people-from-iowa

"Three millions yearly for manure, But not one cent for literature."

"Of course they put communist propaganda in the movies! They paint a rich man as a fiend. They make every rich man in a play look like a fat boy in a museum, and every poor boy is made out as a skeleton. Actually, the only millionaires I've ever known were skinny dyspeptics—look at Rockefeller."

"Ever since I was six years old people have been prophesying that I was going to kill myself with overwork. All the prophets are now dead."

"Woman's intuition is the result of millions of years of not thinking."

"When an actor loses control of himself he loses control of his audience."

"The censors are going to stop crime by censoring the films. Why don't they put an end to diseases by burning the medical books which describe them?"

"We could make some very fine motion pictures if we didn't have to bother with cameras and lights."

"We movie people should not be afraid of what people will say of our work. We should not allow a word or a theory to drive us into anything or away from anything without some strong inner reason. Most of all, we should not be afraid of popularity and of financial success. Success is like posterity brought within our immediate vicinity. To have pleased millions of people with comedy, pathos or a well-constructed story is to have done a glorious thing. You can call it art, merchandise, trash or wooden nutmegs, but you cannot rob it of its noble mission—to cast light into dark places."

"Horace said: "He who would make others weep, must first have wept himself." Every motion picture director should have that on his wall."

"You can't use imitation silk before the motion picture camera. The lens is even quicker to detect imitation emotion."

"Talbot worked on the paleontology of both vertebrates and . Her contributions to invertebrate paleontology included a revision of the s of New York State and the investigation of Stafford limestone, also in New York State. Her discovery of the approximately eighteen-centimeter dinosaur , in the Triassic sandstone near , established her reputation in vertebrate paleontology. She postulated that this small dinosaur was a bipedal carnivore."

"In a bowlder of which the glacier carried two or three miles, possibly, and deposited not far from the site of , the writer recently found an excellently preserved skeleton of a small dinosaur the length of whose body is about 18. The bowlder was split along the plane in which the fossil lies and part of the bones are in one half and part in the other. These bones are hollow and the whole framework is very light and delicate."

"Women are in many respects superior to men, since generally speaking, they have more patience and often more taste and discrimination in arranging collections and more deftness in manipulating materials. How true this is!"

"I feel as if I’ve spent my working life throwing darts at a map and convincing myself that I’ve traveled to the places the darts hit."

"If a rocket screams across the darkness, the counterinsurgent can hunched down in his slit trench and pray that the glowing green ball with a sound like a steam locomotive will land on somebody else instead. Prayer probably won’t help, any more than it’ll stop the rain or make the mosquitoes stop biting. But nothing else will help either."

"Nilsen looked up slowly. His face was as doubtful as that of a political prisoner who has just been informed that the revolution has made him president."

"Impartial observers of Indian affairs admit that the greatest good accomplished for the Indian has been through the agency of religious schools, and particularly of Catholic schools, and it is in this cause the Bureau has done its best work."

"So, if you have time, and you have the passion, then take the time to go find out more about your family."

"Part of it was not so much to be able to prove everything. Because we don't know that we can prove ... it was to go back to the motherland to see if she could trace where she believes her ancestors came from. Walk the walk that they walked. Go to the places where they might have had to be held."

"It turned out to be very emotional."

"I don't know what I expected, but I don't know if I was prepared [for the result]. It showed that I'm actually related to a woman I've been writing about."

"I'm still kind of overwhelmed by just the whole story. Even looking through the census records I felt some kind of sadness that I could only go so far. Even when I tried to go back further, all I could find was records that said 'free colored' or 'slaves.' There were no names attached to those people, so we weren't even counted."

"We all have a story, and especially as African Americans, we've contributed much to the making of America. In some way — whether your great grandmother was enslaved in South Carolina, whether your grandfather was a sharecropper — all of them have played a role in what America is today."

"O proud was our army that morning That stood where the pine darkly towers, When Sherman said "Boys, you are weary, This day fair Savannah is ours." Then sang we a song for our chieftain That echoed o'er river and lea, And the stars on our banner shone brighter When Sherman marched down to the sea."

"An integral part of Ornette Coleman's early groups, Charlie Haden played an important role in the development of free jazz, while also being an extremely competent and intuitive player. While his playing and writing with the large ensemble Liberation Music Orchestra, as well as his output with Keith Jarrett's group is stellar, his duo recordings are great, as well, namely Beyond the Missouri Sky with guitarist Pat Metheny and Nightfall with pianist John Taylor."

