Badass Racing Quotes

The extremists had declared jihad against anyone and anything that challenged their vision of a pure Islamic society, and these artifacts - treatises about logic, astrology, and medicine, paeans to music, poems idealizing romantic love - represented five hundred years of human joy. They celebrated the sensual and the secular, and they bore the explicit message that humanity, as well as God, was capable of creating beauty. They were monumentally subversive.

We are a city that has had Islam for one thousand years. We had the greatest teachers and universities. And now these Bedouins, these illiterates, these ignoramuses, tell us how to wear our pants, and how to say our prayers, and how our wives should dress, as if they were the ones who invented the way?

Yuck! But also, whoa! Mom really is a badass.

He asked me to prepare semolina for forty people, saying that they were workers at his farm," his mother remembered. "In fact they were Islamists, but I could not refuse them.

No, forget it. You people took the village and drove away all our business, it's you who must submit to Shariah.

We pushed it, but when the State Department says 'you're being a bunch of assholes' what are you going to do?

acceptance of charity from thieves and oppressors is the equivalent of abetting their crimes, and that the duty of alms giving belongs to everyone who possesses a minimum degree of wealth, not just aristocrats.

A Sudanese proverb from the time declared that “Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, and silver from the country of the white men, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuctoo.

...(T)he last rebels of the Tuareg uprising that had devastated the north for half a decade agreed to lay down their weapons, and the nomadic warriors surrendered thousands of Kalashnikov rifles to the government. The weapons were buried tin the concrete pedestal f a "monument of Peace" that sits on a rise on Timbuktu's outskirts- an assemblage of interlocking archways surrounded by colorful murals of Malian government soldiers and Tuareg rebels shaking hands and burning their weapons.

Seattle. I’ve never seen a city so overrun with runaways, drug addicts, and bums. Pike Place Market: they’re everywhere. Pioneer Square: teeming with them. The flagship Nordstrom: have to step over them on your way in. The first Starbucks: one of them hogging the milk counter because he’s sprinkling free cinnamon on his head. Oh, and they all have pit bulls, many of them wearing handwritten signs with witticisms such as I BET YOU A DOLLAR YOU’LL READ THIS SIGN. Why does every beggar have a pit bull? Really, you don’t know? It’s because they’re badasses, and don’t you forget it. I was downtown early one morning and I noticed the streets were full of people pulling wheelie suitcases. And I thought, Wow, here’s a city full of go-getters. Then I realized, no, these are all homeless bums who have spent the night in doorways and are packing up before they get kicked out. Seattle is the only city where you step in shit and you pray, Please God, let this be dog shit. Anytime you express consternation as to how the U.S. city with more millionaires per capita than any other would allow itself to be overtaken by bums, the same reply always comes back. “Seattle is a compassionate city.” A guy named the Tuba Man, a beloved institution who’d play his tuba at Mariners games, was brutally murdered by a street gang near the Gates Foundation. The response? Not to crack down on gangs or anything. That wouldn’t be compassionate. Instead, the people in the neighborhood redoubled their efforts to “get to the root of gang violence.” They arranged a “Race for the Root,” to raise money for this dunderheaded effort. Of course, the “Race for the Root” was a triathlon, because God forbid you should ask one of these athletic do-gooders to partake in only one sport per Sunday.

From time to time he consulted books about Islamic jurisprudence, the fikh, in his own collection when confronted with thorny problems in his marriage and his work. But religion did not play a major role in his life. What drove him most was a belief in the power of the written word—the rich variety of human experience and ideas contained between the covers of a book.

The dampness and the rain are hastening the destruction of these and many other manuscripts," Haidara told me. "They should be returned to Timbuktu as quickly as possible," The drier air in Timbuktu acted as a kind of safeguard against fungal rot, though the arid climate of his hometown was also deleterious over time, causing unprotected pages to grow brittle and fall apart. " We have begun to see... mold, mildew, and fungus on paper and also on leather bindings.

After school, there’s a crowd around my motorcycle. Shit, if anything happened to Julio I swear I’m going to kick someone’s ass. I don’t have to push through the crowd because a path opens up when I get close. All eyes are on me as I witness the vandalism to my motorcycle. They’re expecting me to be in a rage. After all, who would dare attach a pink tricycle horn to the handlebars and tape sparkling streamers from the ends of the handles? Nobody can get away with this shit. Except Brittany. I scan the area, but she’s not around. “I didn’t do it,” Lucky is quick to say. Everyone else murmurs they didn’t do it, either. Then murmurs of who it could be race through the crowd. “Colin Adams, Greg Hanson…” I’m not listening, because I know full well who the culprit is. It’s my chem partner, the one who ignored me today. I yank off the streamers with a jerk of my hand, then unscrew the pink rubber horn. Pink. I wonder if it was hers once upon a time. “Get out of my way,” I tell the crowd. They disperse pretty quick, thinking my rage level is high and they don’t want to be caught in the crossfire. Sometimes playing the part of a badass does have its advantages. The truth? I’ll use the pink horn and streamers as an excuse to talk to Brittany again.

Cat stepped in close, wedging herself between his knees. She cupped his face in her strong hands and forced him to look at her. “You need to breathe. This is not the end of the world. In spite of what you think, your fucking right eye is not your life.” Harper dragged in a huge gulp of air, only then realizing he’d stilled as if readying for a shot, though his heart raced in panic. Nodding at her words, he forced his heartbeat to slow down. “What the hell am I going to do?” In spite of the world falling around them, she smiled that beautiful, soul-shattering smile she had. “You’re going to move to a different position in your company with different tasks. Or you’re going to learn to shoot with your other eye. It’s that easy.” Was it really though? Cat tightened her hands on his face and leaned forward to press kisses to his cheeks. She paused at the corner of his right eye and pressed a lingering kiss there, then moved to wrap her arms around his neck in a fierce hug. “You’re still gorgeous and you’re still a bad-ass mother fucker,” she whispered into his ear. “That eye is such a small part of you.” Harper wrapped his arms around her, so grateful that she’d managed to find him and be here.

I just want to spend the rest of today and tonight with the only girl who makes my heart race.” And that was exactly what Trinity did. She calmed me and excited me all at once. I was a tattooed, buzzed haircut, cop who gave off a badass cocky feel, but inside, this woman made me feel like a lost boy seeking the security only she could give. It was still so unbelievable how one smile or a simple touch from her could make me feel whole. “Yes,” she whispered. “You should definitely spend the night with me.” She tossed me a mischievous smile and I couldn’t help but feel relief that my fiery girl had returned.

What is not so easy is knowing when you yourself are full of shit. Convincing yourself that you are among “the initiated” because you took some classes, ran a Spartan race, or did the Murph for the last three years, or because you have taken jiu-jitsu for eight years and can shoot really well is a mistake. The cool gear, the cool truck, the belt, the patches...it all screams badass. You are creating an image of the Instagram-friendly warrior, but maybe not so much real life.