Hugh Grant Quotes

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize." [Modernism's Patriarch (Time Magazine, June 10, 1996)]

Psychopaths don't act like Hannibal Lecter or Norman Bates. They come off like Hugh Grant, in his most adorable role.

There’s something very comforting about watching a Hugh Grant movie. You know no one’s head will be blown off in the first three minutes, no one will be tortured, and the worst thing that might happen is seeing a lanky Welshman eating mayonnaise in his underpants

People choose the paths that grant them the greatest rewards for the least amount of effort. That's the law of nature, and you defied it.

I believed in happily ever after as much as anyone, because Jane Austen, Prince Charming, and Hugh Grant promised me it could happen. But maybe that particular delusion was universal.

Paparazzi arrived for Hugh [Grant]. We had to stand under a tree and smile for them. Photographer: 'Hugh, could you look less -- um --' Hugh: 'Pained?

I’ll fucking kill Hugh Grant.

The verbal tool of exploring mystery together is not confrontation or preaching but dialogue. We subject ourselves to the same questions we pose to others, and as we traverse them together, we may arrive at surprising conclusions we could never have reached when simply trying to defeat one another's logic. Our questions are open ended, granting the other person the freedom to respond or not to respond. The questions stick with us, even haunt us, long after we ask them, and we await insight together. The process is more important than an immediate decision.

I'm a laugh tart. I make no secret of that fact.

Dear Livia McHugh I'll be your husband. I'll be nothing but yours for the rest of forever. A single, simple day with you is something I'll refuse to take for granted. You have been the reason my heart beats since the moment I saw you, long before your hands actually had to do the job for me. Sleep in my arms. Wake up by my side. My beautiful love, be my wife and make me the happiest man. And I will never, ever lose count. Love always, Blake Hartt

It occurred to her then that there was a reason age drained the pleasure out of life, slowly stripping away all the things you enjoyed or took for granted. It was so you wouldn't need convincing when the time came. You'd be ready, because everything good in life was gone.

Psychopaths are distinguished by two characteristics. The first is a ruthless disregard for others: they will defraud, maim, or kill for the most trivial personal gain. The second is an astonishing gift for disguising the first. It’s the deception that makes them so dangerous. You never see him coming. (It’s usually a him—more than 80 percent are male.) Don’t look for the oddball creeping you out. Psychopaths don’t act like Hannibal Lecter or Norman Bates. They come off like Hugh Grant, in his most adorable role.

In the last couple of weeks I have seen the ads for the Wonder Bra. Is that really a problem in this country? Men not paying enough attention to women’s breasts?

Thorpe referred to Ted Heath as ‘The plum pudding around which no one has succeeded in lighting the brandy’.

Nine Negro boys in Alabama were on trial for their lives when I got back from Cuba and Haiti. The famous Scottsboro "rape" case was in full session. I visited those boys in the death house at Kilby Prison, and I wrote many poems about them. One of those poems was: CHRIST IN ALABAMA Christ is a Nigger, Beaten and black-- O, bare your back. Mary is His Mother-- Mammy of the South, Silence your mouth. God's His Father-- White Master above, Grant us your love. Most holy bastard Of the bleeding mouth: Nigger Christ On the cross of the South.

We were singing for Dr. Du Bois' spirit, for the invaluable contributions he made, for his shining intellect and his courage. To many of us he was the first American Negro intellectual. We knew about Jack Johnson and Jesse Owens and Joe Louis. We were proud of Louis Armstrong and Marian Anderson and Roland Hayes. We memorized the verses of James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Countee Cullen, but they were athletes, musicians and poets, and White folks thought all those talents came naturally to Negroes. So, while we survived because of those contributors and their contributions, the powerful White world didn't stand in awe of them. Sadly, we also tended to take those brilliances for granted. But W.E.B. Du Bois and of course Paul Robeson were different, held on a higher or at least on a different plateau than the others.

Wedding Hymn Father, within Thy House today We wait Thy kindly love to see; Since thou hast said in truth that they Who dwell in love are one with Thee, Bless those who for Thy blessing wait, Their love accept and consecrate. Dear Lord of love, whose Heart of Fire, So full of pity for our sin, Was once in that Divine Desire Broken, Thy Bride to woo and win: Look down and bless them from above And keep their hearts alight with love. Blest Spirit, who with life and light Didst quicken chaos to Thy praise, Whose energy, in sin's despite, Still lifts our nature up to grace; Bless those who here in troth consent. Creator, crown Thy Sacrament. Great One in Three, of Whom are named All families in earth and heaven, Hear us, who have Thy promise claimed, And let a wealth of grace be given; Grant them in life and death to be Each knit to each, and both to Thee.

