People From San Jose

"Nothing is without cost. There is a price to all power, and it is not always obvious."

"Simon, there are more things you don’t know than there are things that I do know. I despair of the imbalance."

"The fear was all he had left, but even that was something—he was afraid, so he must be alive! There was darkness, but there was Simon, too! There were not one and the same. Not yet. Not quite..."

"Damn everyone to Hell. And damn the bloody forest. And God, too, for that matter. He looked up fearfully from his chill handful of water, but his silent blasphemy went unpunished."

"“This fellow,” he indicated the woodsman with a sweep of his stick, “will reliably not become more alive, but he may have friends or family who will be unsettled to find him so extremely dead.”"

"We trolls say: “Make Philosophy your evening guest, but do not let her stay the night.”"

"“It would please me your not being obsequious. That is a trait of marketplace people who are selling shoddy goods. I am sure to prefer endless, stupid questions to that.” “Ob...obseek...?” “Obsequious. Flattering with oiliness. It is not liked by me. In Yiqanuc we say: ‘Send the man with the oily tongue to go and lick the snowshoes.’”"

"The wise man is not waiting for the realness of the world to prove itself to him. How can one be an authority before the experiencing of this realness? My master taught me—and to me it seems chash, meaning correct—that you must not defend against the entering of knowledge."

"“Neither War nor Violent Death,” Morgenes had written, “have anything uplifting about them, yet they are the candle to which Humanity flies again and again, as complacently as the lowly moth. He who has been upon a battlefield, and who is not blinded by popular conceptions, will confirm that on this ground Mankind seems to have created a Hell on Earth out of sheer impatience, rather than waiting for that original to which—if the priests are correct—most of us will eventually be ushered."

"Not being stupid is important."

"As he silently approached the last float, a latticework ball of reeds, he offered an unspoken prayer to He Who Always Steps on Sand that even now the little bottom-walkers were pushing and shoving their way into the cage below. Because of his unusual education, which included a year living on Perdruin—unheard of for a Wrannaman—Tiamak did not really believe in He Who Always Steps on Sand anymore, but he still held a fondness for him, such as might be felt for a senile grandfather who often tumbled down from the house, but once brought nuts and carved toys. Besides, it never hurt to pray, even if one did not believe in the object of prayer. It helped to compose the mind, and, at the very least, it impressed others."

"Ambitious men never believe others aren’t the same."

"“Is this being in love?” he suddenly wondered? It was nothing like the ballads he had heard sung—this was more irritating than uplifting."

"“Sharp it away, lad, sharp it away,” the burly guardsman said, making the blade skitter across the whetstone, “lest otherways ye’ll be a girl afore ye’re a man.”"

"Perhaps he was a bumpkin; at least he was an honest bumpkin."

"If you have not noticed, we are preparing for war. I’m sorry if that inconveniences you."

"“Thank you, Duke,” the troll said seriously. “May your god be blessing us indeed. We go into unknown places.” “As do all mortals,” Josua added. “Sooner or later.”"

"The spider hung motionless, like a dull brown gem in an intricate necklace. The web was complete, now, the last strands laid delicately in place; it stretched from one side of the ceiling corner to the other, quivering gently in the rising air as though strummed by invisible hands. For a moment Isgrimnur lost the thread of talk, important talk though it was. His eyes had drifted from the worried faces huddled near the fireplace in the great hall, roving up to the darkened corner, and to the tiny builder at rest. There’s sense, he told himself. You build something and then you stay there. That’s the way it’s meant to be. Not this running here, running there, never see your blood-family or your home roofs for a year at a time."

"Light, with its handmaiden color, was everywhere."

"No charm is proof against a dagger in the back."

"“There is nothing like the ocean to remind you of what is important,” she said quietly, and smiled. Cadrach’s returned smile was weak. “Ah, by the Good Lord, that’s true,” he groaned. “I am reminded that life is sweet, that the sea is treacherous, and that I am a fool.” Miriamele nodded solemnly, staring up at the bellying sails. “Those are good things to remember,” she said."

"“Never make your home in a place,” the old man had said, too lazy in the spring warmth to do more than wag a finger. “Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You’ll find what you need to furnish it—memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things.” Morgenes had grinned. “That way it will go with you wherever you journey. You’ll never lack for a home—unless you lose your head, of course...”"

"When you stopped to think about it, he reflected, there weren’t many things in life one truly needed. To want too much was worse than greed: it was stupidity—a waste of precious time and effort."

"“I have not slept well since I first entered my brother’s dungeons. While my comfort has improved since then, worry has taken the place of hanging in chains as a denier of rest.” “There are many kinds of imprisonment,” Jarnauga nodded."

"“Not everyone can stand up and be a hero, Princess,” he said quietly. “Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and salve their conscience with the gift of survival.” Miriamele thought about the obvious truth of what Cadrach had said as they walked on, but could not understand why it made her so unutterably sad."

"Fear goes where it is invited."

"Being a DJ, I take the art of digging seriously...it has almost a karmic element of, 'I was meant to find this on top.' or, 'I was meant to pull this out because it works so well with this.' So it has a lot of meaning for me personally."

"Cutting and pasting is the essence of what hip-hop culture is all about for me. It's about drawing from what's around you, and subverting it and decontextualizing it."

"Producers like Organized Noize mix samples and live instruments really well, but for me, it almost feels like a cop-out, because I'm a collage artist. It's like, 'Damn, if only I could find this one part. Well, maybe if I just had somebody paint it, and then I'll put it out.' That almost feels like cheating. Lots of times, I have trouble finding bass lines, because it's not very often on a record that there are good open bass lines. Sometimes I wish I could just have somebody come in and do what I want him to do on a bass line. It would be so easy. But what I do just keeps things much more challenging, I guess."

