Bob Toll Quotes

Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul

In the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales for the disrobed faceless forms of no position. Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts - all down in taken-for-granted situations. Tolling for the deaf an' blind, tolling for the mute, and the mistreated mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute, for the misdemeanor outlaw, chained an' cheated by pursuit. And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

A jolt, a white flash, a thunderclap, and the Hayate was torn apart—her bow floated one way, her stern the other, each section bobbing pitifully on the sea, and then both quickly sank, taking 168 men down with them. The battery’s crew let out a full-throated cheer. “Knock it off, you bastards, and get back on the guns!” bellowed Platoon Sergeant Henry Bedell. “What do you think this is, a ball game?

Starry-eyed an' laughing as I recall when we were caught Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended As we listened one last time an' we watched with one last look Spellbound an' swallowed 'til the tolling ended Tolling for the aching whose wounds cannot be nursed For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Ford and General Motors executives made a big deal of the occasion by driving to Washington in their hybrid vehicles. Mulally of Ford came in an Escape SUV hybrid. Wagoner of General Motors was chauffeured in a Chevy Malibu hybrid. Poor Bob Nardelli of Chrysler. The pickings were slim. Chrysler, known more for the styling of it's bodies than for its technological savvy, sent Nardelli to Washington in an Aspen Hybrid SUV, about the only "green" thing Chrysler had to offer. Problem is, it was a terrible vehicle and unreliable. Despite being partially powered by a battery, the Aspen ran on a V-8 Hemi and got less than twenty miles to the gallon. The charging system was flawed and difficult to service. His driver was Mike Carlisle, the homicide detective who had retired from the Detroit Police Department just a month earlier. The media was invited to snap bon voyage photographs in Detroit, which they dutifully filed. What they did not see -and what Carlisle later told me- was that there were two engineers tailing Nardelli at a discreet three-mile buffer, carrying laptops and a trunk full of tolls in case the Aspen broke down. Even Chrysler didn't trust their products.

Instead, we accept them all as part of the short phrase itself. That same short verse, which is, incidentally, alluded to on the Dylan albums Time Out of Mind and “Love and Theft”, ends with another instance of the same phenomenon. The last four words are rarely quoted, because they are, literally, ‘taken as read’: never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. The same thing, I suggest, is already happening with Dylan’s “but it’s getting there.” In both cases, given our mortality, we all know how it ends. Another thing about bards, associated with their raising of everyday speech to high art, is that they are generally claimed to have sprung naturally from the soil, or from the common mass of humanity. They are, in other words, not only our spokespeople but also one of us.

Aware of his own weaknesses, he readily conceded his flaws. He was, incongruously, an incurable gossip, careful to label rumor for what it was, but fascinated by it. He knew too much literature too well and let the allurements of the past turn him away from his instincts. He could be rowdy, drink too much, overreach. He was not good at concealing his feelings, hardly ideal for a man in his position. Of late, he had expressed fear for the future of the Executive Branch, which he was in a unique position to observe. Watergate had taken its toll. Even in the shadows of the garage, Woodward saw that he was thinner and, when he drew on his cigarette, that his eyes were bloodshot.