"Art Farmer’s approach to jazz seemed simplicity itself. ‘What I try to do with a song,’ the trumpeter once said, ‘is to get as much enjoyment out of playing it as I can.’ Yet his style expressed a quiet profundity and originality that defied the obvious. Although, born in 1928, he was a member of the bebop generation, he eschewed obvious pyrotechnics. A Farmer solo didn’t merely ‘run the changes’, ripping through the chords, but created an absorbing, probing shape, at once subtle and lyrical. In terms of facility, he could do anything he wanted, and his technical command and thoughtful musicianship ensured first-call status in the booming jazz scene of the 1950s. After apprenticeship with Lionel Hampton and other big bands, Farmer starred with two of the most prominent small groups of the time – Horace Silver’s hard-driving quintet, and the cool quartet of Gerry Mulligan. At the same time, he was leading his own groups in a series of widely praised albums. One of the best is the eponymous Art, with a quartet including the trumpeter’s kindred spirit, pianist Tommy Flanagan. Effortlessly compelling, it’s a classic example of Farmer’s special gift for reinventing standard tunes. ‘Younger than Springtime’ becomes a kind of idyll, his tone both round and clear. ‘Who Cares’ shows his fiery side, full of unexpected angles, and ‘I’m a Fool to Want You’ is a reflective ballad, but not morose."

"Economics, ethics, sociology, politics are drawn together by the complex problems of property and each has much to learn from the others."

"I'm not charismatic in the classical sense. I have a certain passion for life, and I think people sometimes use the word "intense" to describe me."

"Expanding the space of your tent means drawing closer together so there’s more room for others to join us."

"In the end, I suspect, the "subjective" Church is judged by the standards of the objective Church. Why else would the Lord have bothered to establish an institution whose principal purpose was to lead us to eternal life? It does this by telling us to keep the commandments, seek repentance when we violate them. We are given enough grace to see the difference between what is good and what is evil."

"Not all advice on helping the poor works, so there is a real question of morality, politics, and economics involved here. "Identifying" with the poor is not enough and may well be harmful if ineffective or bad advice is given. We will not help the poor or anyone else, unless we love them. But just because we love someone, it does not follow that how we show this love is a feasible way to help the poor."

"The fact is that, when he states, usually in some obscure venue, his adherence to orthodox positions, he is never reported in the world media. The media understand that they influence by image and repetition. Everything the Pope says that can be interpreted in terms of accepting these aberrations is broadcast around the world. Everything he says to deny this view goes largely unreported. Whether the Pope realizes that he is being manipulated here I would not venture to say."

"We must understand the religious nature of Islamic expansion and the methods used to achieve it. By trying to abstract these motivation from the soul of this particular religion, which is, on this score, unlike most others, only makes it impossible to describe what in fact is going on in the mind of the adversary that is Islam. Wars are first fought in minds—and this is a war."

"Those who are confident and at peace with themselves are content. Taking it further and in spirit, someone who is serene. Serenity is a pleasant-sounding word. It is the state of calm, untroubled by life’s difficulties. Then there is Serendipity. Defined as “Occurrences of fortunate events that happen by chance.” Some associate it with luck. Even though, as a word, one is not a derivative of the other, the characteristics creating them would be similar. Anyone who experiences contentment, calm or good fortune doesn’t have to think very hard to know the reasons for it. Usually, a result of their general nature, intentions, and actions. To be discontent, one would be uncomfortable. Possibly unfamiliar with the cause-and-effect equation of life. Likely, their intent or inaction in important areas of life has brought misfortune to them. In Newton’s Third Law of Physics, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” Discondipity would then be “Occurrences of unforeseen misfortune.” Sometimes isolated and undeserved. After all, we can all have a stretch of bad luck. Often leaving one to question, “Why do these things happen to them?”"

"Most know what a pessimist is. The angry person who yells at you to get out of their yard. People who complain about everyone and everything all the time. Everyone is stupid, except those who ask their opinion. Well, they are stupid too. They just get points for good behavior. They fear looking at the bright side and see those that do as only fooling themselves. When trouble comes, they will be ready. No one is going to catch them off guard. For their information, “trouble always comes for the pessimist!” Then there is the optimist. They always see the brighter side of life. Even in failure or setbacks, they view it as a tiny part of life and are quick to move on. We would do well to surround ourselves with optimistic people. Not only do they seem to have a force field for pessimism, they are usually full of praise, kindness, reassurance, encouragement, and maybe a friendly hug. I like those people. That brings us to a strange phenomenon that came about in the last half of the twenty-first century. There are those that have combined pessimism and optimism, giving rise to “The Pessoptimist.” It is the unfiltered thought and transparent conflict in the minds of today’s well-intentioned common human. A condition where one’s afflicted with seeing the worst while trying to do what seems right. We can call it discouraged encouragement. One who does good and cautions everyone about the potential dangers of it."