"The smile of God is the goal of your life. Since pleasing God is the first purpose of your life, your most important task is to discover how to do that. The Bible says, "Figure out what will please Christ, then do it." Fortunately, the Bible gives us a clear example of a life that gives pleasure to God. The man's name was Noah."

"Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less."

"It's not about you."

"Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope."

"It's all for him. The ultimate goal of the universe is to show the glory of God. It is the reason for everything that exists, including you. God made it all for his glory. Without God's glory, there would be nothing."

"I am not an anti-gay or anti-marriage activist. Never have been, never will be. The whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement. Never once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop 8 was going — the week before the vote, somebody in my church said, "Pastor Rick, what do you think about this?" And I sent a note to my own members that said, I actually believe that marriage is really, should be defined. If that definition should be saved between a man and a woman and then all of a suddenly out of it they made me, you know something that I really wasn't."

"Larry King: So you did ask your people who worship with you to vote that way? Rick Warren: Yeah, I just never campa— I never campaigned for it. I never — I'm not an anti-gay activist — never have been. Never participated in a single event. I just simply made a note in a newsletter, and of course, everything I write, it's the road."

"Worry is really just a form of atheism. Every time you worry, you’re acting like an atheist. You’re saying, “It all depends on me.” That’s just not in the Bible."

"HALF of America pays NO taxes. Zero. So they’re happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES pay any taxes."

"The Bible is clear that God considers 40 days a spiritually significant time period. Whenever God wanted to prepare someone for his purposes, he took 40 days..."

"Be willing to let people leave the church. And I told you earlier the fact that people are gonna leave the church no matter what you do. But when you define the vision, you're choosing who leaves. You say, "But Rick, yes, they're the pillars of the church." Now, you know what pillars are. Pillars are people who hold things up … And in your church, you may have to have some blessed subtractions before you have any real additions."

"In 1939, in a stadium much like this, in Munich Germany, they packed it out with young men and women in brown shirts, for a fanatical man standing behind a podium named Adolf Hitler, the personification of evil. And in that stadium, those in brown shirts formed with their bodies a sign that said, in the whole stadium, "Hitler, we are yours." And they nearly took the world. Lenin once said, "give me 100 committed, totally committed men and I'll change the world." And, he nearly did. A few years ago, they took the sayings of Chairman Mao, in China, put them in a little red book, and a group of young people committed them to memory and put it in their minds and they took that nation, the largest nation in the world by storm because they committed to memory the sayings of the Chairman Mao. When I hear those kinds of stories, I think 'what would happen if American Christians, if world Christians, if just the Christians in this stadium, followers of Christ, would say 'Jesus, we are yours'? What kind of spiritual awakening would we have?"

"Today there really aren't that many Fundamentalists left; I don't know if you know that or not, but they are such a minority; there aren't that many Fundamentalists left in America. … Now the word "fundamentalist" actually comes from a document in the 1920s called the Five Fundamentals of the Faith. And it is a very legalistic, narrow view of Christianity, and when I say there are very few fundamentalists, I mean in the sense that they are all actually called fundamentalist churches, and those would be quite small. There are no large ones."

"The election's coming just in a couple of weeks, and I hope you're praying about your vote. One of the propositions, of course, that I want to mention is Proposition 8, which is the proposition that had to be instituted because the courts threw out the will of the people. And a court of four guys actually voted to change a definition of marriage that has been going for 5,000 years. Now let me say this really clearly: we support Proposition 8 — and if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8. I never support a candidate, but on moral issues I come out very clear. This is one thing, friends, that all politicians tend to agree on. Both John McCain and Barack Obama, I flat out asked them "what is your definition of marriage?" and they both said the same thing. It is the traditional, historic, universal definition of marriage: one man and one woman, for life. … There are about 2% of Americans are homosexual or gay, lesbian people. We should not let 2% of the population determine — to change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture, and every single religion, for 5,000 years. … So I urge you to support Proposition 8, and pass that word on. I'm going to be sending out a note to pastors on what I believe about this, but everybody knows what I believe about it, and they heard me at the civil forum when I asked both Obama and McCain on their views."

"Rick Warren: The issue to me, I'm not opposed to that as much as I'm opposed to redefinition of a 5,000 year definition of marriage. I'm opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage. Steven Waldman: Do you think, though, that they are equivalent to having gays getting married? Rick Warren: Oh, I do."

"The teacher asked us to write an essay based on an artist's visual version of the cold and other hardships endured by Washington's men at Valley Forge. I dashed off a page or so of commentary, which brought from the teacher public commendation for my historical empathy and perception. This juvenile effort may have influenced my instructor when he gave me a grade on my report card of 100 percent in history. I thought then, and still think, that no pupil is worth 100 percent in history."

"Vietnam is the dead albatross around Johnson's neck that may pull him down."

"The two-thirds rule [of the Senate], which can be changed only by constitutional amendment, will no doubt continue for a long time to come. Like monogamy, it is not completely satisfactory, but, like monogamy, it has won general if somewhat grudging acquiescence."

"Too many so-called historians are really 'hysterians'; their thinking is more visceral than cerebral. When their duties as citizens clash with their responsibilities as scholars, Clio frequently takes a back seat."

"Too many historical writers are the votaries of cults, which, by definition are dedicated to whitewashing warts and hanging halos."

"Wherever smart people work, doors are unlocked."