable job of pretending she wasn’t encouraging him."

"“I never even liked cats all that much.” “Surely you realize,” said Patience, “that cats are no great respecters of human opinion.”"

"Only gods-damned fools die for lines drawn on maps."

"By rights he was still outrunning his age, still ahead of most men nearing threescore years, but he knew deep in his heart that there would never be any way of running fast enough."

"As for history, we are living in its ruins. And as for biographies, we are living with the consequences of all the decisions ever made in them. I tend not to read them for pleasure. It‘s not unlike carefully scrutinizing the map when one has already reached the destination."

"I don’t want you to agree with me; I want you to use your misplaced acorn of a brain before the squirrel comes looking for it again."

"“That’s a sweet piece,“ said Jean, briefly forgetting to be aggravated. “You didn’t snatch that off a street.“ “No,“ said Locke, before taking another deep draught of the warm water in the decanter. “I got it from the neck of the governor’s mistress.“ “You can’t be serious.“ “In the governor’s manor.“ “Of all the—“ “In the governor’s bed.“ “Damned lunatic!“ “With the governor sleeping next to her...It is possible,“ said Locke with a sheepish grin, “that I have been slightly too bold.“"

"The trouble with creating military dictators, Locke reflected, was getting rid of them after the immediate crisis was past."

"Master Kosta...What a pleasure! Selendri tells me you’ve expressed an interest in getting killed."

"“We already know how too—” “I don’t care what you think you know, Kosta. Until further notice, we’re gonna presume that you’re too dumb to count to one.”"

"I make it a point never to trust men with weapons to my windpipe."

"In time, you’ll come to understand that a state like ours cannot afford to offer up a show of weakness for honesty’s sake; Duke Nicovante charges me with vouchsafing his security, not his conscience."

"“What’s your hand [of cards] look like?“ “A parched desert...How’s yours?“ “A wasteland of bitter frustration.“"

"“‘Commonly thought,’ you say? Many things are commonly thought, but perhaps not commonly thought all the way through.”"

"“Here's to charming losers, I suppose.“ “If only we knew where to find some.“"

"You’re ten pints of crazy in a one-pint glass."

"They’ll be fine, and wiser for the experience. Young minds are brittle. Oldsters, now, we’ve had some disappointments. We’ve set aside the notion that we’re the center of the universe, so our minds bend with strain instead of meeting it head-on."

"It had the expression common to all kittens, that of a tyrant in the becoming."

"“What do you have to say to that?“ “Oh, very little, to be sure, Master Kosta. It’s so hard to think, overawed as I am with the sublime genius of your plan.“ “That bears some vague resemblance to sarcasm.“ “God forfend,“ said Jean. “You wound me! Your inexpressible criminal virtues have triumphed again, as inevitably as the tides come and go. I cast myself at your feet and beg for absolution. Yours is the genius that nourishes the heart of the world.“ “And now you’re—“ “If only there was a leper handy,“ interrupted Jean, "so you could lay your hands on and magically heal him.“"

"At the highest level of satori from which people return, the point of consciousness becomes a surface or a solid which extends throughout the whole known universe. This used to be called fusion with the Universal Mind or God. In more modern terms you have done a mathematical transformation in which your centre of consciousness has ceased to be a travelling point and has become a surface or solid of consciousness... It was in this state that I experienced "myself" as melded and intertwined with hundreds of billions of other beings in a thin sheet of consciousness that was distributed around the galaxy. A "membrain"."

"If you get into these spaces [non-ordinary states of consciousness] at all, you must forget about them when you come back. You must forget you're omnipotent and omniscient and take the game seriously so you'll engage in sex, have children, and participate in the whole human scenario. When you come back from a deep tank session — or a coma or psychosis —there's always this extraterrestrial feeling. You have to read the directions in the glove compartment so you can run the human vehicle once more."

"If a human being is isolated from other humans for a month or more, and is confined to a small area geographically and a small range of activities, his interest in his surroundings and its minutiae increase radically....Further, if a confined, isolated human is allowed brief contacts with other humans even without a shared language, he begins to find their presence comforting, and a pleasant relief from the "evenness" of his surroundings. If these humans controls his only sources of food as well as his sources of intraspecies stimulation, he may adapt to their demands in subtle and not so subtle ways. He may, given time, learn their language, take on their beliefs, etc.. When we catch a dolphin and put him alone in a small tank, we are imposing similar "solitary confinement" structures on him. Maybe we can thus capture his loyalty and his initiative."

"In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits... In the province of connected minds, what the network believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the network's mind there are no limits."

"In the course of some experiments I conducted from 1954 through 1956 I was suspended in water for several hours at a time, and I noticed that my skin gradually became more and more sensitive to tactile stimuli and an intense sense of pleasure resulted. However, if the stimulation was carried too far it became intensely irritating, I reasoned that the dolphin is suspended in water all of his life, twenty four hours a day, and possibly had developed an intensely sensitive skin."

"No matter what coercive powers of enforcement governments may assert, the peoples in country after country in all ages have demonstrated that Man was meant to be free but that this ideal can be realized only under the rule of law. And this must be a rule that places restraints on individuals and on governments alike. This is a delicate, a fragile, balance to maintain. It is fragile because it is sustained only by an ideal that requires each person in society, by an exercise of free will, to accept and abide the restraints of a structure of laws."