The silo was something she had always taken for granted. The priests say it had always been here, that it was lovingly created by a caring God, that everything they would ever need had been provided for. Juliette had a hard time with this story.

There are plenty of fish in the sea. But really, there's not. It's not just our imaginations. It would be great if decent men were as plentiful as jumping salmon in a rushing river, but they aren't. For every Mr. Darcy (and he's married, incidentally) there are a hundred Mr. Wickhams. Or in more contemporary terms, for ever one of Colin Firth, there are several thousand Hugh Grants. The odds are against us. But what can I say--I'm a romantic, and I can't abandon the fantasy of Prince Charming altogether. What girl with a heart can? I mean, I'm not asking to feed the five thousand; I just want one good fish!

Livia read from the paper as if it were a letter. “Dear Blake Hartt, thank you. Thank you so much for thinking my smile was worth waiting for. Thank you for letting me see who you are inside. I found the sweetest spot in the world—it’s wherever you are, surrounded by your arms. Please be my husband. I couldn’t have it any other way. I promise to make you lose count. Love, Livia McHugh.” “Dear Livia McHugh, I’ll be your husband. I’ll be nothing but yours for the rest of forever. A single, simple day with you is something I’ll refuse to take for granted. You have been the reason my heart beats since the moment I saw you, long before your hands actually had to do the job for me. Sleep in my arms. Wake up by my side. My beautiful love, be my wife and make me the happiest man. And I will never, ever lose count. Love always, Blake Hartt.

I prop my guitar up against the nightstand. Then I turn toward the bed and fall into it face first. The mattress is soft but firm, like a sheet of steel wrapped in a cloud. I roll around, moaning loud and long. “Oh, that’s good. Really, really good. What a grand bed!” Sarah clears her throat. “Well. We should probably get to sleep, then. Big day tomorrow.” The pillow smells sweet, like candy. I can only imagine it’s from her. I wonder if I pressed my nose to the crook of her neck, would her skin smell as delicious? I brush away the thought as I watch her stiffly gather a pillow and blanket from the other side of the bed, dragging them to . . . the nook. “What are you doing?” She looks up, her doe eyes widening. “Getting ready for bed.” “You’re going to sleep there?” “Of course. The sofa’s very uncomfortable.” “Why can’t we share the bed?” She chokes . . . stutters. “I . . . I can’t sleep with you. I don’t even know you.” I throw my arms out wide. “What do you want to know? Ask me anything—I’m an open book.” “That’s not what I mean.” “You’re being ridiculous! It’s a huge bed. You could let one rip and I wouldn’t hear it.” And the blush is back. With a vengeance. “I’m not . . . I don’t . . .” “You don’t fart?” I scoff. “Really? Are you not human?” She curses under her breath, but I’d love to hear it out loud. I bet uninhibited Sarah Von Titebottum would be a stunning sight. And very entertaining. She shakes her head, pinning me with her eyes. “There’s something wrong with you.” “No.” I explain calmly, “I’m just free. Honest with myself and others. You should try it sometime.” She folds her arms, all tight, trembling indignation. It’s adorable. “I’m sleeping in the nook, Your Highness. And that’s that.” I sit up, pinning her gaze right back at her. “Henry.” “What?” “My name is not Highness, it’s fucking Henry, and I’d prefer you use it.” And she snaps. “Fine! Fucking Henry—happy?” I smile. “Yes. Yes, I am.” I flop back on the magnificent bed. “Sleep tight, Titebottum.” I think she growls at me, but it’s muffled by the sound of rustling bed linens and pillows. And then . . . there’s silence. Beautiful, blessed silence. I wiggle around, getting comfy. I turn on my side and fluff the pillow. I squeeze my eyes tight . . . but it’s hopeless. “Fucking hell!” I sit up. And Sarah springs to her feet. “What? What’s wrong?” It’s the guilt. I’ve barged into this poor girl’s room, confiscated her bed, and have forced her to sleep in a cranny in the wall. I may not be the man my father was or the gentleman my brother is, but I’m not that much of a prick. I stand up, rip my shirt over my head. and march toward the window seat. I feel Sarah’s eyes graze my bare chest, arms. and stomach, but she circles around me, keeping her distance. “You take the bloody bed,” I tell her. “I’ll sleep in the bloody nook.” “You don’t have to do that.” I push my hand through my hair. “Yes, I do.” Then I stand up straight and proper, an impersonation of Hugh Grant in one of his classic royal roles. “Please, Lady Sarah.” She blinks, her little mouth pursed. “Okay.” Then she climbs onto the bed, under the covers. And I squeeze onto the window bench, knees bent, my elbow jammed against the icy windowpane, and my neck bent at an odd angle that I’m going to be feeling tomorrow. The light is turned down to a very low dim, and for several moments all I hear is Sarah’s soft breaths. But then, in the near darkness, her delicate voice floats out on a sigh. “All right, we can sleep in the bed together.” Music to my ears. I don’t make her tell me twice—I’ve fulfilled my noble quota for the evening. I stumble from the nook and crash onto the bed. That’s better.

