“
Barrel of the gun, rounds one two three
She says I have to pick: choose you, or choose me
Metal to the temple, the explosion is deafening
Lick the blood that covers me
She’s the last one standing
“Roulette”
Collateral Damage, Track 11
”
”
Gayle Forman (Where She Went (If I Stay, #2))
“
You crossed the water, left me ashore
It killed me enough, but you wanted more
You blew up the bridge, a mad terrorist
Waved from your side, through me a kiss
I started to follow but realized too late
There was nothing but air underneath my feet"
—from the song "Bridge" on the Collateral Damage album
”
”
Gayle Forman (Where She Went (If I Stay, #2))
“
Sometimes we are just the collateral damage in someone else's war against themselves.
”
”
Lauren Eden
“
I'll be your mess, you be mine
That was the deal that we had signed
”
”
Gayle Forman (Where She Went (If I Stay, #2))
“
So here we have it. The equivocating distinction between civilisation and savagery, between the "massacre of innocent people" or, if you like, "a clash of civilisations" and "collateral damage". The sophistry and fastidious algebra of infinite justice.
”
”
Arundhati Roy
“
I know there's no way I can convince you this is not one of their tricks, but I don't care, I am me. My name is Valerie, I don't think I'll live much longer and I wanted to tell someone about my life. This is the only autobiography ill ever write, and god, I'm writing it on toilet paper. I was born in Nottingham in 1985, I don't remember much of those early years, but I do remember the rain. My grandmother owned a farm in Tuttlebrook, and she use to tell me that god was in the rain. I passed my 11th lesson into girl's grammar; it was at school that I met my first girlfriend, her name was Sara. It was her wrists. They were beautiful. I thought we would love each other forever. I remember our teacher telling us that is was an adolescent phase people outgrew. Sara did, I didn't. In 2002 I fell in love with a girl named Christina. That year I came out to my parents. I couldn't have done it without Chris holding my hand. My father wouldn't look at me, he told me to go and never come back. My mother said nothing. But I had only told them the truth, was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us, but within that inch, we are free. I'd always known what I wanted to do with my life, and in 2015 I starred in my first film, "The Salt Flats". It was the most important role of my life, not because of my career, but because that was how I met Ruth. The first time we kissed, I knew I never wanted to kiss any other lips but hers again. We moved to a small flat in London together. She grew Scarlet Carsons for me in our window box, and our place always smelled of roses. Those were there best years of my life. But America's war grew worse, and worse. And eventually came to London. After that there were no roses anymore. Not for anyone. I remember how the meaning of words began to change. How unfamiliar words like collateral and rendition became frightening. While things like Norse Fire and The Articles of Allegiance became powerful, I remember how different became dangerous. I still don't understand it, why they hate us so much. They took Ruth while she was out buying food. I've never cried so hard in my life. It wasn't long till they came for me.It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years, I had roses, and apologized to no one. I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An Inch, it is small and it is fragile, but it is the only thing the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you. -Valerie
”
”
Alan Moore (V for Vendetta)
“
The clothes are packed off to Goodwill
I said my good-byes up on the hill
The house is empty, the furniture sold
Soon your smell will decay to mold
Don't know why I bother calling, ain't nobody answering
Don't know why I bother singing, ain't nobody listening
"Disconnect"
Collateral Damage, Track 10
”
”
Gayle Forman (Where She Went (If I Stay, #2))
“
Be as decent as you can. Don't believe without evidence. Treat things divine with marked respect — don't have anything to do with them. Do not trust humanity without collateral security; it will play you some scurvy trick. Remember that it hurts no one to be treated as an enemy entitled to respect until he shall prove himself a friend worthy of affection. Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths. And, finally, most important of all, endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be.
”
”
Ambrose Bierce
“
My martyrdom is not the selfless kind. I can't look at Filippa, shamed by all the injuries I've inflicted- like a man with a bomb strapped to his chest, ready to blow himself up without a thought for the collateral damage.
”
”
M.L. Rio (If We Were Villains)
“
your mother
is in the habit of
offering more love
than you can carry
your father is absent
you are a war
the border between two countries
the collateral damage
the paradox that joins the two
but also splits them apart
”
”
Rupi Kaur (Milk and honey)
“
Ruined land was accepted as the collateral damage of progress.
”
”
Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants)
“
Rachel knew what she was doing. And when she didn't, she could improvise on the fly, coming up with options that left a lot of collateral damage but usually only hurt herself, not the people around her. It was one of the things he would never admit that he admired about her.
”
”
Kim Harrison (Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond (The Hollows, #10.1))
“
A man without debts is a man without anything to live for. Debt is collateral for life. It provides you with obligations to others, gives you duty, gives you purpose: the purpose to protect those possessions which you would not otherwise have without your debt. Debt is the most responsible way to elevate your social position.
”
”
Bauvard (The Prince Of Plungers)
“
If we take out one, we have to take out all. We can't risk collateral damage."
"Say 'collateral damage' again. That sounded sexy.
”
”
Brigid Kemmerer (Spirit (Elemental, #3))
“
These kinds of secrets are not given out lightly. You know that. We calculate collateral damage and escape routes. We plan and brace for the reaction and fallout. But Luther did not tell. He chose to not believe me at all. And that's a thousand times worse, you see.
”
”
Nora Sakavic (The Raven King (All for the Game, #2))
“
Maxim 28:
If the price of collateral damage is high enough, you might be able to get paid for bringing ammunition home with you.
-The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries
”
”
Howard Tayler
“
People at war with themselves will always cause collateral damage in the lives of those around them.
”
”
John Mark Green
“
This is the part no one talks about anymore. Not in civilized company at least. When a war is over, you stop discussing the cost. The reality. The blood-soaked soil or the grave markers or the collateral damage. The ways we kill our enemies in order to claim victory. History is written by the men who live. Not the ones who die. But I’ve heard these stories myself.
”
”
Ariel Lawhon (The Frozen River)
“
You aren’t a hot mess at all, Livvie. You’re just this . . . this . . . human tornado who is so alive, so filled with the energy of the moment, that there occasionally is a little collateral damage.
”
”
Lynn Painter (Mr. Wrong Number (Mr. Wrong Number, #1))
“
He sounded so tired and so earnest. I worried my lips between my teeth before asking, "Does this have anything to do with what you told me before?"
Tybalt blinked. Then he snorted a brief laugh, and asked, "October, in the years since your return ... has anything not been in some way related to what I told you before? You handed me a hope chest in a dark alley. You took my heart as collateral, and you've never returned it.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Ashes of Honor (October Daye, #6))
“
Love can complete you. It can also destroy you.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
A sociopath is often described as someone with little or no conscience. I’ll leave it to the psychologists to decide whether Holmes fits the clinical profile, but there’s no question that her moral compass was badly askew. I’m fairly certain she didn’t initially set out to defraud investors and put patients in harm’s way when she dropped out of Stanford fifteen years ago. By all accounts, she had a vision that she genuinely believed in and threw herself into realizing. But in her all-consuming quest to be the second coming of Steve Jobs amid the gold rush of the “unicorn” boom, there came a point when she stopped listening to sound advice and began to cut corners. Her ambition was voracious and it brooked no interference. If there was collateral damage on her way to riches and fame, so be it.
”
”
John Carreyrou (Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup)
“
The path forward is understanding that we are sometimes collateral damage to people’s own inner wars, and that we do not need to adopt their weapons as our own in order to fight back.
”
”
Brianna Wiest (When You're Ready, This Is How You Heal)
“
Think long and hard before offering your heart to someone who can only accept it part-time
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
Another time, another place, I'd back you to that wall right there, or any place you wanted to go, and do everything in my power to wipe him from your mind.
”
”
Jennifer St. Giles (Collateral Damage (Silent Warrior, #1))
“
When everything you love has been stolen from you, sometimes all you have left is revenge.Sometimes, the innocent get hurt. But one by one, the guilty will pay. Nothing ever goes exactly as you expect. And mistakes are life and death. Collateral damage is inescapable.
”
”
Emily Thorne
“
Because when we talk about addiction, we have to talk about collateral damage: the mental health of the kids and adults surrounding the addict. How do you live when your life has been upended by someone else’s health crisis? When you feel guilty about wanting to go to a dance, or be kissed, or go away to college, because right next to you, someone else is suffering?
”
”
Kathleen Glasgow (You'd Be Home Now)
“
Soldier and civilian, they died in their tens of thousands because death had been concocted for them, morality hitched like a halter round the warhorse so that we could talk about 'target-rich environments' and 'collateral damage' - that most infantile of attempts to shake off the crime of killing - and report the victory parades, the tearing down of statues and the importance of peace.
Governments like it that way. They want their people to see war as a drama of opposites, good and evil, 'them' and 'us', victory or defeat. But war is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents a total failure of the human spirit.
”
”
Robert Fisk (The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East (Vintage))
“
You cannot have your news instantly and have it done well. You cannot have your news reduced to 140 characters or less without losing large parts of it. You cannot manipulate the news but not expect it to be manipulated against you. You cannot have your news for free; you can only obscure the costs. If as a culture we can learn this lesson, and if we can learn to love the hard work, we will save ourselves much trouble and collateral damage. We must remember: There is no easy way.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator)
“
Many of us, myself, included, considered our souls necessary collateral damage to get done the things we felt we simply had to get get done - because of other people's expectations, because we want to be know as highly capable, because we're trying to outrun an inner emptiness. And for a while we don't even realize the compromise we've made. We're on autopilot, chugging through the day on fear and caffeine, checking things off the list, falling into bed without even a real thought or feeling or connection all day long, just a sense of having made it through.
”
”
Shauna Niequist (Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living)
“
Be willing to give, but only when you aren't expecting anything in return.
”
”
Criss Jami (Healology)
“
I knew it would be all of those things and so much more to me, but it was his heart I was yanking from his chest with my decision, and that’s what mattered to me. I was giving up a piece of my own as well, but it was a choice.
His was just collateral.
”
”
Rachael Wade (The Tragedy of Knowledge (Resistance, #3))
“
Love without trust is nothing more than infatuation.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
We are all collateral damage for someone's beautiful
Ideology, all of us inanimate in the face of the onslaught.