"We are more casual about qualifying the people we allow to act as advocates in the courtroom than we are about licensing electricians. No other profession is as casual or heedless of reality as ours"

"The policeman on the beat or in the patrol car makes more decisions and exercises broader discretion affecting the daily lives of people every day and to a greater extent, in many respects, than a judge will ordinarily exercise in a week."

"In my conception of it, the primary role of the Court is to decide cases. From the decision of cases, of course, some changes develop, but to try to create or substantially change civil or criminal procedure, for example, by judicial decision is the worst possible way to do it. The Supreme Court is simply not equipped to do that job properly."

"History is filled with examples of men and women who rendered highly effective performance without the conventional badges of accomplishment in terms of certificates, diplomas, or degrees. Diplomas and tests are useful servants, but Congress has mandated the commonsense proposition that they are not to become masters of reality."

"No one has ever suggested that tax exemption has converted libraries, art galleries, or hospitals into arms of the state or employees "on the public payroll." There is no genuine nexus between tax exemption and establishment of religion."

"The entire legal profession - lawyers, judges, law teachers - has become so mesmerized with the stimulation of the courtroom contest that we tend to forget that we ought to be healers - healers of conflicts. Doctors, in spite of astronomical medical costs, still retain a high degree of public confidence, because they are perceived as healers. Should lawyers not be healers? Healers, not warriors? Healers, not procurers? Healers, not hired guns?"

"For some disputes, trials will be the only means, but for many claims, trial by adversarial contest must go the way of the ancient trial by battle and blood. Our trials are too costly, too painful, too destructive, too inefficient for a truly civilized people."

"If I were writing the Bill of Rights now there wouldn’t be any such thing as the Second Amendment . . . . This has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."

""Waheed? Rashind said in utter disbelief. "That cannot be. He is dead." "He is now," Tayyib said, not trying to be funny."

"Who do you think?" "I don't know," growled an angry Abel. "Mitch Rapp." Abel stopped pacing. "How? That's impossible." "Apparently not."

"Rapp again noted the poor tactics and discipline, and asked himself, "Who in the hell are these clowns?""

"Who's your friend?" Coleman started to answer, and then McMahon put his and out and cut him off. "Never mind," the agent said. "I don't want to know. Do I?" Coleman shrugged. "It wasn't like I was going to give you his real name."

"Who the hell is he?" asked McMahon. "He's the best sniper I've ever seen. He can track anything." "He works for you now?" "Yep." "Lovely. God, I hope you don't end up with the FBI on your doorstep someday." "You and I both."

"He was wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a black Mountain Hard-wear fleece jacket. He had a large black rubber dive watch on his right wrist, his hair was dark and shaggy, and although he was a good seventy-five pounds lighter than the FBI agent, McMahon had no doubt the little scrapper could kill him without breaking a sweat. This guy was Special Forces from head to toe."

""Because I am not a coward. Because I don't have other people do my work for me. I do it face to face. I don't blow up houses and kill innocent bystanders." Claudia looked away and swallowed hard."

"This was, after all, the country of Napoleon, who had once dominated all of Europe. In less than a century they had gone from one of the world's preeminent powers to a country incapable of putting up a fight."

""I have no doubt you could find someone who would take the job for a million and a half, and I also have no doubt that Monsieur Rapp would kill that man before he got anywhere near him." - Gould"

""Easy doesn't factor into it for me, Senator. I'm talking about right and wrong." - Rapp"

"Hold on a minute. We haven't done anything wrong." "You're kidding...right?" Rapp looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "Well... nothing recently. I mean for Christ's sake, we're on the same team. Aren't we?"

""I hope no one around here got any paper cuts while I was out getting shot and stabbed." - Rapp"

"(From the enclosed booklet) Jamaican Air -- Every flight is the red-eye!"

"I am s-stiff; Medusa has looked at me; I'm turning into a pillar of salt. That'd be funny if, like, you know how Medusa, if you looked at her you turned into a pillar of salt, like if you were eating and, like, "This isn't very salty. Hey, dude, look at that snake-haired bitch! … Thank you... Hmm, not bad now; thanks, snake-haired bitch! I'd like to make eye contact, but it's salty enough.""

"I've got an oscillating fan at my house. The fan goes back and forth. It looks like the fan is saying "No". So I like to ask it questions that a fan would say "no" to. "Do you keep my hair in place? Do you keep my documents in order? Do you have 3 settings? Liar!" My fan fucking lied to me. Now I will pull the pin up. Now you ain't sayin' shit."

"Now let me ask you this: why do you think there's a brick wall behind comedians? Maybe, in the old days, there was a wolf that did comedy, and he wasn't that funny. All the old clubs had STRAW in the back. But then the wolf would have a bad set, and huff and puff, and fuck shit up! Then we went to STICKS, and once again, he huffed and puffed, and the motherfucker fucked shit up again! Now we're at bricks; the wolf ain't funny, but he can't do shit. That's the Improv Fairy Tale."