And so I ask you now, dear friend: was this world worth saving to begin with? Were we worth saving? This endeavor was launched with that great assumption taken for granted. Now I ask myself for the first time. And while I view the cleansing of the world as our defining achievement, this business of saving humanity may have been our gravest mistake. The world may be better off without us. I have not the will to decide. I leave that to you. The final shift, my friend, is yours, for I have worked my last. I do not envy you the choice you will have to make. The pact we formed so long ago haunts me as never before. And I feel that what I’m about to do … that this is the easy way.

Gina flopped back on her cot, arm up over her eyes. “Oh, my God, Molly, what am I going to do? The fact that he came here tonight at all is . . . He’s clearly interested, but that’s probably just because he thinks I’m a total perv.” “Whoa,” Molly said. “Wait. You lost me there.” Gina sat up, a mix of earnestness, horror, and amusement on her pretty face. “I didn’t tell you this, but after I first spoke to Lucy’s sister—we were in the shower tent so no one would see us—I let her leave first and then I waited, like, a minute, thinking we shouldn’t be seen leaving the tent together. And before I go, he came in.” He. “Leslie Pollard?” Molly clarified. Gina nodded. “I freaked out when I saw him coming, and it’s stupid, I know, but I hid. And I should have just waited until I heard the shower go on, but God, maybe he wouldn’t have pulled the curtain, because he obviously thought he was in there alone . . .” Molly started to laugh. “Oh my.” “Yeah,” Gina said. “Oh my. So I decide to run for it, only he’s not in one of the changing booths, he’s over by the bench, you know?” Molly nodded. The bench in the main part of the room. “In only his underwear,” Gina finished, with a roll of her eyes. “Oh, my God.” “Really? Molly asked. Apparently Jones was taking his change of identity very seriously. He hated wearing underwear of any kind, but obviously he thought it wouldn’t be in character for Leslie Pollard to go commando. “Boxers or briefs?” Gina gave her a look, but she was starting to laugh now, too, thank goodness. “Briefs. Very brief briefs.” She covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, my God, Molly, he was . . . I think he showers at noon because he knows no one else will be in there, so he can, you know, have an intimate visit with Mr. Hand.” Oh, dear. “And now I know, and he knows I know, and he also probably thinks I lurk in the men’s shower,” Gina continued. “And the fact that he actually came to tea tonight, instead of hiding from me, in his tent, forever, means . . . something awful, don’t you think? Did I mention he has, like, an incredible body?” Molly shook her head. Oh dear. “No.” “Yes,” Gina said just a little too grimly, considering the topic. “Who would’ve guessed that underneath those awful shirts he’s a total god? And maybe that’s what’s freaking out the most.” “You mean because . . . you’re attracted to him?” Molly asked. “No!” Gina said. “God! Because I’m not. I felt nothing. I’m standing there and he’s . . . You know how I said he reminds me of Hugh Grant?” Molly nodded, too relieved to speak. “Well, I got the wrong Hugh. This guy is built like Hugh Jackman. And beneath the hats and sunblock and glasses, he’s actually got cheekbones and a jaw line, too. I’m talking total hottie. And, yes, I can definitely appreciate that on one level, but . . .” She glanced over at the desk, at her digital camera. She’d gotten it out of her trunk earlier today. Which, Molly had learned, meant that she’d spent more time this afternoon looking at her saved pictures. Which included at least a few of Max. Molly’s relief over not having to deal with the complications of Gina having a crush on Leslie felt a whole lot less good. She wished someone would just go ahead and steal Gina’s camera already. Maybe that would help her move on.