”
”
Benjamin Alire Sáenz (The Book of What Remains)
“
If political rights are necessary to set social rights in place, social rights are indispensable to make political rights 'real' and keep them in operation. The two rights need each other for their survival; that survival can only be their joint achievement.
”
”
Zygmunt Bauman (Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age)
“
Occupying the bottom end of the inequality ladder, and becoming a 'collateral victim' of a human action or a natural disaster, interact the way the opposite poles of magnets do: they tend to gravitate towards each other.
”
”
Zygmunt Bauman (Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age)
“
And now, because of a song, Vimes, a simple piece of music, Vimes, soft as a breath, stranger than a mountain, some very powerful states have agreed to work together to heal the problems of another autonomous state and, almost as collateral, turn some animals into people at a stroke.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Snuff (Discworld, #39; City Watch, #8))
“
Words have power. The power to soothe. The power to skewer someone through the heart. The power to render someone speechless.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
It truly amazes me how easily you delude yourself into believing I actually give a shit.-Cyrus DCCD
”
”
Bianca Sommerland (Deadly Captive (Deadly Captive, #1))
“
I’m nobody. I’m collateral damage with a lot of training.
”
”
Kiersten White (Mind Games (Mind Games, #1))
“
I think a free library is an outrageous perk. I think being able to take out 50 books at a time is an astounding luxury, especially if you've priced hardbound books anytime since the Clinton administration. Go into a public library, fill out the application, and here you go, we'll loan you $1,000 worth of materials. Collateral? Nah - just take them. You're good for it. We'd do it for anybody.
And we would.
”
”
Don Borchert (Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library)
“
Music wasn't about learning how to love. It was about learning what to disown and when to disown it. Even the most magnificent piece would end up as collateral damage in the endless war over taste.
”
”
Richard Powers (Orfeo)
“
Dogs find me irresistible." He lowered his voice to a conspiring whisper, aiming to put her at ease. "It's an alpha thing." Which was true, but was totally outrageous for him to claim.
”
”
Jennifer St. Giles (Collateral Damage (Silent Warrior, #1))
“
See the collateral damage—the suffering—that results when you cling to your desires and opinions or take things personally. Over the long haul, most of what we argue about with others really doesn’t matter that much.
”
”
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
“
Always act like a lady in front of closed doors. Never show emotion if it means risking your power.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
stays still like a statue as if waiting for my signal, and I love him for that and the urge to enter in collateral-crashing with him makes me bold as I kiss him passionately
”
”
Mariette Dicko (I Never Allowed You To Leave Me: Stalker Thriller & Black Love Suspense Standalone)
“
There was no talking Ollie and her ilk into believing Vern and her ilk were actually people. They were collateral damage in a useless battle waged to attain more power.
”
”
Rivers Solomon (Sorrowland)
“
How do you explain to an innocent citizen of the free world the importance of a credit default swap on a double-A tranche of a subprime-backed collateralized debt obligation?
”
”
Michael Lewis (The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine)
“
Turn a dead boy into a militant and his death is excusable, you see. Every Tamil boy born in the year I was born was acceptable collateral damage.
”
”
V.V. Ganeshananthan (Brotherless Night)
“
We are the collateral damage of carnism; we pay for it with our health, our environment, and our taxes - $7.64 billion a year, to be exact.
”
”
Melanie Joy (Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism)
“
My grandmother lived a remarkable life. She watched her nation fall to pieces; and even when she became collateral damage, she believed in the power of the human spirit. She gave when she had nothing; she fought when she could barely stand; she clung to tomorrow when she couldn’t find footing on the rock ledge of yesterday. She was a chameleon, slipping into the personae of a privileged young girl, a frightened teen, a dreamy novelist, a proud prisoner, an army wife, a mother hen. She became whomever she needed to be to survive, but she never let anyone else define her.
By anyone’s account, her existence had been full, rich, important—even if she chose not to shout about her past, but rather to keep it hidden. It had been nobody’s business but her own; it was still nobody’s business.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller)
“
I absolutely refuse to associate myself with anyone who cannot discern the essential night-and-day difference between theocratic fascism and liberal secular democracy, even less do I want to engage with those who are incapable of recognizing the basic moral distinction between premeditated mass murder and unintentional killing.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left)
“
This was how it had to go-she was a sacrifice he had to make, collateral damage in his quest for retaliation - but this wasn't how it was suppose to end. He wasn't supposed to lose it all.
”
”
J.M. Darhower (Reignite (Extinguish, #2))
“
Romance may be the world’s oldest cult. It hooks you when you’re vulnerable, scares the shit out of you, hold your deepest fears as collateral, renames you something like ‘baby,’ brainwashes you, then makes you think that your soul will wither and die if you let go of a person who loved you. So you better have a good goddamn reason for saying ‘nah, not enough.’ The love lobby is worse than the fun lobby. More misery, more addiction, more heads on spikes. And for what?
”
”
Sloane Crosley (Cult Classic)
“
Either way, you are in charge. Jealousy works against you. It takes control away from you, hands it over to the opposition. Maintain control.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
To our benefit, death isn't affected by an economic failure, and it never takes a holiday. In addition, a bereaved rich man is easier to con than a poor one in the same condition. A poor man, straightaway, understands death to be inevitable, but it takes a rich man some time to see that the end can't be circumvented with the application of enough collateral.
”
”
Jeffrey Ford (The Girl in the Glass)
“
The true cost of war can't be measured in dollars, infrastructure, or body counts. It is tomorrows, wrung out of hope by yesterdays that refuse to retreat, vanish into the smoke of memory.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
What happened?” – Abigail
“What always happens when preternatural powers are unleashed or go to war, and no one cares about the collateral damage during the battle. I lost my entire family in the blink of an eye. Buy hey, I saved a lot of money on not having to buy Christmas cards.” – Sasha
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Retribution (Dark-Hunter, #19))
“
Hedge funds have made massive leveraged credit bets, knowing that their upside is billions in fees and their downside is millions in fees.
”
”
Janet M. Tavakoli (Structured Finance and Collateralized Debt Obligations: New Developments in Cash and Synthetic Securitization)
“
What about what I wanted, maman? You and tante—all either of you have ever cared about is this stupid feud. I’m the collateral damage, aren’t I? I’m the one who suffers.
”
”
Shelby Mahurin (Gods & Monsters (Serpent & Dove, #3))
“
There is a defined gulf
Between credit and character
If you doubt this, ask any banker;
He will advise that character is nice
But it is not collateral.
”
”
Evan Rhys (Poems from the Ledge)
“
Repose not trust in testing another's degree of honesty at the risk of one's loss in matters big, unless collateralized.
”
”
Firoozeh Dumas
“
In Boston he met a pretty lady, fat and forty, but beautiful with the bloom of cash and collateral.
”
”
Flann O'Brien (The Best of Myles)
“
A great first line is the collateral that grants the author a line of intellectual credit from the reader.” —Chuck Wendig
”
”
K.M. Weiland (Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story)
“
In the tech arms race women and children are collateral damage. Boundaries are trumped by servitude to profits.
”
”
Laura Bates (The New Age of Sexism: How AI and Emerging Technologies Are Reinventing Misogyny)
“
No," he said. "I don't want you to suffer. Much. But the next time you're in bed with Belikov, stop a moment and remember that not everyone made out as well as you did."
I turned back to face him. "Adrian, I never—"
"Not just me, little dhampir," he added quietly. "There's been a lot of collateral damage along the way while you battled against the world. I was a victim, obviously. But what about Jill? What happens to her now that you've abandoned her to the royal wolves? And Eddie? Have you thought about him? And where's your Alchemist?
”
”
Richelle Mead (Last Sacrifice (Vampire Academy, #6))
“
You want the truth? I’ve been fucked and betrayed often enough to not trust anybody. And that includes you.” Frank shrugged. “Don’t take it personal.”
“Join the club. We meet Tuesdays. We never share the location with each other, and we show up armed.
”
”
Aleksandr Voinov (Collateral)
“
Memes can replicate with impressive virulence while leaving swaths of collateral damage—patent medicines and psychic surgery, astrology and satanism, racist myths, superstitions, and (a special case) computer viruses. In a way, these are the most interesting—the memes that thrive to their hosts’ detriment, such as the idea that suicide bombers will find their reward in heaven.
”
”
James Gleick (The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood)
“
I don’t regret a lot of things, kotyonok, but I do regret what I did last night.” “Because you almost lost your collateral,” I replied emotionlessly. “No,” he said harshly. “Because you could have died.
”
”
Danielle Lori (The Darkest Temptation (Made, #3))
“
The Great Thing
About long-time, all-time friends
is, no matter how many hours
(days, weeks, months, and, I assume,
years) you spend in differnt places, when you're finally in the same
room again, it's like you've never left
each other's side. And you realize
that your hearts have never
disconnected
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
Nothing in Chomsky's account acknowledges the difference between intending to kill a child, because of the effect you hope to produce on its parents (we call this "terrorism"), and inadvertently killing a child in an attempt to capture or kill an avowed child murderer (we call this "collateral damage"). In both cases a child has died, and in both cases it is a tragedy. But the ethical status of the perpetrators, be they individuals or states, could not be more distinct... For Chomsky, intentions do not seem to matter. Body count is all.
”
”
Sam Harris (The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason)
“
President Duterte said kill the addicts, and the addicts died. He said kill the mayors, and the mayors died. He said kill the lawyers, and the lawyers died. Sometimes the dead weren’t drug dealers or corrupt mayors or human rights lawyers. Sometimes they were children, but they were killed anyway, and the president said they were collateral damage.
”
”
Patricia Evangelista (Some People Need Killing)
“
Sloane…I’m yours,” he whispers.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
To not know is bad. To not want to know is worse.
”
”
David Rogers Webb (The Great Taking)
“
He would not live the life of his daughter by falling apart and not giving her anything but anticipated grief and collateral heartache. He wanted to imprint paternal love on her body. Maybe she would be strong and regenerated enough to stay, and maybe his intense affection would work its magic.
”
”
Laura Gentile (Within Paravent Walls)
“
The history of human knowledge has so uninterruptedly shown that to collateral, or incidental, or accidental events we are indebted for the most numerous and most valuable discoveries, that it has at length become necessary, in any prospective view of improvement, to make not only large, but the largest allowances for inventions that shall arise by chance, and quite out of the range of ordinary expectation. It is no longer philosophical to base, upon what has been, a vision of what is to be. Accident is admitted as a portion of the substructure. We make chance a matter of absolute calculation. We subject the unlooked for and unimagined, to the mathematical formulae of the schools.
