Dock Ellis Quotes

America and Greece are at different stops on the same one-way street, all too familiar to us immigrants. There's nothing new about Obama: been there, done that. Nothing could be less hopeful, or less of a change. He's the land where we grew up, with its union bullies and marginal tax rates and government automobiles and general air of decay all re-emerging Brigadoon-like from the mists entirely unspoilt by progress. it's like docking at Ellis Island in 1883, coming down the gangplank, and finding everyone excited about this pilot program they've introduced called "serfdom".

So your vow of poverty means nothing to you,” I said, amused at his flaring nostrils. How easy it was to goad him. “A fact made even clearer when you look out your window at the hundred or more starving people freezing to death on those docks. They seemed to view the arrival of our ship as a last hope.” “I can’t control how many people choose to leave our shores, or how few ships are here to transport them. The Winter of Purification is upon us. I do not question the will of the gods; I merely serve.” “I think it’s your own will you follow. You always were obsessed with Frostblood purity.” “Only the strongest will remain.” His eyes shifted to Arcus. “No true Frostblood would object to that.” “Is that what you’re posturing as?” I demanded. “A true Frostblood? Last I checked, you had no gift to speak of.” He drew himself up. “I’ve always thought the mark of a true Frostblood was in his character.” “Excuse me?” I laughed at the idea of him having anything resembling character. “Oh, and I suppose that’s why those people out there are freezing? Because they have no character?” My voice rose. “I think it’s because they don’t have your connections, your wealth, and your guile. You plunder their lands to fill your coffers, spending your coin on food and fine clothing while common folk starve! The proof is in these invoices and ledgers.” I grabbed a wad of scrolls and tossed them at him. They hit his chest and scattered. “Do you deny it?” “I don’t owe them anything, damn you!” Spittle flew, hitting my heated skin with a sizzle. “I certainly owe you no explanations. You are nothing but an upstart rebel who was pretty enough to attract the attentions of a scarred and ugly king!” The words reverberated in my head. It was one thing to insult me, but to say that about Arcus… “I’m so glad you gave me an excuse to do this,” I said hoarsely, raising my fiery palms. “Even your bones will be ashes.

Hurry up!” everyone in the room seemed to shriek at the same time. It didn’t matter to us that all over Pittsburgh, in every house and in every bar, thousands of others were undoubtedly carrying out their own rituals, performing their own superstitions. Hats were turned backward and inside out, incantations spoken and sung, talismans rubbed and chewed and prayed to. People who had the bad fortune of arriving at their gathering shortly before the Orioles’ first run were treated like kryptonite and banished willingly to the silence of media-less dining rooms and bathrooms, forced to follow the game through the reactions of their friends and family. And every one of those people believed what we believed: that ours was the only one that mattered, the only one that worked. Ruthie fumbled through the pages. Johnson fouled one off. “Got it!” Ruthie called. She stood and held Dock Ellis’s picture high over her head, Shangelesa’s scribbled hearts like hundreds of clear bubbles through which her father could watch the fate of his teammates. “He’s no batter, he’s no batter!” Ruthie sang. Johnson grounded the next pitch to shortstop Jackie Hernandez, who threw to Bob Robertson at first, and the threat was over. We yelled until we were hoarse. We were raucous and ridiculous and unashamed, and I have no better childhood memory than the rest of that afternoon. Blass came back out for the ninth, heroically shrugging off his wobbly eighth and, with Ruthie still standing behind us, holding the program shakily aloft for the entirety of the inning, he induced a weak grounder from Boog Powell, an infield pop-up from Frank Robinson, and a Series-ending grounder to short from Rettenmund. For the second inning in a row, Hernandez threw to Robertson for the final out, and all of us (or those who were able) jumped from our seats just as Blass leaped into Robertson’s arms, straddling his teammate’s chest like a frightened acrobat. Any other year, Blass would have been named the Most Valuable Player, and his performance remains one of the most dominant by a pitcher in Series history: eighteen innings, two earned runs, thirteen strikeouts, just four walks, and two complete game victories. But this Series belonged to Clemente. To put what he did in perspective, no Oriole player had more than seven hits. Clemente had twelve, including two doubles, a triple and two homeruns. He was relentless and graceful and indomitable. He had, in fact, made everyone else look like minor leaguers. The rush

Joke-ruiner," Stacey said. We drove north and west, away from the city center. The Treadwell house was in an odd area of town, upriver, near empty brick warehouses and a few old factory shells dating back more than a hundred years. The nearest residential neighborhood was a row of decrepit bungalows on narrow, weedy lots, some of them clearly abandoned or foreclosed. They'd probably been inhabited by factory and dock workers

1919, race riots broke out in Chicago and a dock workers’ strike hit New York; the eight-hour workday was instituted nationally; President Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize and presided over the first meeting of the League of Nations in Paris; the Red Army took Omsk, Kharkov, and the Crimea; Mussolini founded the Italian fascist movement; Paderewski became Premier of Poland. Henri Bergson, Karl Barth, Ernst Cassirer, Havelock Ellis, Karl Jaspers, John Maynard Keynes, Rudolf Steiner—indelible figures—were all active in their various spheres. Short-wave radio made its earliest appearance, there was progress in sound for movies, and Einstein’s theory of relativity was borne out by astrophysical experiments. Walter

Goddard brought his team of fieldworkers to Ellis Island on a series of trips, starting in 1912. When ships docked and immigrants shuffled into the main building on the island, Goddard’s fieldworkers scanned them. They pointed out those who looked like they might be feebleminded. The selected immigrants were pulled out of the crowd and taken to a side room. There, another fieldworker and an interpreter would give each immigrant a series of tasks, such as fitting blocks into holes or telling them what year it was. Goddard’s staff kept careful records of the tests, which he analyzed back in Vineland. The results stunned him: A huge proportion of the immigrants tested as feebleminded. Goddard broke down the results by ethnic group: 79 percent of Italians were feebleminded, 83 percent of Jews, 87 percent of Russians

At precisely nine the next morning, Ellie heard the drone of Mac the Pilot’s seaplane engine change as he began his descent toward Sounion. She stood on the dock and looked up in the sky as he banked and extended his flaps for his water landing. It wasn’t until she was walking on to the dock that she thought that James Winnington III could be there as well.

We weren't on a ship. Immigrants don't arrive on Overcrowded boats anymore, Swarming wet docks like rats. It isn't 1920, and it isn't Ellis Island— Nothing as romantic as a view of Lady Liberty To welcome us.

And it goes to prove what has been said of immigrants many times before now; they are resourceful; they make do. They use what they can when they can. Because we often imagine that immigrants are constantly on the move, footloose, able to change course at any moment, able to employ their legendary resourcefulness at every turn. We have been told of the resourcefulness of Mr Schmutters, or the foot-loosity of Mr Banajii, who sail into Ellis Island or Dover or Calais and step into their foreign lands as blank people, free of any kind of baggage, happy and willing to leave their difference at the docks and take their chances in this new place, merging with the oneness of this greenandpleasantlibertarianlandofthefree. Whatever road presents itself, they will take, and if it happens to lead to a dead end, well then, Mr Schmutters and Mr Banajii will merrily set upon another, weaving their way through Happy Multicultural Land. Well, good for them. But Magid and Millat couldn’t manage it. They left that neutral room as they had entered it: weighed down, burdened, unable to waver from their course or in any way change their separate, dangerous trajectories.