Livia read from the paper as if it were a letter. “Dear Blake Hartt, thank you. Thank you so much for thinking my smile was worth waiting for. Thank you for letting me see who you are inside. I found the sweetest spot in the world—it’s wherever you are, surrounded by your arms. Please be my husband. I couldn’t have it any other way. I promise to make you lose count. Love, Livia McHugh.” When she’d finished, Blake took the paper from her hands. He folded it and put it in his pocket, where it nestled side by side with his music. He kissed her ringed hand, and then her bare one. He had no paper, but he spoke clearly and unhesitatingly. There was a slight echo as his words bounced around the cement platform. He borrowed her letter format to respond. “Dear Livia McHugh, I’ll be your husband. I’ll be nothing but yours for the rest of forever. A single, simple day with you is something I’ll refuse to take for granted. You have been the reason my heart beats since the moment I saw you, long before your hands actually had to do the job for me. Sleep in my arms. Wake up by my side. My beautiful love, be my wife and make me the happiest man. And I will never, ever lose count. Love always, Blake Hartt.

Her name was Jane,” I said, and Olivia stopped walking. “We were together for two years, married after a few months. I was happy, genuinely happy. Even though she was human, and I knew I’d outlive her, I just wanted to enjoy the time that we had together. “It all ended on a damp November morning in seventeen eighty-two. I’d been away working for Avalon for a few months and had been eager to get home. I found her inside the house we’d shared. She’d been butchered. Her blood decorated our bedroom. She was naked and appeared to have been dead for several days. My rage was…terrifying. I buried Jane with my own hands, placing her near a field that we used to love going to. And then I burnt the house to the ground.” Olivia’s shoulders sagged, but she didn’t turn and face me. “I hunted her killer for a year. I didn’t care who I hurt to get the information I needed. I was so single-minded, so determined to have vengeance. Eventually, I discovered that her murderer had been part of the king’s army, which had been going through the area. “The killer was an officer by the name of Henry. No idea what his last name was. It didn’t matter. He liked hurting women, and once he’d finished with them, he kept their hair as a souvenir. The rest of his squad had waited outside while he brutalized and murdered the woman I loved. No one had helped Jane, and no one had tried to stop him. “I discovered that they’d been on training maneuvers the day of the murder, just their squad of thirty. And after all my searching, I found them and I killed them. They died in one night of blood and rage. All but one. I left Henry until last. I took him away to a secluded place and had my fill of vengeance. It took a week for him to die, and when he finally succumbed, I buried Hellequin with him.” The memory of Henry’s blind and bloody form flashed in my mind—his pleas had long since silenced because I’d removed his tongue. I hadn’t wanted information from him; I’d just wanted to make him suffer. Before he’d lost his ability to talk, he’d told me that someone had paid him to do it, but he never said who. No matter what I did to him, he took that secret to his grave. And after a few years of searching, I decided he’d been lying. Trying to prolong his life for a short time more, hoping for mercy where there was none to give. “I no longer had the desire to go by that name,” I continued, still talking to Olivia’s back, “I no longer wanted to instill fear with a word. I hoped that the legend would die, but it didn’t, it grew, became more…fanciful. “You’re right, I’m a killer. I’ve killed thousands, and very few of them have ever stained my conscience. I can go to a dark place and do whatever I need to. But for those I care about, those I love, I will move fucking mountains to keep them safe. And I care about Tommy and Kasey, whether you grant permission or not.

Choochiness is yet another British term that has no precise meaning, but, like pornography, you know it when you see it. The way I have things stacked up, choochiness is a particularly British amalgam of cuddlywuddliness, cutesypiedness, and butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouthedness that embraces everything from shops named The Ketch to Hugh Grant’s stammer. It is a grating and often maddening behavioral pattern that makes others want to reach out and pinch the choochster’s cheeks while secretly longing to stuff a hand grenade right down his throat. “Paul McCartney is choochy; John Lennon is not,” says my brother-in-law, Max, who fled England for France in 1976, largely to escape from rampant choochiness. “Paul McCartney: choochy. John Lennon: not choochy. That’s the difference.” THERE

Epigraph So will my page be Colored that I write? Being me, it will not be white. But it will be a part of you . . . You are white – yet a part of me, as I am a part of you . . . Sometimes, perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me. Nor do I often want to be a part of you. But we are, that’s true! Langston Hughes: ‘Theme For English B

I promise I will never take anything for granted from this day forward, and take any opportunity that comes my way... I have realised that life isn't forever.