”
”
Edgar Allan Poe (The Mystery of Marie Rogêt (C. Auguste Dupin, #2))
“
What I Will
by Suheir Hammad
I will not
dance to your war
drum. I will
not lend my soul nor
my bones to your war
drum. I will
not dance to your
beating. I know that beat.
It is lifeless. I know
intimately that skin
you are hitting. It
was alive once
hunted stolen
stretched. I will
not dance to your drummed
up war. I will not pop
spin break for you. I
will not hate for you or
even hate you. I will
not kill for you. Especially
I will not die
for you. I will not mourn
the dead with murder nor
suicide. I will not side
with you nor dance to bombs
because everyone else is
dancing. Everyone can be
wrong. Life is a right not
collateral or casual. I
will not forget where
I come from. I
will craft my own drum. Gather my beloved
near and our chanting
will be dancing. Our
humming will be drumming. I
will not be played. I
will not lend my name
nor my rhythm to your
beat. I will dance
and resist and dance and
persist and dance. This heartbeat is louder than
death. Your war drum ain’t
louder than this breath.
”
”
Suheir Hammad
“
Let us also acknowledge that the hearts which suffer the most from our wars are those of mothers. Their vital voices have been left out of the political equation for too long. An Iraqi or American mother cries the same as an Israeli or Afghan mother. The eyes of a mother who has suffered the loss of a child can destroy the soul of anyone who gazes upon them. More souls become casualties of war than physical bodies. War is a soul-shattering experience for the innocent.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
And I want to devour her in some sick way, to press her into myself so the two of us aren’t individual people anymore, but one living, breathing entity, where the threat of separation can never trouble us again.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
When I speak at universities, in colleges, I share these statistics. I tell them that even as we are labeled criminal, we are actually the victims of crime. And I tell them there are no stats to track collateral deaths, the ones that unfold over months and years spent in mourning and grief: the depression that becomes addiction to alcohol that becomes cirrhosis; or else addiction to food that becomes diabetes that becomes a stroke . Slow deaths . Undocumented deaths. Deaths with a common root: the hatred that tells a person daily that their life and the life of those they love ain't worth shit, a truth made ever more real when the people who harm you are never held accountable.
”
”
Patrisse Khan-Cullors (When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir)
“
Collateral, such as assets or property, may be required to secure the loan. So as an entrepreneur, it’s something to consider – it’s going to be a good idea to consider what part of your business’s assets can be collateralized, to what extent, and with how much ease.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
In any war, a tremendous amount of collateral damage is inevitable. Black and brown people are the principal targets in this war; white people are collateral damage.
”
”
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
“
you are a war
the border between two countries
the collateral damage
the paradox that joins the two
but also splits them apart
”
”
Rupi Kaur (Milk and Honey)
“
So David and my baby were ‘collateral damage’?” Eve took small, sharp breaths.
”
”
Debra Anastasia (Poughkeepsie (Poughkeepsie Brotherhood, #1))
“
No man can be prepared for the collateral damage when he doesn’t know what he’s sacrificing.
”
”
Nicole Fox (Satin Sinner (Stepanov Bratva, #1))
“
A common strand appeared to unite these conflicts, and that was the advancement of a small coterie’s concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism, which was defined to refer only to the organized and politically motivated killing of civilians by killers not wearing the uniforms of soldiers. I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage. This, I reasoned, was why America felt justified in bringing so many deaths to Afghanistan and Iraq, and why America felt justified in risking so many more deaths by tacitly using India to pressure Pakistan.
”
”
Mohsin Hamid (The Reluctant Fundamentalist)
“
The costs of achieving justice matter. Another way of saying the same thing is that “justice at all costs” is not justice. What, after all, is an injustice but the arbitrary imposition of a cost—whether economic, psychic, or other—on an innocent person? And if correcting this injustice imposes another arbitrary cost on another innocent person, is that not also an injustice?
”
”
Thomas Sowell (The Quest for Cosmic Justice)
“
There was, of course, nowhere better in the world to be than New York City. This fact was the foundation of her family's satisfaction with itself, the platform from which all else could be ridiculed, the collateral of adult sophistication that bought them the right to behave like children.
”
”
Jonathan Franzen (Freedom)
“
From my keen observation, it is a very sad fact that the Philippines’ current administration's drug war crisis has fully pressed the pedal of acceleration to more division, hatred, cycles of violence (copycat killings, summary killings, extra judicial killings, collateral victims of drug war), toxic revenge, and perpetual impunity. ~ Angelica Hopes, reflections on Drug War in the Philippines
”
”
Angelica Hopes
“
The coyly nicknamed explosive Key4 had been developed by Special Forces specifically for opening locked doors with minimal collateral damage. Consisting primarily of cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine with a diethylhexyl plasticizer, it was essentially a piece of C-4 rolled into paper-thin sheets for insertion into doorjambs. In the case of the library’s reading room, the explosive had worked perfectly.
”
”
Dan Brown (The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, #3))
“
As he once wrote of Kipling, his own enduring influence can be measured by a number of terms and phrases—doublethink, thought police, 'Some animals are more equal than others'—that he embedded in our language and in our minds. In Orwell's own mind there was an inextricable connection between language and truth, a conviction that by using plain and unambiguous words one could forbid oneself the comfort of certain falsehoods and delusions. Every time you hear a piece of psychobabble or propaganda—'people's princess,' say, or 'collateral damage,' or 'peace initiative'—it is good to have a well-thumbed collection of his essays nearby. His main enemy in discourse was euphemism, just as his main enemy in practice was the abuse of power, and (more important) the slavish willingness of people to submit to it.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens
“
Safetyism does not help students who suffer from anxiety and depression. In fact, as we argue throughout this book, safetyism is likely to make things even worse for students who already struggle with mood disorders. Safetyism also inflicts collateral damage on the university's culture of free inquiry because it teaches students to see words as violence and to interpret ideas and speakers as safe versus dangers rather than merely as true versus false. That way of thinking about words is likely to promote the intensification of a "call-out culture," which of course gives students one more reason to be anxious.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure)
“
There’s no version of this” – I gesture between us – “where we don’t get together, Fred. One way or another. I can tell you that for certain.”
“And to hell with the collateral damage.”
“Yes.” Without hesitation
“While it all burns around us.”
“I like it that way.” Because nothing else matters when she’s mine. Nothing. She’s everything and all of it.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (Bad Girl Reputation (Avalon Bay, #2))
“
When a righteous person lives in a sick household, everyone suffers—the innocent along with the guilty.
Lamentations, pg 1
”
”
Michael Ben Zehabe (Lamentations: how narcissistic leaders torment church and family (The Hidden Series))
“
He kisses me, his lips finding mine, and I don’t need to breathe anymore. His mouth on mine is all I need. His hands holding me tight is all I need. Just him. He is everything.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
There’s only one woman on the face of this planet who I’d let fucking cuff me. And you are not her.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
I've never known him as a civilian. Never known him as just a regular guy, something I'm not sure he--or any warrior--can ever be again.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
He was doing Tony’s dirty work, in a way—like Tony had done his in New York. One hand washing the other, neither of them getting clean.
”
”
Aleksandr Voinov (Collateral)
“
My heart. I wrap my heart around him as I cling on for dear life. He kisses me, his lips finding mine, and I don’t need to breathe anymore. His mouth on mine is all I need. His hands holding me tight is all I need. Just him. He is everything.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
Each returning soldier is an in-the-flesh memoir of war. Their chapters might vary, but similar imagery fills the pages, and the theme of every book is the same--profound change. The big question became, could I live with that kind of change?
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
Look, being committed doesn't make you dead, but all those months alone can make you feel that way sometimes. You never signed on for that. Embrace the moments that let you know you're alive.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
And as I stare at the girl of my dreams, staring back at me, I marvel at how the universe can know better than we know. How everything can change in one moment, one second, one blink of an eye. How that everything can be all we ever hoped for and more.
Our very own crystal clearness after a long stretch of sunless cold.
”
”
Katie Klein (Collateral Damage (Cross My Heart, #2))
“
I tried that too, you know. After ... my family was murdered, and I was waiting for justice, I tried to hide inside a bottle. But some men, Tony, [..] are not small enough to fit into a bottle.
”
”
Aleksandr Voinov (Collateral)
“
The ones that rip my heart from my chest are the little ones. The children, with tangled hair and dirty clothes, covering their own ugly secrets. And all they ask of me is shelter, food to warm their hollowness, a bed free of nightmares.
They look at me, and through me. And it's hard to tell who's more haunted-- them or me.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
When my generation of women walked away from the kitchen we were escorted down that path by a profiteering industry that knew a tired, vulnerable marketing target when they saw it. "Hey, ladies," it said to us, "go ahead, get liberated. We'll take care of dinner." They threw open the door and we walked into a nutritional crisis and genuinely toxic food supply. If you think toxic is an exaggeration, read the package directions for handling raw chicken from a CAFO. We came a long way, baby, into bad eating habits and collaterally impaired family dynamics. No matter what else we do or believe, food remains at the center of every culture. Ours now runs on empty calories.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life)
“
How often do we truly feel accepted?
Are we aware of the collateral effects inflicted when we reject someone or something?
How do we move on from a state of constant rejection?
How do we gratefully accept rejection?
With acceptance, we grow not in a constant state of rejection.
”
”
Angelica Hopes (Landscapes of a Heart, Whispers of a Soul (Speranza Odyssey Trilogy, #1))
“
The same system that once gave us subprime mortgage collateralized debt obligations no investor could possibly truly understand now gave us stock market trades that occurred at fractions of a penny at unsafe speeds using order types that no investor could possibly truly understand.