"We wouldn’t define Pessoptimism as a word that can go more toward selfishness. We would call those people Optessimist. Defined as, “someone who does something wrong or harmful to others, making it sound like they did the right thing. Claiming value for themselves at the expense of others.” Unlike the Pessoptimist, they are fully aware of their intent and actions."

"I'd always identified myself with the people's struggles. I think I began writing more about it and having an audience for writing it. But we wrote as partisans, we call it. You're on the side and like I was marching. I don't say anything about the troubles of the manufacturers association, or any sympathy for them. I just identified with the strikers."

"The women's movement is great in the Twin Cities, I think."

"For the first time, Meridel says "I am writing what I want to write. I don't know if anyone is going to read it," she adds with the pragmatism of someone whose work was virtually banned for years. "I don't even think about it. I just love it. It's a wonderful gift to have a passion like that.""

"Two exceedingly important creative and political lives."

"She was a poet. She was an activist. She was a writer. And she was a bold believer in a different world. And, you know, she was a poet. She was a writer of poetry books. But she also, you know, fought for the women’s right to vote. She was an organizer in the labor movement, big sacrificer for some of the rights that we have today and sort of—not sort of. She’s a legend, I guess, beyond our family and did a lot of—did a lot of things that helped shape this country. And to me, you know, as—to me and our generation, I think we still derive a lot of courage from the courage that she had."

"The writer Meridel Le Sueur was blacklisted, hounded by the FBI, her books banned; she was dismissed from job after job-teaching, waitressing because the FBI intimidated her students and employers."

"Muriel Rukeyser and somebody like Meridel Le Sueur were doubly wounded. They were wounded as women by their own political men-something like black women are-and wounded again by the literary elite, who were for the birds."

"Meridel Le Sueur's documentary novel of the depression, The Girl, is arresting as a study of female double life... Sex is thus equated with attention from the male, who is charismatic though brutal, infantile, or unreliable. Yet it is the women who make life endurable for each other, give physical affection without causing pain, share, advise, and stick by each other. (I am trying to find my strength through women-without my friends, I could not survive)...The Girl and Sula are both novels which examine what I am calling the lesbian continuum, in contrast to the shallow or sensational "lesbian scenes" in recent commercial fiction. Each shows us woman identification untarnished (till the end of Le Sueur's novel) by romanticism; each depicts the competition of heterosexual compulsion for women's attention, the diffusion and frustration of female bonding that might, in a more conscious form, reintegrate love and power."

"I truly feel there is a new language coming about-look at the work of Meridel LeSueur, Sharon Doubiago, Linda Hogan, Alice Walker - it's coming from the women. Something has to be turned around. (1990)"

"Feminist writer Patricia Hampl once said of Meridel: "Bedecked with Indian turquoise bracelets and rings, a string of large ominous teeth around her neck, a bright multicolored serape covering her body-this walking heap of archetypal images is not your idea of somebody's grandmother. A grandmother, no; a wise and maybe occasionally avenging ancient goddess, yes.""

"She does recognize who she is, what she is from, and there is no separation. You know, she's been going at it a long time, has faced much opposition, and has kept on talking and speaking in such a beautiful and lyrical voice...She's really had a lot of influence on me in terms of being a woman who speaks as a woman and has been often criticized for it, and in the past she could not get her books published because she kept to her particular viewpoint and was sympathetic to certain unpopular viewpoints."

"Meridel Le Sueur, whose work I cite and discuss, has been an inspiration to generations of women writers. Having known her since I was a child, it is with a special gratitude that I thank her both personally and professionally for her labors."

"Her advice to the women's movement is to avoid male prototypes: "It has to be a collective vision. The time is over entirely for private vision, or private greed. We're entering a new era of the same fate for all.""

"Perhaps Meridel Le Sueur's wisest and most comforting words to women of the world are found in a line of a poem of solidarity she composed for the North Vietnamese Women's Union: "It was the bumble bee and the butterfly who survived, not the dinosaur,""