Quoting page 32: Third, the riots spurred aggressive efforts by federal officials to dampen the violence by speeding delivery of benefits, especially jobs paying good wages, to urban minorities who found little payoff in the civil right legislation of 1964-65. The Small Business Administration (SBA), seeking to aid proprietors of riot-damaged stores and to encourage minority ownership in urban rebuilding efforts, established in 1968 the section 8(a) program. Targeted to aid heavily damaged core areas through grants and subsidized business loans, the 8(a) program avoided the racial quota taboo by funneling aid to “socially disadvantaged” persons, not to minorities per se. But most participants in the 8(a) program were minority business entrepreneurs.

The Times celebration of Brown as confirming constitutional color blindness was widely shared in America. In the debates over the Kennedy-Johnson civil rights bill in 1963 and 1964, the bipartisan congressional leadership appealed to the classical liberal model of color-blind justice, leaning over backwards to deny charges by southern opponents that the law could lead to quotas or other forms of preference for minorities. Indeed, the legislative history of the Civil Rights Act shows what John David Skrentny, author of The Ironies of Affirmative Action, called “an almost obsessive concern” for maintaining fidelity to a color-blind concept of equal individual rights. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the majority (Democratic) whip behind the bill, explained simply: “Race, religion and national origin are not to be used as the basis for hiring and firing.” Title VII required employers to treat citizens differing in race, sex, national origin, or religion equally, as abstract citizens differing only in merit. Section 703(j) of the Civil Rights Act states: “Nothing contained in this title shall be interpreted to require any employer… to grant preferential treatment to any individual or to any group because of the race, color, religion, sex, or national origin of such individual or group on account of an imbalance which my exist with respect to the total number or percentage of persons of any race, color, religion, sex, or national origin employed by an employer.” The syntax was classic legalese, but the meaning was unambiguous. The Senate’s floor managers for Title VII, Joseph S. Clark (D-Pa.) and Clifford P. Case (R-N.J.), told their colleagues, “The concept of discrimination… is clear and simple and has no hidden meanings. …To discriminate means to make a distinction, to make a difference in treatment or favor, which is based on any five of the forbidden criteria: race, color, religion, sex, or nation origin.” They continued: There is no requirement in Title VII that an employer maintain a balance in his work force. On the contrary, any deliberate attempt to maintain a racial balance, whatever such a balance may be, would involve a violation of Title VII because maintaining such a balance would require an employer to hire or refuse to hire on the basis of race. It must be emphasized that discrimination is prohibited to any individual. Humphrey, trying to lay to rest what he called the “bugaboo” of racial quotas raised by filibustering southerners in his own party and by some conservative Republicans as well, reaffirmed the bill’s color-blind legislative intent: “That bugaboo has been brought up a dozen times; but it is nonexistent. In fact the very opposite is true. Title VII prohibits discrimination. In effect, it sways that race, religion, and national origin are not to be used as the basis for hiring and firing.” Humphrey even famously pledged on the Senate floor that if any wording could be found in Title VII “which provides that an employer will have to hire on the basis of percentage or quota related to color, … I will start eating the pages [of the bill] one after another.

Quoting page 115: The Hispanic civil rights organizations were heavily financed by the Ford Foundation, whose president from the late 1960s through the 1970s was McGeorge Bundy, Harvard alumni veteran of the Kennedy White House and tower of the nation’s eastern liberal establishment. In 1968 Ford had created MALDEF, as a Latino version of the NAACP, with a $2.2 million founding grant. La Raza, given a similar birthing grant of $630,000 by Ford in 1968, received $1,953,700 two years later. Between 1970 and 1999, Ford gave MALDEF $27.9 million and La Raza $21.5 million. In 1981 Ford started funding LULAC, the oldest Hispanic association. Noted since its origins in Texas in 1929 for espousing patriotism, political moderation, self-help ethnic, support for English language mastery, and bourgeois civic boosterism, LULAC in the 1970s adopted the strident tone of Chicano nationalism common to La Raza and MALDEF. In 1983 the Ford Foundation, led by Ford’s first African-American president, Franklin A. Thomas, began funding the National Immigration Forum, an umbrella association modeled on the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, to coordinate lobbying against [immigration] restrictionist organizations such as FAIR. LULAC, although joining the racialized agenda of MALDEF and La Raza in the 1970s, retained its character as a membership-based organization rooted in the Hispanic (mainly Mexican-American) community. But the constituency represented by MALDEF and La Raza was essentially the Ford Foundation and the tightly networking community of Latino political careerists.