”
”
Michael Lewis (Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt)
“
Collateral learning in the way of formation of enduring attitudes, of likes and dislikes, may be and often is much more important than the spelling lesson or lesson in geography or history that is learned. For these attitudes are fundamentally what count in the future. The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning. If impetus in this direction is weakened instead of being intensified, something much more than mere lack of preparation takes place. The pupil is actually robbed of native capacities which otherwise would enable him [sic] to cope with the circumstances that he meets in the course of his life. We often see persons who have had little schooling and in whose case the absence of set schooling proves to be a positive asset. They have at least retained their native common sense and power of judgement, and its exercise in the actual conditions of living has given them the precious gift of ability to learn from the experiences they have.
”
”
John Dewey (Experience and Education)
“
Few would fail to notice the growing common ground between the perpetrators of 9/11 and the official response to it called “the war on terror.” Both sides deny the possibility of a middle ground, calling for a war to the finish. Both rally forces in the name of justice but understand justice as revenge. If the perpetrators of 9/11 refuse to distinguish between official America and the American people, target and victim, “the war on terror” has proceeded by dishing out collective punishment, with callous disregard for either “collateral damage” or legitimate grievances.
”
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Mahmood Mamdani (Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror)
“
But it was definitely a hecatomb, a slaughter on a staggering scale that was not intentional, but that could have been recognized much earlier as the collateral damage of a perfidious, rapacious policy of exploitation, a living sacrifice on the altar of the pathological pursuit of profit.
”
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David Van Reybrouck (Congo: The Epic History of a People)
“
Language is power. When you turn “torture” into “enhanced interrogation,” or murdered children into “collateral damage,” you break the power of language to convey meaning, to make us see, feel, and care. But it works both ways. You can use the power of words to bury meaning or to excavate it.
”
”
Rebecca Solnit (Men Explain Things to Me)
“
I wasn’t empty because I was abandoned by others, but because I had abandoned myself. Who I am was repressed—collateral damage in a longterm coping mechanism gone unchecked. My subconscious had put up partitions to contain the flood of emotion in the wake of trauma but in doing so my identity was trapped and locked away as well. Everything that is repressed would one day come forward—without warning, without control, and without a shutoff valve.
”
”
L.M. Browning (Drive Through the Night)
“
If you’re pulled under a wave, don’t fight it. You’ll never win. The ocean’s a hell of a lot stronger than you. It’s wild. All you have to do is hold your breath. Relax. Go with the wave, and eventually you’ll rise to the surface.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
People like to imagine that they get a girl who's been depressed, or confused, or desperate, and it's so romantic and exciting, but they definitely don't want to imagine what she might have really done. Trust me. I know of what I speak. Tragic is interesting but only if there was no collateral damage, and there always is.
”
”
Alison Umminger (American Girls)
“
Going into any prison is deeply confusing if you know anything about the racial demographics of America. The extreme overrepresentation of people of color, the disproportionate sentencing of racial minorities, the targeted prosecution of drug crimes in poor communities, the criminalization of new immigrants and undocumented people, the collateral consequences of voter disenfranchisement, and the barriers to re-entry can only be fully understood through the lens of our racial history.
”
”
Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy)
“
I wasn't an alcoholic. I didn't drink every day, didn't often drink to excess or binge. And could leave it alone completely for large swaths of time. But I did drink to be social. To have fun with friends. Sometimes, to sleep. Sometimes, to forget.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
Mujāhada, a collateral form of jihād (the so-called "holy war"), taken [by Sufis] to mean "earnest striving after the mystical life." The term is based on the Koranic text, "And they that strive earnestly in Our cause, them We surely guide upon Our paths." A Tradition makes the Prophet rank the "greater warfare" (al jihad al-akbar) above the "lesser warfare" (al jihad al-asghar, i.e., the war against infidelity), and explain the "greater warfare" as meaning "earnest striving with the carnal soul" (mujāhadat al-nafs).
”
”
A.J. Arberry (Sufism: An Account of the Mystics of Islam)
“
In the course of the war, some 70,000 French people were killed by Allied bombs: “collateral damage” in France thus included almost one-third more civilians accidentally killed than the British suffered from the Luftwaffe’s deliberate assault on their island. Bombing played a critical role in slowing the German buildup after D-Day, but the price was high.
”
”
Max Hastings (Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945)
“
But there’s a soft side to Zeth he’s finally showing to me, and every time I catch a glimpse of it, I feel myself falling harder.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
My body is sore in a way that makes me smile secretly to myself. Zeth-sore. I’m a fan of being Zeth-sore.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
You will never need to spend the night in a cell on my account, Sloane. Never. I’ll die before I let that happen.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
I want to make you happy, Sloane. I want to keep you safe.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
Ask a soldier what he believes in. He'll tell you God. Country. The patient hands of death-- the ones he's wearing.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
Say a Hail Mary for me. I could use some forgiveness.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
Apparently, you were the only chatty female who didn't make him crazy.
”
”
Lynette Eason (Collateral Damage (Danger Never Sleeps, #1))
“
I had no more plans for the afternoon than a migrating bird has collateral assets.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle)
“
If Dad gets his way, I’m not just going to be collateral damage. I’m going to be part of the explosion.
”
”
Caitlin Schneiderhan (Stranger Things: Flight of Icarus (Stranger Things, #7))
“
I swear…she will test my patience to the point of breaking me and her body will be collateral damage.
”
”
Mya Wolf (Indomitable Iron Book 2)
“
In most cases, lenders are not interested in owning the collateral itself – they are only interested in the cash value of the collateral.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Capital Acquisition: Small Business Considerations for How to Get Financing)
“
Lenders want to have peace of mind when it comes to getting their money back plus profit – collateral is one thing that gives that peace of mind.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Capital Acquisition: Small Business Considerations for How to Get Financing)
“
Free will always results in collateral damage.
”
”
J. Lincoln Fenn (Poe)
“
The sniper is like a highly skilled surgeon, practicing his craft on the battlefield. Make no mistake: War is about killing other human beings, taking out the enemy before he takes us out, stopping the spread of further aggression by stopping those who would perpetuate that aggression. However, if the goal is to prosecute the war in order to achieve the peace, and to do so as fast and as effectively as possible, and with the least collateral damage, then warriors like Chris Kyle and our other brothers-in-arms are heroes in the best sense.
”
”
Brandon Webb (The Red Circle: My Life in the Navy SEAL Sniper Corps and How I Trained America's Deadliest Marksmen)
“
In a society so estranged from animals as ours, we often fail to credit them with any form of language. If we do, it comes under the heading of communication rather than speech. And yet, the great silence we have imposed on the rest of life contains innumerable forms of expression. Where does our own language come from but this unfathomed store that characterizes innumerable species?
We are now more than halfway removed from what the unwritten word meant to our ancestors, who believed in the original, primal word behind all manifestations of the spirit. You sang because you were answered. The answers come from life around you. Prayers, chants, and songs were also responses to the elements, to the wind, the sun and stars, the Great Mystery behind them. Life on earth springs from a collateral magic that we rarely consult. We avoid the unknown as if we were afraid that contact would lower our sense of self-esteem.
”
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John Hay (A Beginner's Faith in Things Unseen)
“
[K]eep in mind the big picture, the 1,000-foot view. See the impermanence of whatever is at issue, and the many causes and conditions that led to it. See the collateral damage - the suffering - that results when you cling to your desires and opinions or take things personally. Over the long haul, most of what we argue about with others really doesn't matter that much.
”
”
Rick Hanson (Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom)
“
Calm the fuck down? Okay, I’ll calm the fuck down when you tell me exactly where my girlfriend is.” The word girlfriend trips off my tongue before I even have a chance to second-guess it. No second-guessing is required, though. Sloane is my girlfriend. She’s even more than that.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
But money doesn’t work in the sense that labor or tangible capital expends
effort to produce commodities. Credit is debt, and debt extracts interest. Financial salesmen who promise investors, “Make your money work for you” actually mean that society should work for the creditors — and that means for the banks that create credit.
The effect is to turn the economic surplus into a flow of interest payments, diverting revenue from tangible capital investment. As the economy’s reproductive powers are dried up, the financialization process is kept going by easing credit terms and lending — not to produce more goods and services, but to bid up prices for the real estate, stocks and bonds being pledged as collateral for larger and larger loans.
”
”
Michael Hudson (The Bubble and Beyond)
“
The savagery of the picture strange and alluring, Frank smeared with blood and absolutely at ease. Barbarian, primitive, visceral; if Tony had been given to myth-making, he would have wondered if there could be any more frightening god than one who was simultaneously provider and destroyer.
”
”
Aleksandr Voinov (Collateral)
“
As the temperature drops, single voices—clear and hollow—replace the keening chorus: the ancient speech of frogs. One word becomes clear, as if spoken in English. "Hear! Hear! Hear! The world is more than your thoughtless commute. We, the collateral, are your wealth, your teachers, your security, your family. Your strange hunger for ease should not mean a death sentence for the rest of Creation.
”
”
Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants)
“
Hamas repeatedly and continually used protected civilian sites for military attacks, rendering them legitimate military targets. An IDF study shows that Hamas fired rockets from amusement parks, first aid stations, U.N. facilities, playgrounds, hospitals, medical clinics, and schools.28 Consequently, Hamas, not Israel, is the party committing war crimes. Incidental or collateral damage on both sides
”
”
Jay Sekulow (Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can't Ignore)
“
We routinely and rightly condemn the terrorism that kills civilians in the name of God but we cannot claim the high moral ground if we dismiss the suffering and death of the many thousands of civilians who die in our wars as ‘collateral damage’. Ancient religious mythologies helped people to face up to the dilemma of state violence, but our current nationalist ideologies seem by contrast to promote a retreat into denial or hardening of our hearts. Nothing shows this more clearly than a remark of Madeleine Albright when she was still Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the United Nations. Later she retracted it, but among people around the world it has never been forgotten. In 1996, in CBS’s 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl asked her whether the cost of international sanctions against Iraq was justified: 'We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean that’s more children than died in Hiroshima … Is the price worth it?’ 'I think this is a very hard choice,’ Albright replied 'but the price, we think the price is worth it.