Quoting page 144: Organized minority groups competing for official recognition were quick to punish government officials for treating their group less favorably than others. In 1978, when Congress in the Small Business Investment Act provided a statutory basis for the SBA’s 8(a) program, the law omitted Asian-Americans from the list of minorities (blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans) considered presumptively “socially and economically disadvantaged.” Responding to this omission, Asian-American groups hammered the SBA, which within a year reinstated them among the presumptively eligible groups. Yet there was something bizarre about awarding taxpayer-subsidized business grants and loans to members of the country’s top income strata on the grounds that all members of the groups were presumed to be socially disadvantaged.

Only one detail gave me pause. He had a heterosexual actor in mind to play [Albin]. He assured me that Douglas Hodge was a brilliant choice for the role. And since I was being handed ninety-percent of my dream production, I gave my approval. Hell, I thought, If it's no good it's only being done in this tiny fringe theatre. Take the leap. Besides, this actor is English. None of them come off as straight. What's gayer than Hugh Grant in a rom-com?

Some have guessed at the words that Jesus wrote in the dust - Saint Jerome, for one, suggested that Jesus was listing the transgressions of the woman's accusers - but the marks remain a mystery. He may have simply been doodling! However, what Jesus scrawled is less important than what the act itself helped to accomplish. Reflecting on Jesus' silence when he stands trial before Pontius Pilate, Rowan Williams observes that Jesus "takes the powerlessness that has been forced on him and turns it around so that his silence becomes a place in the world where the mystery of God is present." The scene we have been discussing bears witness to a similar truth: Christ's act of silent writing helped to usher in God's mystery and justice, granting power to the powerless and mercy to the sinner. Thus, while we have no way of knowing what Jesus inscribed, the nature of his act of writing seems perfectly clear. It was, as with all of Jesus' deeds, an act of love. With a finger in the dust, our Lord modeled charitable writing.

I quit and joined him and went on strike,” said Hugh Akston, “because I could not share my profession with men who claim that the qualification of an intellectual consists of denying the existence of the intellect. People would not employ a plumber who’d attempt to prove his professional excellence by asserting that there’s no such thing as plumbing—but, apparently, the same standards of caution are not considered necessary in regard to philosophers. I learned from my own pupil, however, that it was I who made this possible. When thinkers accept those who deny the existence of thinking, as fellow thinkers of a different school of thought—it is they who achieve the destruction of the mind. They grant the enemy’s basic premise, thus granting the sanction of reason to formal dementia. A basic premise is an absolute that permits no co-operation with its antithesis and tolerates no tolerance. In the same manner and for the same reason as a banker may not accept and pass counterfeit money, granting it the sanction, honor and prestige of his bank, just as he may not grant the counterfeiter’s demand for tolerance of a mere difference of opinion—so I may not grant the title of philosopher to Dr. Simon Pritchett or compete with him for the minds of men. Dr. Pritchett has nothing to deposit to the account of philosophy, except his declared intention to destroy it. He seeks to cash in—by means of denying it—on the power of reason among men. He seeks to stamp the mint-mark of reason upon the plans of his looting masters. He seeks to use the prestige of philosophy to purchase the enslavement of thought. But that prestige is an account which can exist only so long as I am there to sign the checks. Let him do it without me. Let him—and those who entrust to him their children’s minds—have exactly that which they demand: a world of intellectuals without intellect and of thinkers who proclaim that they cannot think. I am conceding it. I am complying. And when they see the absolute reality of their non-absolute world, I will not be there and it will not be I who will pay the price of their contradictions.

It’s Hugh Grant’s first day on the job, and he’s saying hello to his new staff. One staffer is named Natalie, and as far as I can tell, her job is “woman.” She’s also incredibly, disgustingly fat, like a beanbag chair with feet, according to literally everyone else in the movie who apparently all have Natalie Dysmorphic Disorder (a silent killer). Natalie accidentally says some swears in front of the prime minister, and then she makes lemon-face for forty-five minutes. Actually, she’s probably just thinking about delicious lemons because NATALIE HUNGRY!!!!!!! Hugh Grant falls instantly in love with Natalie, which is understandable, because she hasn’t yet exceeded her Love Actually attractiveness word quota. (The quota is twenty-seven words before you become Emma Thompson and must be composted.) Keira Knightley is marrying Chiwetel Ejiofor while wearing some