”
”
Karen Armstrong (Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence)
“
Secured loans have collateral, while unsecured loans rely solely on a borrower's creditworthiness. As an entrepreneur, you’re in a stronger position if you have both the creditworthiness piece and the collateral piece.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
Like a vast, random experiment targeting the environment with health doomed to be collateral damage, chemicals have been released into the air, soil, and water since nineteenth-century industrialism. While some may shrug that the aerial release of chemical nanoparticles and nano-sensors, microprocessors, and biologicals under the classified Project Cloverleaf is just more of the same, nanoparticles able to breach the blood-brain barrier make it uniquely diabolical, as does the global conspiracy of power to turn the entire planet into an electromagnetic grid and plug everyone into it. War has gone corporate and all of life reframed as a battlespace of disposable noncombatants (civilians) redefined as potential “terrorists.” The military is no longer a protector but partnered with giant transnational corporations and wealthy dynastic cartels like that of Big Pharma and Big Oil.
”
”
Elana Freeland (Under an Ionized Sky: From Chemtrails to Space Fence Lockdown)
“
Why didn’t you kiss me back when I kissed you then?” I want to be sure.
“You seemed vulnerable and I didn’t want to take advantage,” he answers.
I’m not about to let this chance slip by so I tell him, “You wouldn’t be taking advantage now.”
He tilts his head upwards but stays still like a statue as if waiting for my signal, and I love him for that and the urge to enter in collateral-crashing with him makes me bold as I kiss him passionately.
”
”
Mariette Dicko (I Never Allowed You To Leave Me: Stalker Thriller & Black Love Suspense Standalone)
“
How do you explain to an innocent citizen of the free world the importance of a credit default swap on a double-A tranche of a subprime-backed collateralized debt obligation? He tried, but his English in-laws just looked at him strangely. They understood that someone else had just lost a great deal of money and Ben had just made a great deal of money, but never got much past that. "I can't really talk to them about it," he says. "They're English.
”
”
Michael Lewis (The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine)
“
Though everyone had been uniformly gracious with me throughout our visit, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being vetted in some way and that I’d already come up short. Peter was the one they wanted; I was merely the collateral—the boyfriend, the grad-school widow. I was accustomed to monopolizing Peter’s affection, but for the first time in our relationship, I felt like I’d arrived at a meeting only to find all the seats at the table filled.
”
”
Dan Lopez (Part the Hawser, Limn the Sea)
“
Universities today loudly proclaim their commitment to diversity. But in the meantime, democratization through public investment has been replaced by democratization through consumer credit, effectively transferring the costs of diversity back to the individual student and her family. The beauty of securitized credit is that it excludes no one a priori. By abstracting from class stratification in the present, it can accommodate all differences preemptively simply by pricing them at variable rates and deferring repayment to some barely imaginable point in the future. In principle, we all have access to a college education, no matter how much we or our parents earn. Yet, private credit does not merely obscure the effects of class; it also actively exacerbates inequality by forcing those without income or collateral to pay higher rates for the same service. When the long-term costs of credit begin to materialize and accumulate, students are once again confronted with the intractable resistances of class, race, and gender stratification. The divisions of family wealth reassert themselves with all their historical force.
”
”
Melinda Cooper (Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism)
“
In the car inching its way down Fifth Avenue, toward Bergdorf Goodman and this glamorous party, I looked back on my past with a new understanding. This sickness, the “endo-whatever,” had stained so much—my sense of self, my womanhood, my marriage, my ability to be present. I had effectively missed one week of each month every year of my life since I was thirteen, because of the chronic pain and hormonal fluctuations I suffered during my period. I had lain in bed, with heating pads and hot-water bottles, using acupuncture, drinking teas, taking various pain medications and suffering the collateral effects of them. I thought of all the many tests I missed in various classes throughout my education, the school dances, the jobs I knew I couldn’t take as a model, because of the bleeding and bloating as well as the pain (especially the bathing suit and lingerie shoots, which paid the most). How many family occasions was I absent from? How many second or third dates did I not go on? How many times had I not been able to be there for others or for myself? How many of my reactions to stress or emotional strife had been colored through the lens of chronic pain? My sense of self was defined by this handicap. The impediment of expected pain would shackle my days and any plans I made.
I did not see my own womanhood as something positive or to be celebrated, but as a curse that I had to constantly make room for and muddle through. Like the scar on my arm, my reproductive system was a liability. The disease, developing part and parcel with my womanhood starting at puberty with my menses, affected my own self-esteem and the way I felt about my body. No one likes to get her period, but when your femininity carries with it such pain and consistent physical and emotional strife, it’s hard not to feel that your body is betraying you. The very relationship you have with yourself and your person is tainted by these ever-present problems. I now finally knew my struggles were due to this condition. I wasn’t high-strung or fickle and I wasn’t overreacting.
”
”
Padma Lakshmi (Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir)
“
Just then, Larry recalled a conversation he had with a friend in Ireland, about the situation in Nepal between the King and the Maoists. The friend was sided with the Maoists, which was more or less his political leanings in any case, and stated that at least they were trying to help the people. So Larry had remarked upon the rising death rate, and how the Maoists are just as brutal as the security forces, yet the friend simply shrugged and said you have to expect some collateral damage in a revolution.
Oh how he hates that phrase, as that makes it sound like the people’s lives are meant to be expendable, something that a person’s life should never be. Of course, it is very easy to disregard people you have never met, and who are certainly not your friends or family members. After all, in the eyes of an outsider, who is in no danger whatsoever, the people caught up in the situation are nothing more than simply statistics.
”
”
Andrew James Pritchard (Not Collateral Damage)
“
As the Public Relations Expert, your focus has to be on managing the creative development and production of all marketing campaigns and initiatives. The responsibility for branding, advertising, and promotional collateral is all yours.
”
”
Germany Kent
“
Military history teaches us, contrary to popular belief, that wars are not necessarily the most costly of human calamities. The allied coalition lost few lives in getting Saddam out of Kuwait during the Gulf War of 1991, yet doing nothing in Rwanda allowed savage gangs and militias to murder hundreds of thousands with impunity. Bill Clinton stopped a Balkan holocaust through air strikes, without sacrificing American soldiers. His supporters argued, with some merit, that the collateral damage from the NATO bombing of Belgrade resulted in far fewer innocents killed, in such a “terrible arithmetic,” than if the Serbian death squads had been allowed to continue their unchecked cleansing of Islamic communities.
”
”
Victor Davis Hanson (The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern)
“
All invitations must proceed from heaven perhaps; perhaps it is futile for men to initiate their own unity, they do but widen the gulfs between them by the attempt.
So at all events thought old Mr. Graysford and young Mr. Sorley, the devoted missionaries who lived out beyond the slaughterhouses, always travelled third on the railways, and never came to the club. In our Father's house are many mansions, they taught, and there alone will the incompatible multitudes of mankind be welcomed and soothed. Not one shall be turned away by the servants on that verandah, be he black or white, not one shall be kept standing who approaches with a loving heart.
And why should the divine hospitality cease here? Consider, with all reverence, the monkeys. May there not be a mansion for the monkeys also? Old Mr. Graysford said No, but young Mr. Sorley, who was advanced, said Yes; he saw no reason why monkeys should not have their collateral share of bliss, and he had sympathetic discussions about them with his Hindu friends. And the jackals? Jackals were indeed less to Mr. Sorley's mind but he admitted that the mercy of God, being infinite, may well embrace all mammals. And the wasps? He became uneasy during the descent to wasps, and was apt to change the conversation. And oranges, cactuses, crystals and mud? and the bacteria inside Mr. Sorley? No, no, this is going too far. We must exclude someone from our gathering, or we shall be left with nothing.
”
”
E.M. Forster (A Passage to India)
“
The options also were a way of shifting enormous risk from Renaissance to the banks. Because the lenders technically owned the underlying securities in the basket-options transactions, the most Medallion could lose in the event of a sudden collapse was the premium it had paid for the options and the collateral held by the banks. That amounted to several hundred million dollars. By contrast, the banks faced billions of dollars of potential losses if Medallion were to experience deep troubles. In the words of a banker involved in the lending arrangement, the options allowed Medallion to “ring-fence” its stock portfolios, protecting other parts of the firm, including Laufer’s still-thriving futures trading, and ensuring Renaissance’s survival in the event something unforeseen took place. One staffer was so shocked by the terms of the financing that he shifted most of his life savings into Medallion, realizing the most he could lose was about 20 percent of his money.
”
”
Gregory Zuckerman (The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution)
“
Most incarcerated women—nearly two-thirds—are in prison for nonviolent, low-level drug crimes or property crimes. Drug laws in particular have had a huge impact on the number of women sent to prison. “Three strikes” laws have also played a considerable role. I started challenging conditions of confinement at Tutwiler in the mid-1980s as a young attorney with the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee. At the time, I was shocked to find women in prison for such minor offenses. One of the first incarcerated women I ever met was a young mother who was serving a long prison sentence for writing checks to buy her three young children Christmas gifts without sufficient funds in her account. Like a character in a Victor Hugo novel, she tearfully explained her heartbreaking tale to me. I couldn’t accept the truth of what she was saying until I checked her file and discovered that she had, in fact, been convicted and sentenced to over ten years in prison for writing five checks, including three to Toys “R” Us. None of the checks was for more than $150. She was not unique. Thousands of women have been sentenced to lengthy terms in prison for writing bad checks or for minor property crimes that trigger mandatory minimum sentences. The collateral consequences of incarcerating women are significant. Approximately 75 to 80 percent of incarcerated women are mothers with minor children. Nearly 65 percent had minor children living with them at the time of their arrest—children who have become more vulnerable and at-risk as a result of their mother’s incarceration and will remain so for the rest of their lives, even after their mothers come home. In 1996, Congress passed welfare reform legislation that gratuitously included a provision that authorized states to ban people with drug convictions from public benefits and welfare. The population most affected by this misguided law is formerly incarcerated women with children, most of whom were imprisoned for drug crimes. These women and their children can no longer live in public housing, receive food stamps, or access basic services. In the last twenty years, we’ve created a new class of “untouchables” in American society, made up of our most vulnerable mothers and their children.