It’s Hugh Grant’s first day on the job, and he’s saying hello to his new staff. One staffer is named Natalie, and as far as I can tell, her job is “woman.” She’s also incredibly, disgustingly fat, like a beanbag chair with feet, according to literally everyone else in the movie who apparently all have Natalie Dysmorphic Disorder (a silent killer). Natalie accidentally says some swears in front of the prime minister, and then she makes lemon-face for forty-five minutes. Actually, she’s probably just thinking about delicious lemons because NATALIE HUNGRY!!!!!!! Hugh Grant falls instantly in love with Natalie, which is understandable, because she hasn’t yet exceeded her Love Actually attractiveness word quota. (The quota is twenty-seven words before you become Emma Thompson and must be composted.)

Atta girl,” MacKenzie said. When Samantha stepped back into the room, she found the two women engrossed in the movie, their faces entirely too placid to be trusted. “What did I miss?” “Hugh Grant dancing,” MacKenzie replied, and left it at that.

The silo was something she had always taken for granted. The priests said it had always been here, that it was lovingly created by a caring God, that everything they would ever need had been provided for. Juliette had a hard time with this story.

At this, another consideration: who was God? She had heard a terrible lot about Him, always: but the question of His identity had been left vague, as much taken for granted as her own. Wasn't she perhaps God, herself? Was it that she was trying to remember? However, the more she tried, the more it eluded her. (How absurd, to disremember such an important point as whether one was God or not!) So she let it slide: perhaps it would come back to her later.

It occurred to her then that there was a reason age stripped you of all the things you enjoyed or took for granted. It was so you wouldn't need convincing when the time came. You'd be ready, because everything good in life was gone.

One of the most ambitious men to exploit the timber trade was Hugh F. McDanield, a railroad builder and tie contractor who had come to Fayetteville along with the Frisco. He bought thousands of acres of land within hauling distance of the railroad and sent out teams of men to cut the timber. By the mid-1880s, after a frenzy of cutting in south Washington County, he turned his gaze to the untapped fortune of timber on the steep hillsides of southeast Washington County and southern Madison County, territory most readily accessed along a wide valley long since leveled by the east fork of White River. Mr. McDanield gathered a group of backers and the state granted a charter September 4, 1886, giving authority to issue capital stock valued at $1.5 million, which was the estimated cost to build a rail line through St. Paul and on to Lewisburg, which was a riverboat town on the Arkansas River near Morrilton. McDanield began surveys while local businessman J. F. Mayes worked with property owners to secure rights of way. “On December 4, 1886, a switch was installed in the Frisco main line about a mile south of Fayetteville, and the spot was named Fayette Junction.” Within six months, 25 miles of track had been laid east by southeast through Baldwin, Harris, Elkins, Durham, Thompson, Crosses, Delaney, Patrick, Combs, and finally St. Paul. Soon after, in 1887, the Frisco bought the so-called “Fayetteville and Little Rock” line from McDanield. It was estimated that in the first year McDanield and partners shipped out more than $2,000,000 worth of hand-hacked white oak railroad ties at an approximate value of twenty-five cents each. Mills ran day and night as people arrived “by train, wagon, on horseback, even afoot” to get a piece of the action along the new track, commonly referred to as the “St. Paul line.” Saloons, hotels, banks, stores, and services from smithing to tailoring sprang up in rail stop communities.

You’re right, I’m a killer. I’ve killed thousands, and very few of them have ever stained my conscience. I can go to a dark place and do whatever I need to. But for those I care about, those I love, I will move fucking mountains to keep them safe. And I care about Tommy and Kasey, whether you grant permission or not.

[They] were like the air she breathed, always there, always serving, so necessary as to be ubiquitous and taken for granted.

A library of books like Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race (1916) warned the Americans that they could not safely continue to admit members of inferior races to their country, and asserted that all races were inferior to the glorious Nordic race, whether they were Alpine, Mediterranean, Jewish, black or Oriental.