”
”
Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption)
“
He looks straight at me, like he’s looking into me, and then does something that makes my heart sing. He lifts our hands to his mouth and lays a gentle kiss on my wrist. “It doesn’t matter what you look like, Sloane. You’re the strongest person I know.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
Ultimately, I believe that the far right in America, at least the incarnation I spent years covering, is destined to fail. Not because America is inherently good and that the forces of justice and progress are always stronger than those of intolerance and hatred, but because white supremacy is doing just fine without the far right. The country has spent decades perfecting an ostensibly nonracial form of white supremacy, and it is serving with remarkable efficiency. Private prisons, mandatory sentencing, seemingly unchecked police power, gerrymandering, increasingly limited access to healthcare and abortion—these are all tendrils in an ingenious web designed to keep people poor and powerless. Yes, white people were caught in that web too, but when it comes to those experiencing poverty, African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos vastly outnumber whites. The people Matthew was ostensibly fighting for—the broken, beaten, and forgotten whites of Appalachia and the Rust Belt—weren’t victims in a war against white people but rather collateral damage in a war against poor people and minorities. I believe Matthew was right when he said that the elites and politicians hate his people, but they don’t hate them because they’re white; they hate them because they’re poor.
”
”
Vegas Tenold (Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America)
“
Better I die for something, even if it’s nothing you’d believe in. Loyalty’s just a word to you. It’s real for me.
I’d like to say I love you, but I promised truth. I’ve feared you, admired you, hated you, maybe even worshipped you. But I know what love feels like now, and we never had that.
Tell Ma that if I love anyone, it’s her. She’s always been quiet and distant, but I think that’s because she hates you and I’m collateral damage. I wish I’d known her without you. I think we’d understand each other better.
Good-bye, Da.
Go to hell.
I hope I’m not there waiting.
”
”
Rachel Caine (Sword and Pen (The Great Library, #5))
“
At the twisted heart of every war were the innocents. “Collateral damage” they called it these days, but those civilians hadn’t been collateral, they had been the targets. That was what war had become. It was no longer warrior killing warrior, it was people killing other people. Any people.
”
”
Kate Atkinson (A God in Ruins)
“
When stolen securities got big, we used to have Wall Street types all over the place buying up bearer bonds. They would send them overseas, where the banks didn’t know they were stolen, and then they’d use the hot bonds as collateral on loans in this country. Once the stolen bonds were accepted as collateral, nobody ever checked their serial numbers again. We’re talking about millions of dollars in collateral forever. We got robbed on those jobs. At that time we didn’t have any idea about collateralizing foreign loans. The bankers took us to the cleaners. We got pennies for the dollar.
”
”
Nicholas Pileggi (Wiseguy)
“
What were you going to do? Where you not going to get married when your husband was the person who understood you and loved you and rooted for you forever, no matter what? Where you not going to have your children, whom you loved and who made all the collateral damage (your time, your body, your lightness, your darkness) worth it? Time was going to march on anyway. You were not ever going to be young again. You were only at risk for not remembering that this was as good as it would get, in every single moment--that you are right now as young as you'll ever be again. And now. And now. And now and now and now.
”
”
Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Fleishman Is in Trouble)
“
I know he did horrible things in the jungle. Things no amount of alcohol or pills could erase. War stains soldiers, all the way through their psyches, into their souls. I understand that, and could almost forgive him for taking his own life, to quiet the ghosts. But I can never forgive him for taking my mother with him.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
The collateral consequences of incarcerating women are significant. Approximately 75 to 80 percent of incarcerated women are mothers with minor children. Nearly 65 percent had minor children living with them at the time of their arrest—children who have become more vulnerable and at-risk as a result of their mother’s incarceration and will remain so for the rest of their lives, even after their mothers come home. In 1996, Congress passed welfare reform legislation that gratuitously included a provision that authorized states to ban people with drug convictions from public benefits and welfare. The population most affected by this misguided law is formerly incarcerated women with children, most of whom were imprisoned for drug crimes. These women and their children can no longer live in public housing, receive food stamps, or access basic services. In the last twenty years, we’ve created a new class of “untouchables” in American society, made up of our most vulnerable mothers and their children.
”
”
Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption)
“
We may take as our guide, here, John Dewey's observation that the content of a lesson is the least important thing about learning. As he wrote in Experience and Education, "Perhaps the greatest of all pedagogical fallacies is the notion that a person learns only what he is studying at the time. Collateral learning in the way of formation of enduring attitudes may be and often is more important than the spelling lesson, or the lesson in geography or history. For these attitudes are fundamentally what count in the future." In other words, the most important thing one learns is always something about *how* one learns. As Dewey wrote in another place, "We learn what we do.
”
”
Neil Postman (Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business)
“
Their advances were like bees at a picnic—unwanted, bumptious, and minatory.
”
”
Brian Andrews (Collateral (Tier One #6))
“
I want to make you happy, Sloane. I want to keep you safe. This life isn’t what you deserve.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
Once Sloane’s back where she’s supposed to be…I’m gonna need to borrow a suit.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
Oh, the irony’s so bittersweet, I feel like I’m choking on it.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
Because the woman I can’t live without is inherently good, and deserves someone better than me. Because Sloane deserves everything, and I want to give it to her.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
This time I’m actually holding her, and I’m meant to be here. I fall asleep for the very first time with a woman in my arms. It feels like heaven.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
And I love you, angry girl. I really do.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
We don’t say anything. We don’t need to. I tell him everything he needs to know with my eyes, and he does the same. And then we fall asleep.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
It's just...it's not every day someone comes along willing to take a bullet for your little sister."
I swallow back a laugh, try to lighten the mood. "Nah, I'm sure Hanson would've stepped up."
Daniel rolls his eyes, reaches for his drink. "I hated that kid."
"Jaden thought he was perfect."
"I think Jaden started to see a new kind of perfect when she met you.
”
”
Katie Klein (Collateral Damage (Cross My Heart, #2))
“
Listening to the shrill rhetoric of hard line Brexiteers - either extolling the virtues of a 'no deal' Brexit, or suggesting its inevitability is simply down to the intransigence of the EU - I am reminded of another great folly in British history: 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'. It is as if we are witnessing a modern day re-enactment of that foolhardy military manoeuvre in which a mix of poor communication, rash decisions and vainglorious personalities led to the needless massacre of countless cavalrymen. Messrs. Fox, Johnson and Rees-Mogg may relish the idea of charging headlong into battle against a well prepared and strongly defended position, immune to the ensuing casualties and collateral damage. It would be appreciated if they could kindly leave the rest of us out of their futile and reckless endeavours.
”
”
Alex Morritt (Lines & Lenses)
“
The fiddle game was a con. The way they’d explained it to Ben, a guy goes into a restaurant carrying a fiddle, orders food, eats, and then claims he can’t pay because he left his wallet somewhere else. So he offers to leave his fiddle behind as collateral while he goes to get his money. The restaurant owner agrees, and the guy leaves. After that, a second guy, who’s in on the game, comes up and tells the restaurant owner that the fiddle is special, it’s worth a lot of money, and he wants to buy it. Then, all of a sudden, the second guy has to go to an appointment or something, but he leaves his business card behind. So now the restaurant owner starts thinking he’s got something really valuable on his hands, this fiddle, and when the owner of the instrument comes back, the restaurant owner offers to buy it. The guy says he couldn’t possibly part with it, it’s his livelihood, so the restaurant owner offers more money, knowing he can make it back when he sells it. They haggle, and finally agree on a price, and the fiddle owner leaves with the money. Trouble is, when the restaurant owner goes to call the fake buyer, he can’t find him. The two guys split the money, and the restaurant owner is left with a piece-of-crap fiddle.
”
”
Matthew J. Kirby (Spell Robbers (The Quantum League, #1))
“
What Mr. Rothschild had discovered was the basic principle of power, influence, and control over people as applied to economics. That principle is "when you assume the appearance of power, people soon give it to you."
Mr. Rothschild had discovered that currency or deposit loan accounts had the required appearance of power that could be used to INDUCE PEOPLE [WC emphasis] (inductance, with people corresponding to a magnetic field) into surrendering their real wealth in exchange for a promise of greater wealth (instead of real compensation). They would put up real collateral in exchange for a loan of promissory notes. Mr. Rothschild found that he could issue more notes than he had backing for, so long as he had someone's stock of gold as a persuader to show to his customers.
Mr. Rothschild loaned his promissory notes to individuals and to governments. These would create overconfidence. Then he would make money scarce, tighten control of the system, and collect the collateral through the obligation of contracts. The cycle was then repeated. These pressures could be used to ignite a war. Then he would control the availability of currency to determine who would win the war. That government which agreed to give him control of its economic system got his support.
”
”
Milton William Cooper (Behold a Pale Horse)
“
Tell me why. Tell me why you want to do this now.” “Because I don’t want to hurt her. Because I want to make her happy.” These are two of the truest statements that have ever passed my lips. I’ve never meant anything more.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
If we are at war with Covid 19 (Corona Virus) . In war there must be casualties and collateral damages. Drink, smoke, loot, visit friends, go outside , go to parties, events, funerals, church and clubs at your own risk. Be ignorant, don't wash your hands and gather in groups at your own risk. You might become the percentage of casualty or just be safe , stay home and practice social distance. We can defeat the virus, but as for how long will it take.It is up to you.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
Ray, I shouldn’t tell you this,” Colonel Laidlaw said, “but it’s your ass on the line, so you have a right to know. The Administration has tightened up on the missile hits. Too much collateral. The UN squawking. This guy’s complex is in heavy urban. You go all Hellfire on his ass, yes, you probably send him to his God. But you send two hundred other rug weavers along with him and you’ve got the New York Times violin section in full blast. These folks don’t like that.
”
”
Stephen Hunter (Dead Zero (Bob Lee Swagger, #7; Ray Cruz #1))
“
antibiotics, the more opportunity they have to develop resistance. What you are left with after a course of antibiotics, after all, are the most resistant microbes. By attacking a broad spectrum of bacteria, you stimulate lots of defensive action. At the same time, you inflict unnecessary collateral damage. Antibiotics are about as nuanced as a hand grenade. They wipe out good microbes as well as bad. Increasing evidence shows that some of the good ones may never recover, to our permanent cost.
”
”
Bill Bryson (The Body: A Guide for Occupants)
“
The panic was blamed on many factors—tight money, Roosevelt’s Gridiron Club speech attacking the “malefactors of great wealth,” and excessive speculation in copper, mining, and railroad stocks. The immediate weakness arose from the recklessness of the trust companies. In the early 1900s, national and most state-chartered banks couldn’t take trust accounts (wills, estates, and so on) but directed customers to trusts. Traditionally, these had been synonymous with safe investment. By 1907, however, they had exploited enough legal loopholes to become highly speculative. To draw money for risky ventures, they paid exorbitant interest rates, and trust executives operated like stock market plungers. They loaned out so much against stocks and bonds that by October 1907 as much as half the bank loans in New York were backed by securities as collateral—an extremely shaky base for the system. The trusts also didn’t keep the high cash reserves of commercial banks and were vulnerable to sudden runs.
”
”
Ron Chernow (The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance)
“
But how many young people truly comprehend the face of war until it's staring them down? You can't patrol unfriendly villages without embracing paranoia. You can't watch your battle buddies blown to bits without jonesing for revenge. You can't take a blow to the helmet without learning to duck. And you can't put people in your crosshairs, celebrate dropping them to the ground, without catching a little bloodlust. Paranoia. Revenge. Bloodlust. These things turn boys into men. But what kind of men?
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
Oh my god, no wonder she went so pale. She’s going to string you up for this, baby.” Sloane laughs. Baby. I’ve wanted to hit loved-up assholes for using that endearment before. But when Sloane says it… I don’t really know what to think. I catch Michael’s amused smile, itching at the corners of his mouth, and I don’t feel like busting his balls. I just raise my eyebrows at him, a look of shock and amusement of my own. The fucker grins, then, like it’s Christmas day and Mom and Dad aren’t fighting.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
I was pregnant, and then I wasn’t,” she said softly. “I was in love, and then I wasn’t. You did that. You took those things from me. My family was collateral damage in a drive-by ordered by you.”
“I’ve hated you longer than I’ve done much of anything else. No one hired me. I’m here because it’s the only way I’m still a mother to her. I can still be an angry mother even though she’s not here. But I’m not even doing that right.”
Eve hung her head in defeat. She felt the numbness crawl over her again. Claim me. I have nothing left.
Beckett dropped his arms and turned to face her. “Eve.”
The odd sound of her name on his lips brought her eyes to his face. He was devastated.
“What’s her name?” Beckett asked in an unsteady voice.
Eve bit her lip. She’d never told anyone.
“Anna.” Eve’s long-dry eyes filled with tears.
Beckett made no move to cover himself or call for help. “That’s a beautiful name. Anna’s very lucky to have such a dedicated mother. Once you’re a mom, that title’s yours for-fucking-ever—like a president.”
He reached over and chose the quietest pistol from the wall. He held it out to her.
“No one will hear this one, so you should be able to get out of here. I’m so sorry. I caused you the most unimaginable pain. It would be my honor to die at your hand, if it gives you even a moment’s peace.”
Eve stared at the gun for a long while. “That’s the worst part,” she whispered, her voice soaked with defeat. “I’m not strong enough. I’ve killed so many. I can kill anyone. But I can’t kill you.
”
”
Debra Anastasia (Poughkeepsie (Poughkeepsie Brotherhood, #1))
“
Honolulu represents the worst of all that. Yet every time I fly in, anticipation begins to build just about the time I think I'll go crazy, stuffed into a narrow airliner seat between honeymooners and retired couples looking for Shangri-La.
I'd like to tell them to hold on tight to that person beside them, because that's where they'll find paradise. It is not a beach or a palm tree grove or the brim of a smoking black crater. It's a plateau inside their hearts, one that can only be reached in tandem.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Collateral)
“
it was England that shone as Hamilton’s true lodestar in public finance. Back in the 1690s, the British had set up the Bank of England, enacted an excise tax on spirits, and funded its public debt—that is, pledged specific revenues to insure repayment of its debt. During the eighteenth century, it had vastly expanded that public debt. Far from weakening the country, it had produced manifold benefits. Public credit had enabled England to build up the Royal Navy, to prosecute wars around the world, to maintain a global commercial empire. At the same time, government bonds issued to pay for the debt galvanized the economy, since creditors could use them as collateral for loans. By imitating British practice, Hamilton did not intend to make America subservient to the former mother country, as critics claimed. His objective was to promote American prosperity and self-sufficiency and make the country ultimately less reliant on British capital. Hamilton wanted to use British methods to defeat Britain economically.
”
”
Ron Chernow (Alexander Hamilton)
“
I’m glad I’ve impressed you,” she says. I can’t believe this woman. What the fuck did I ever do to deserve someone like her? To deserve the look she’s giving me right now? It’s a mystery I’ll never be able to work out. “Sloane, always consider me impressed.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
Do you trust me now?” “Yes. I trust you.” My lips tingle as he kisses me, then. A soft, light, barely there kiss that causes heat to pool in the bottom of my stomach. “Thank you, Sloane,” he whispers. “I’m going to hurt you now, but I promise you’re going to like it.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
In the mid-1980s, Congress authorized the creation of the US Sentencing Commission to examine prison terms and codify norms to correct the arbitrary punishments meted out by unaccountable judges. First, in 1989 the commission’s guidelines for individuals went into effect, establishing a point system for how many years of prison a convicted criminal might get, based on the seriousness of the misconduct and a person’s criminal history. In 1991, amid public and congressional outrage that sentences for white-collar criminals were too light and fines and sanctions for corporations too lenient, the Sentencing Commission expanded the concept to cover organizations. It formalized the Sporkin-era regime of offering leniency in exchange for cooperation and reform. The new rules delineated factors that could earn a culprit mercy. In levying a fine, the court should consider, the sentencing guidelines said, “any collateral consequences of conviction.” 1 “Collateral consequences” was, and remains, an ill-defined concept. How worried should the government be if a punishment causes a company to go out of business? Should regulators worry about the cashiering of innocent employees? What about customers, suppliers, or competitors? Should they fret about financial crises? From this rather innocuous mention, the little notion of collateral consequences would blossom into the great strangling vine that came to be known after the financial crisis of 2008 by its shorthand: “too big to jail.” Prosecutors and regulators were crippled by the idea that the government could not criminally sanction some companies—particularly giant banks—for fear that they would collapse, causing serious problems for financial markets or the economy.
”
”
Jesse Eisinger (The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives)
“
One other important footnote to history: On Sunday, March 16, the same day that JP Morgan Chase announced its purchase of Bear Stearns and the Fed announced its approval of the deal, the Fed’s Board of Governors created the Primary Dealer Credit Facility. The PDCF made it much easier to lend money to securities firms by, for example, broadening the range of eligible collateral. Bear executives maintained that they could have averted bankruptcy without requiring assistance, if they had been given access to the PDCF. Jimmy Cayne told the FCIC that the PDCF came “just about 45 minutes” too late to save his firm. No one will ever know.
”
”
Alan S. Blinder (After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead)
“
The diminishing fiery shell reached them as well. It melted everything in its path, starting with the corner of the island. Even the ocean water boiled until it evaporated, then turned the molecules into plasma as if that weren't enough. The plasma vapor, thousands of degrees hot, removed their flesh and carbonized them to the bone. Not even Dazai's power to nullify other skills could nullify the collateral plasma vapor. He and Kunikida became but shadows, burned into the pavement—but even that pavement instantly melted away. Dazai muttered something the moment he vanished, but even the air that came out of his mouth turned into plasma, never to be heard.
”
”
Kafka Asagiri (文豪ストレイドッグス 55Minutes [Bungō Stray Dogs 55 Minutes])
“
In her book The Government-Citizen Disconnect, the political scientist Suzanne Mettler reports that 96 percent of American adults have relied on a major government program at some point in their lives. Rich, middle-class, and poor families depend on different kinds of programs, but the average rich and middle-class family draws on the same number of government benefits as the average poor family. Student loans look like they were issued from a bank, but the only reason banks hand out money to eighteen-year-olds with no jobs, no credit, and no collateral is because the federal government guarantees the loans and pays half their interest. Financial advisers at Edward Jones or Prudential can help you sign up for 529 college savings plans, but those plans' generous tax benefits will cost the federal government an estimated $28.5 billion between 2017 and 2026. For most Americans under the age of sixty-five, health insurance appears to come from their jobs, but supporting this arrangement is one of the single largest tax breaks issued by the federal government, one that exempts the cost of employer-sponsored health insurance from taxable incomes. In 2022, this benefit is estimated to have cost the government $316 billion for those under sixty-five. By 2032, its price tag is projected to exceed $6oo billion. Almost half of all Americans receive government-subsidized health benefits through their employers, and over a third are enrolled in government-subsidized retirement benefits. These participation rates, driven primarily by rich and middle-class Americans, far exceed those of even the largest programs directed at low income families, such as food stamps (14 percent of Americans) and the Earned Income Tax Credit (19 percent).
Altogether, the United States spent $1.8 trillion on tax breaks in 2021. That amount exceeded total spending on law enforcement, education, housing, healthcare, diplomacy, and everything else that makes up our discretionary budget. Roughly half the benefits of the thirteen largest individual tax breaks accrue to the richest families, those with incomes that put them in the top 20 percent. The top I percent of income earners take home more than all middle-class families and double that of families in the bottom 20 percent. I can't tell you how many times someone has informed me that we should reduce military spending and redirect the savings to the poor. When this suggestion is made in a public venue, it always garners applause. I've met far fewer people who have suggested we boost aid to the poor by reducing tax breaks that mostly benefit the upper class, even though we spend over twice as much on them as on the military and national defense.
”
”
Matthew Desmond (Poverty, by America)
“
Once the criminal has served his time, he returns to his old neighborhood. There’s a good chance he’s been psychologically damaged by his time behind bars. His employment prospects have plummeted. While in prison, he’s lost many of his noncriminal friends and replaced them with fellow-criminal friends. And now he’s back, placing even more strain emotionally and financially on the home that he shattered by leaving in the first place. Incarceration creates collateral damage. In most cases, the harm done by imprisonment is smaller than the benefits; we’re still better off for putting people behind bars. But Clear’s point is that if you lock up too many people for too long, the collateral damage starts to outweigh the benefit.
”
”
Malcolm Gladwell (David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants)
“
I nod, and Zeth closes the final few inches between us. And he kisses me. Kisses. Me. For as long as I live, for as long as we’re together, I will never be complacent about receiving a kiss from this man. Ever. I waited so long for the first one that now this and every other time he reaches for me and places his lips against mine will be an action to be treasured.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
Do you think she’s forever?” Michael stares straight ahead, waiting for the doors to the elevator to open. “Oh, I knew you were her forever as soon as I saw the way she looked at you, Zee.” He slides his hands into his pockets, clears his throat. And then he turns and looks me straight in the eye and says, “I’m just really glad you’ve figured out she’s yours, man. Because you deserve that. And so does she.