Damn! I thought, furious that even after expending my only rocket, I couldn’t get the machine pistol; I was right back where I started, except one rocket lighter. I had squandered my gift! I felt like the guy who found a lamp that would grant one wish, and he says, “Jeez, I wish I knew what to wish for.” I

You and I have spent much of our adult lives scheming to save the world. Several adult lives, in fact. That deed now done, I ponder a different question, one that I fear I cannot answer and that we were never brave nor bold enough to pose. And so I ask you now, dear friend: was this world worth saving to begin with? Were we worth saving? This endeavor was launched with that great assumption taken for granted. Now I ask myself for the first time. And while I view the cleansing of the world as our defining achievement, this business of saving humanity may have been our gravest mistake. The world may be better off without us. I have not the will to decide. I leave that to you. The final shift, my friend, is yours, for I have worked my last. I do not envy you the choice you will have to make. The pact we formed so long ago haunts me as never before. And I feel that what I’m about to do … that this is the easy way. —Vincent Wayne DiMarco Donald

Gabriel opened his eyes and took a deep breath. Only a minor twinge of pain bothered him. Aimery’s magic had healed him. Someone had laid him back down and covered him. Most likely Hugh.

You will not fuck with my children’s future. You will not destroy the freedoms my grandfather fought two world wars to defend. Fuck off you over-promoted rubber bath toy. Britain is revolted by you and you little gang of masturbatory projects. August 28, 2019

After being shown the demesne by Pikeman, and consulting with him at length, the elders had expressed their willingness to bring their fellows to live and work in Bourne on the same terms that My Lord had agreed with his own serfs. Hugh watched in disbelief as Bourne signed a writ, prepared by Thurkell, which not only granted them extra land but rights of access to education, medicine and a meal of meat every seven days. It was a word in disarray when base-born men, sworn to obedience through their oaths of fealty, could expect rewards in return for their labour. Pg 135

After being shown the demesne by Pikeman, and consulting with him at length, the elders had expressed their willingness to bring their fellows to live and work in Bourne on the same terms that My Lord had agreed with his own serfs. Hugh watched in disbelief as Bourne signed a writ, prepared by Thurkell, which not only granted them extra land but rights of access to education, medicine and a meal of meat every seven days. It was a world in disarray when base-born men, sworn to obedience through their oaths of fealty, could expect rewards in return for their labour.

Today’s Children, The Woman in White, and The Guiding Light crossed over and interchanged in respective storylines.) June 2, 1947–June 29, 1956, CBS. 15m weekdays at 1:45. Procter & Gamble’s Duz Detergent. CAST: 1937 to mid-1940s: Arthur Peterson as the Rev. John Ruthledge of Five Points, the serial’s first protagonist. Mercedes McCambridge as Mary Ruthledge, his daughter; Sarajane Wells later as Mary. Ed Prentiss as Ned Holden, who was abandoned by his mother as a child and taken in by the Ruthledges; Ned LeFevre and John Hodiak also as Ned. Ruth Bailey as Rose Kransky; Charlotte Manson also as Rose. Mignon Schrieber as Mrs. Kransky. Seymour Young as Jacob Kransky, Rose’s brother. Sam Wanamaker as Ellis Smith, the enigmatic “Nobody from Nowhere”; Phil Dakin and Raymond Edward Johnson also as Ellis. Henrietta Tedro as Ellen, the housekeeper. Margaret Fuller and Muriel Bremner as Fredrika Lang. Gladys Heen as Torchy Reynolds. Bill Bouchey as Charles Cunningham. Lesley Woods and Carolyn McKay as Celeste, his wife. Laurette Fillbrandt as Nancy Stewart. Frank Behrens as the Rev. Tom Bannion, Ruthledge’s assistant. The Greenman family, early characters: Eloise Kummer as Norma; Reese Taylor and Ken Griffin as Ed; Norma Jean Ross as Ronnie, their daughter. Transition from clergy to medical background, mid-1940s: John Barclay as Dr. Richard Gaylord. Jane Webb as Peggy Gaylord. Hugh Studebaker as Dr. Charles Matthews. Willard Waterman as Roger Barton (alias Ray Brandon). Betty Lou Gerson as Charlotte Wilson. Ned LeFevre as Ned Holden. Tom Holland as Eddie Bingham. Mary Lansing as Julie Collins. 1950s: Jone Allison as Meta Bauer. Lyle Sudrow as Bill Bauer. Charita Bauer as Bert, Bill’s wife, a role she would carry into television and play for three decades. Laurette Fillbrandt as Trudy Bauer. Glenn Walken as little Michael. Theo Goetz as Papa Bauer. James Lipton as Dr. Dick Grant. Lynn Rogers as Marie Wallace, the artist.

he would have to lie, he decided. Although he had done quite a bit of it in his life, Bessell did not like lying. He was still

So, now I’m apologising like Hugh Grant and picking these filthy coins up off the wretched pavement.