”
”
Callie Hart (Collateral (Blood & Roses, #6))
“
You tore that rift up north,” you breathe. Your hands are clenching into fists. You split the continent. You started this Season! With the obelisks! You did…all of that.”
“Yes, with the obelisks, and with the aid of the node maintainers. They’re all at peace now.” He exhales, wheezily. “I need your help.”
You shake your head automatically, but not in refusal. “To fix it?”
“Oh no, Syen.” You don’t bother to correct him this time. You can’t take your eyes from his amused, nearly skeletal face. When he speaks, you notice that some of his teeth have turned to stone, too. How many of his organs have done the same? How much longer can he—should he— live like this?
“I don’t want you to fix it,” Alabaster says. “It was collateral damage, but Yumenes got what it deserved. No, what I want you to do, my Damaya, my Syenite, my Essun, is make it worse.
”
”
N.K. Jemisin (The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1))
“
How many times do I have to say I’m sorry before you believe it? That I acknowledge I made a terrible mistake and have done everything I know how to fix it? How can you just freeze me out after that and walk away from everything we had?”
Hurt and resentment swelled inside him, mixing with the anger in a toxic, chaotic mess. “You walked away first,” he shot back. “That was your choice.” Then I made mine. It was a low blow, even if it was true. But he refused to feel guilty about it, even under the circumstances. He hadn’t wanted to have this conversation, but she’d insisted, and he wouldn’t lie to her about the way things stood.
Honor’s chin came up, her tears evaporating as her eyes sparked with fresh anger. “I did,” she admitted quietly, her control merely emphasizing the loss of his own. “I did walk away and it was the absolute worst mistake of my life. I’m sorry, Liam. See? I’m a big enough person to admit it to your face. Are you?
”
”
Kaylea Cross (Collateral Damage (Bagram Special Ops, #5))
“
And do you want to know why? Because you have pride. Not the overconfident, dangerous kind of pride. Not the conceited, we’re better than you kind of pride. No, I’m talking about the pride that comes from knowing you can count on each other—for support, for encouragement, for help, and most importantly, to do the right thing when the right thing is not the easy thing. Every day that we’re forward deployed, each and every one of us is putting our lives in our shipmates’ hands. That takes an incredible amount of trust. As your commanding officer, I want you to know that I do not, and will not, ever take that trust for granted.
”
”
Brian Andrews (Collateral (Tier One #6))
“
My Future Self
My future self and I become closer and closer as time goes by. I must admit that I neglected and ignored her until she punched me in the gut, grabbed me by the hair and turned my butt around to introduce herself.
Well, at least that’s what it felt like every time I left the convalescent hospital after doing skills training for a certification I needed to help me start my residential care business. I was going to be providing specialized, 24/7 residential care and supervising direct care staff for non-verbal, non-ambulatory adult men in diapers! I ran to the Red Cross and took the certified nurse assistant class so I would at least know something about the job I would soon be hiring people to do and to make sure my clients received the best care.
The training facility was a Medicaid hospital. I would drive home in tears after seeing what happens when people are not able to afford long-term medical care and the government has to provide that care. But it was seeing all the “young” patients that brought me to tears.
And I had thought that only the elderly lived like this in convalescent hospitals….
I am fortunate to have good health but this experience showed me that there is the unexpected.
So I drove home each day in tears, promising God out loud, over and over again, that I would take care of my health and take care of my finances. That is how I met my future self. She was like, don’t let this be us girlfriend and stop crying!
But, according to studies, we humans have a hard time empathizing with our future selves. Could you even imagine your 30 or 40 year old self when you were in elementary or even high school? It’s like picturing a stranger.
This difficulty explains why some people tend to favor short-term or immediate gratification over long-term planning and savings.
Take time to picture the life you want to live in 5 years, 10 years, and 40 years, and create an emotional connection to your future self. Visualize the things you enjoy doing now, and think of retirement saving and planning as a way to continue doing those things and even more.
However, research shows that people who interacted with their future selves were more willing to improve savings. Just hit me over the head, why don’t you!
I do understand that some people can’t even pay attention or aren’t even interested in putting money away for their financial future because they have so much going on and so little to work with that they feel like they can’t even listen to or have a conversation about money.
But there are things you’re doing that are not helping your financial position and could be trouble. You could be moving in the wrong direction.
The goal is to get out of debt, increase your collateral capacity, use your own money in the most efficient manner and make financial decisions that will move you forward instead of backwards.
Also make sure you are getting answers specific to your financial situation instead of blindly guessing! Contact us. We will be happy to help!
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Annette Wise
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You have to eat the shit," he repeated over and over during one of our first sessions. He had the tone and zeal of a boxing trainer. "Shit tastes good!"
"What does that even mean?" I chuckled.
"Don't laugh," he said sternly. Marshall told me that my job wasn't to cook food. It wasn't about looking at numbers or commanding people, either. My company would live or die based on my capacity to eat shit and like it. "I am going to watch you eat as many bowls of shit as our time will allow," he said. We had plenty of time.
Eating shit meant listening. Eating shit meant acknowledging my errors and shortcomings. Eating shit meant facing confrontations that made me uncomfortable. Eating shit meant putting my cell phone away when someone was talking to me. Eating shit meant not fleeing. Eating shit meant being grateful. Eating shit meant controlling myself when people fell short of expectations. Eating shit meant putting others before myself.
This last detail was important. With Dr. Eliot, I got away with describing my MO as self-destructive--my managerial tendencies were harmful, but only to me. Now, according to Marshall, I was using that assessment as cover for my poor behavior. In my mind, all the people who had left Momofuku were leaving me. When they failed at their jobs, they were betraying me. Marshall pointed out the ugly truth that this belied. I believed that the people at Momofuku were there to serve me.
I had always wielded my dedication to Momofuku with great arrogance. Friendships could crumble, hearts could break, cooks could fall to their knees and cry: all collateral damage in the noble pursuit of bringing good food to more people. I believed that I was Momofuku and that everything I did was for Momofuku. Therefore, whatever was good for me was good for Momofuku.
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David Chang (Eat a Peach)
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At Prim’s side was a woman with a politician’s face (supercilious, sanctimonious, vacuous, terrified, smarmy, disingenuous, small-minded, vengeful, coldhearted, opportunistic, petty, deceitful, evidence-ignoring, bullying, arrogant, smug, obnoxious, contemptuous, ignorant, reactionary, condescending, patronizing, blinkered, vacillating, corrupt, morally bankrupt, blackmailing, blackmailable, dodgy, wavering, backstabbing, bought, sold, stinking rich, unqualified, sleazy, teeth-capped, kneecapping, corporate-owned, hate-mongering, fear-mongering, button-pushing, deflecting, evading, brazening, hit-song-stealing, nostalgia-worshipping, distorting, no-tax-returning, tax-evading, offshore-holding, shady-business-partnering, election-stealing, arms-dealing, collateral-damage signing-offing, hypocritically family-value bleating but sexually deviant-ing, honest-forthright-honorable—a paragon-of-integrity [lying], spiteful, unreliable, Teflon-coated, Saran-wrapped, white-breaded, xenophobic, cynical, uncomprehending of irony-ing, witless, thin-skinned, insecure, unfulfilled, blindly ambitious, power-hungry, sadistic, self-righteous, incapable of contemplation-ing, prevaricating, privileged, pampered, Ivy League–educated [in something useless like political science, economics, or law], pompous, ego-centered, centered, narcissistic, shallow, bullshitting, manipulative, backtracking, quote-denying, what-climate-changing?, alternate-truth-ing, prejudice-feeding, hate-inciting, racketeering, blame-shifting, warmongering, autocratic, megalomaniacal, possibly sociopathic, blathering, self-serving, unreliable, cliquey, cagey, crafty, cunning, daft, dull, ethically destitute, irredeemable, oil-burning, fracking [but NIMBY], self-pay-raising, self-congratulating, self-aggrandizing, but all that was just first impressions so who can say?).
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Steven Erikson (Willful Child: The Search for Spark)
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Question 6
Why is it that in America, challenging the role of money in politics is by definition a revolutionary act?
The principle behind buying influence is that money is power and power is, essentially, everything. It’s an idea that has come to pervade every aspect of our culture. Bribery has become, as a philosopher might put it, an ontological principle: it defines our most basic sense of reality. To challenge it is therefore to challenge everything.
I use the word "bribery" quite self-consciously--and again, the language we use is extremely important. As George Orwell long ago reminded us, you know you are in the presence of a corrupt political system when those who defend it cannot call things by their proper names. By theses standards the contemporary United States is unusually corrupt. We maintain an empire that cannot be referred to as an empire, extracting tribute that cannot be referred to as tribute, justifying it in termes of an economic ideology (neoliberalism) we cannot refer to at all. Euphemisms and code words pervade every aspect of public debate. This is not only true of the right, with military terms like "collateral damage" (the military is a vast bureaucracy, so we expect them to use obfuscatory jargon), but on the left as well. Consider the phrase "human rights abuses." On the surface this doesn’t seem like it’s covering up very much: after all, who in their right mind would be in favor of human rights abuses? Obviously nobody; but ther are degrees of disapproval here, and in this case, they become apparent the moment one begins to contemplate any other words in the English language that might be used to describe the same phenomenon normally referred to by this term.
Compare the following sentences:
- "I would argue that it is sometimes necessary to have dealings with, or even to support, regimes with unsavory human rights records in order to further our vital strategic imperatives."
- "I would argue that it is sometimes necessary to have dealings with, or even to support, regimes that commit acts of rape, torture, and murder in order to further out vital strategic imperatives."
Certainly the second is going to be a harder case to make. Anyone hearing it will be much more likely to ask, "Are these strategic imperatives really that vital?" or even, "What exactly is a ’strategic imperative’ anyway?" There is even something slightly whiny-sounding about the term "rights." It sounds almost close to "entitlements"--as if those irritating torture victims are demanding something when they complain about their treatment.
(p. 110-112)
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David Graeber (The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement)