Leni Quotes

Bring me Mother Julian’s Scroll within two weeks, or I’ll get that guttersnipe Leni prosecuted for attempted murder. She won’t survive long in prison.

In the silence, Leni wondered if one person could ever really save another, or if it was the kind of thing you had to do for yourself.

All this time, Dad had taught Leni how dangerous the outside world was. The truth was that the biggest danger of all was in her own home.

Leni saw suddenly how hope could break you, how it was a shiny lure for the unwary. What happened to you if you hoped too hard for the best and got the worst?

I feel as though I have lived many lives, experienced the heights and depths of each and like the waves of the ocean, never known rest. Throughout the years, I looked always for the unusual, for the wonderful, for the mysteries at the heart of life.

Leni had never known anyone who had died before. She had seen death on television and read about it in her beloved books, but now she saw the truth of it. In literature, death was many things - a message, catharsis, retribution. There were deaths that came from a beating heart that stopped and deaths of another kind, a choice made, like Frodo going to the Grey Havens. Death made you cry, filled you with sadness, but in the best of her books, there was peace, too, satisfaction, a sense of the story ending as it should. In real life, she saw, it wasn't like that. It was sadness opening up inside of you, changing how you saw the world.

Like all motherless girls, Leni would become an emotional explorer, trying to uncover the lost part of her, the mother who carried and nurtured and loved her. Leni would become both mother and child; to her, mama would still grow and age. She would never be gone, not as long as Leni remembered her.

I am fascinated by what is beautiful, strong, healthy, what is living. I seek harmony.

The glass can be half empty or half full.” Leni knew the glass was broken.

Leni felt distance spreading between them. That was how change came, she supposed: in the quiet of things unspoken and truths unacknowledged.

Fear, Leni learned, was not the small dark closet she'd always imagined; walls pressed in close, a ceiling you bumped your head on, a floor cold to the touch. No. Fear was a mansion, one room after another, connected by endless hallways.

I’m so lucky to have you, Leni,” Mama said, trying to organize her cards with one hand. “We’re a team,” Leni said. “Peas in a pod.” “Two of a kind.” Words they said all the time to each other; words that felt a little hollow now. Maybe even sad.

You know what I love most about you, Leni Allbright?" "What?" "Everything.

Mama had quit high school and “lived on love.” That was how she always put it, the fairy tale. Now Leni was old enough to know that like all fairy tales, theirs was filled with thickets and dark places and broken dreams, and runaway girls.

Mama could never leave Dad, and Leni would never leave Mama. And Dad could never let them go. In this toxic knot that was their family, there was no escape for any of them.

Leni saw suddenly how hope could break you, how it was a shiny lure for the unwary. What happened to you if you hoped too hard for the best and got the worst? Was it better not to hope at all, to prepare? Wasn’t that what her father’s lesson always was? Prepare for the worst.

The comparing mind is a despairing mind.

She knew—it was her job as a teacher of history to know—how many horrors are legitimated in public daylight, against the will of most of the people.

Mama gave a tired laugh. Leni understood. You could be as careful as a chemist with nitroglycerin around dad. It wouldn't change a thing. Sooner or later, he was going to blow.

Leni was pretty sure that, to her, childhood would always smell like sea air and cigarette smoke and her mother’s rose-scented perfume.

Yeah. Well. The glass can be half empty or half full." Leni knew the glass was broken.

The applause was so loud and insistent that I had to respond with several encores. I was numb with happiness, when it was over, I knew that this alone must be my life and my world.

Shut up, she tells her monkey mind. Please shut up, you picker of nits, presser of bruises, counter of losses, fearer of failures, collector of grievances future and past.

Leni was afraid to stay and afraid to leave. It was strange—stupid, even—but she often felt like the only adult in her family, as if she were the ballast that kept the creaky Allbright boat on an even keel.

Leni stared down at the sea, rolling inexorably toward her. Nothing you did could hold back that rising tide. One mistake or miscalculation and you could be stranded or washed away. All you could do was protect yourself by reading the charts and being prepared and making smart choices.

What does the word “spinster” do that “bachelor” doesn’t do? Why do they carry different associations? These are language acts, people!

The sea does not ask permission or wait for instruction. It doesn’t suffer from not knowing what on earth, exactly, it is meant to do.

Now Leni was old enough to know that like all fairy tales, theirs was filled with thickets and dark places and broken dreams, and runaway girls.

Night swept in like nothing Leni had ever seen before, like the winged shadow of a creature too big and predatory to comprehend.

Leni heard her mother start to cry, and somehow that made it worse, as if her tears watered this ugliness, made it grow.

The Great Alone,” Leni said. That was what Robert Service called Alaska.

Leni saw suddenly how hope could break you, how it was a shiny lure for the unwary. What happened to you if you hoped too hard for the best and got the worst? Was it better not to hope at all, to prepare?

Leni knew it was crazy, but it seemed to her as if they were having a conversation without saying anything, talking about books and durable friendships and overcoming insurmountable odds. Maybe they weren’t talking about Sam and Frodo at all, maybe they were talking about themselves and how they had somehow grown up and stayed kids at the same time.

Leni stared down at her father. She saw the man who had used his fists when he was angry, saw the blood on his hands and the mean set to his jaw. But she saw the other man, too, the one she’d crafted from photographs and her own need, the one who’d loved them as much as he could, his capacity for love destroyed by war. Leni thought maybe that he would haunt her. Not just him, but the idea of him, the sad and scary truth that you could love and hate the same person at the same time, that you could feel a deep and abiding loss and shame for your own weakness and still be glad that this awful thing had been done.

this time, Dad had taught Leni how dangerous the outside world was. The truth was that the biggest danger of all was in her own home.

Mama had called Leni the great love of her life and Leni thought maybe that was always true for parents and their children.

Leni felt the sudden fragility of her world, of the world itself. She barely remembered Before. Maybe she didn't remember it at all, in fact. Maybe the images she did have-Dad lifting her onto his shoulders, pulling petals from a daisy, holding a buttercup to her chin, reading her a bedtime story-maybe these were all images she'd taken from pictures and imbued with an imagined life.

In real life, she saw, it wasn’t like that. It was sadness opening up inside of you, changing how you saw the world. It made her think about God and what He offered at times like this. She wondered for the first time what her parents believed in, what she believed in, and she saw how the idea of Heaven could be comforting. She could hardly imagine a thing as terrible as losing your mother. The very thought of it made Leni sick to her stomach. A girl was like a kite; without her mother’s strong, steady hold on the string, she might just float away, be lost somewhere among the clouds.

Like all motherless girls, Leni would become an emotional explorer, trying to uncover the lost part of her, the mother who had carried and nurtured and loved her. Leni would become both mother and child; through her, Mama would still grow and age. She would never be gone, not as long as Leni remembered her.

Inside was a library unlike any Leni had ever seen. Row upon row of wooden desks, decorated with green banker's lamps, were positioned beneath an arched ceiling. Gothic chandeliers hung above the desks. And the books! She'd never seen so many. They whispered to her of unexplored worlds and unmet friends and she realized that she wasn't alone in this new world. Her friends were here, spine out, waiting for her as they always had.

Leni sighed. How was Mama’s unshakable belief in Dad any different than his fear of Armageddon? Did adults just look at the world and see what they wanted to see, think what they wanted to think? Did evidence and experience mean nothing?

Leni shook her head, feeling a familiar sadness creep in. She could never tell him how it felt to live with a dad who scared you sometimes and a mother who loved him too much and make him prove how much he loved her in dangerous ways. Like flirting. These were Leni's secrets. Her burdens. She couldn't share them. All this time, all these years, she'd dreamed of having a real friend, one who would tell her everything. How had she missed the obvious? Leni couldn't have a real friend because she couldn't be one.

Before all was said and done, she would, in fact, become the woman in Germany who more than any other would materially shape the destiny of the Nazi movement. Leni Riefenstahl was beautiful and brilliant. She knew what she wanted and how to get it. And what she wanted above all was to be at the center of things, in the spotlight, basking in applause.

I set about seeking a thread, a theme, a style, in the realm of legend. Something that might allow me to give free rein to my juvenile sense of romanticism and the beautiful image.

But who cares what the girl looks like, if she is happy? The world will care.

By walking, she tells her students, is how you make the road.

She knew—it was her job as a teacher of history to know—how many horrors are legitimated in public daylight, against the will of most people.

Leni hadn’t understood then. Now she did. She saw how love could be dangerous and beyond control. Ravenous. Leni had it in her to love the way her mother did. She knew that now.

How could a place be as alive as Alaska, as beautiful and cruel? No. It wasn't Alaska's fault. It was hers. Leni was Matthew's second mistake.

Mama had chosen to dig for treasure through the dirt of Dad’s toxic, porous love, but not Leni. Not anymore.

Leni got to her feet, stared at him. I didn't mean to do that. The same words she'd heard spoken by her dad.

I can't," Mama finally said, and Leni thought they were the saddest, most pathetic words she’d ever heard.

Matthew grieved for the mother he’d had. He figured Leni would grieve for the dad she wanted.

With no local police and no one to call for help. All this time, Dad had taught Leni how dangerous the outside world was. The truth was that the biggest danger of all was in her own home.

the most clear evidence and assurance of the truth and goodness in these holy things of Christ and the new creature arises out of themselves, as light follows from the body of the Sun, without the contusion or compulsion of an harsh arguments.  And by a holy sympathy a regenerate heart entertains with infinite delight these precious and holy truths.  Arguments and syllogisms make a great noise in the world.  I think they are like that appearance in Horeb to the prophet Elijah when the great and strong wind broke the mountains and broke in pieces all the rocks.  But it is said, the Lord was not found in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but He was in the still, small voice.  Lux spiritus santi est lenis luxs, persundens sementibus, the Holy Spirit does gently hover over the soul and brood upon it.  Heavenly doctrine falls down upon the spirits of men, not like a mighty violent rain, but like a shower of oil, like a sweet honey-dew.

Constans et lenis, ut res expostulat, esto: Temporibus mores sapiens sine crimine mutat. Будь і твердим, і м'яким, залежно, в якому ти ділі: Мудрий (гріха тут нема) свої звичаї змінює часто.

Mama wanted to induct Leni into some terrible, silent club to which Leni didn’t want to belong. She didn’t want to pretend what had happened was normal, but what was she—a kid—supposed to do about it?

Inside was a library unlike any Leni had ever seen. Row upon row of wooden desks, decorated with green banker’s lamps, were positioned beneath an arched ceiling. Gothic chandeliers hung above the desks. And the books! She’d never seen so many. They whispered to her of unexplored worlds and unmet friends and she realized that she wasn’t alone in this new world. Her friends were here, spine out, waiting for her as they always had.

Over the course of human evolution, did men learn to be attracted to skinny women because they were not visibly pregnant? Did voluptuousness signal that a body was already ensuring the survival of another man's genetic material?

Leni shrugged. She didn’t know exactly what to say, or how to say it without revealing too much. “He has—nightmares—and bad weather can set him off. Sometimes. But he hasn’t had a nightmare since we moved here. So maybe he’s better.

[...] Leni's heart would always have a broken place. It didn't matter how you lost a parent or how great or shitty that parent was, a kid grieved forever. Matthew grieved for the mother he'd had. He figured Leni would grieve for the dad she wanted.

me dulcis saturet quies; obscuro positus loco leni perfruar otio, nullis nota Quiritibus aetas per tacitum fluat. sic cum transierint mei nullo cum strepitu dies. plebeius moriar senex. illi mors gravis incubat qui, notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi.

She could hardly imagine a thing as terrible as losing your mother. The very thought of it made Leni sick to her stomach. A girl was like a kite; without her mother’s strong, steady hold on the string, she might just float away, be lost somewhere among the clouds. Leni

O camarada Lenis nos ensinou que [...] na guerra dos exércitos, não se pode atingir o objetivo estratégico, que é a destruição do inimigo e a ocupação de seu território, sem ter antes atingido uma série de objetivos táticos, visando a desagregar o inimigo antes de enfrentá-lo em campo aberto.

Winter tightened its grip on Alaska. The vastness of the landscape dwindled down to the confines of their cabin. The sun rose at quarter past ten in the morning and set only fifteen minutes after the end of the school day. Less than six hours of light a day. Snow fell endlessly, blanketed everything. It piled up in drifts and spun its lace across windowpanes, leaving them nothing to see except themselves. In the few daylight hours, the sky stretched gray overhead; some days there was merely the memory of light rather than any real glow. Wind scoured the landscape, cried out as if in pain. The fireweed froze, turned into intricate ice sculptures that stuck up from the snow. In the freezing cold, everything stuck -- car doors froze, windows cracked, engines refused to start. The ham radio filled with warnings of bad weather and listed the deaths that were as common in Alaska in the winter as frozen eyelashes. People died for the smallest mistake -- car keys dropped in a river, a gas tank gone dry, a snow machine breaking down, a turn taken too fast. Leni couldn't go anywhere or do anything without a warning. Already the winter seemed to have gone on forever. Shore ice seized the coastline, glazed the shells and stones until the beach looked like a silver-sequined collar. Wind roared across the homestead, as it had all winter, transforming the white landscape with every breath. Trees cowered in the face of it, animals built dens and burrowed in holes and went into hiding. Not so different from the humans, who hunkered down in this cold, took special care.

Mama and dad had run off together; theirs was a beautiful, romantic story of love against all odds. Mama had quit high school and “lived on love.” That was how she always put it, the fairy tale. Now Leni was old enough to know that like all fairy tales, theirs was filled with thickets and dark places and broken dreams, and runaway girls.

Life is a series of boring interludes between meals.

Shut up, she tells her monkey mind. Please shut up, you picker of nits, presser of bruises, counter of losses, fearer of failures, collector of grievances future and past.

Die Idee der Schönheit ist die Idee der unendlichen Traurigkeit; die Idee dessen, was hätte sein können.

She attempts to give the impression of untiring activity, thereby underlining her importance. Meanwhile her colleagues calmly and expertly get on with the job at hand.

[The beautiful pass of Leny, near Callander, in Monteith, would, in some respects, answer this description.]

Whatever frees Gin Percival to leave her hair twiggy and wear shapeless sack dresses and smell unwashed—the wife wants that.

Angry sea,” people say, but to the biographer the ascribing of human feeling to a body so inhumanly itself is wrong. The water heaves up for reasons they don’t have names for.

Have you ever considered, people, how much time has been stolen from the lives of girls and women due to agonizing over their appearance?' A few faces smile, uneasy. Even louder: 'How many minutes, hours, months, even actual years, of their lives do girls and women waste in agonizing? And how many billions of dollars of corporate profit are made as a result?

That evening, after dinner, Leni sat on her twin bed, reading. The Stand by Stephen King. In the past week, she’d read three books by him and discovered a new passion. Goodbye science fiction and fantasy, hello horror. She figured it was a reflection of her inner life. She’d rather have nightmares about Randall Flagg or Carrie or Jack Torrance than about her own past.

Mama was engaged in a continual quest to “find” herself. In the past few years, she’d tried EST and the human potential movement, spiritual training, Unitarianism. Even Buddhism. She’d cycled through them all, cherry-picked pieces and bits. Mostly, Leni thought, Mama had come away with T-shirts and sayings. Things like, What is, is, and what isn’t, isn’t. None of it seemed to amount to much.

Why do you have to go to the cathedral?' said Leni. K. tried to explain briefly, but he had hardly begun when Leni suddenly said: 'They are hounding you.' K., who could not bear anyone feeling sorry for him unexpectedly or gratuitously, broke off abruptly with just two words; but as he hung up the receiver he said, half to himself and half to the distant woman who could no longer hear him: 'Yes, they are hounding me.

Leni looked around. The beauty of this place, the majesty of it, was overwhelming. A deep and abiding peace existed here; there were no human voices, no thumping footsteps, no laughter or engines running. The natural world spoke loudest here, the breathing of the tide across the rocks, the slap of water on the float plane's pontoons, the distant barking of sea lions lumped together on a rock, being circled by chattering gulls.

Dad held Mama as if she were made of glass. So careful, so concerned for her well-being. It filled Leni with an impotent rage. And then she'd get a glimpse of him with tears in his eyes and the rage would turn soft and slide into something like forgiveness. She didn't know how to corral or change either of these emotions; her love for him was all tangled up in hate. Right now she felt both emotions crowding in on her, each jostling for the lead.

know this girl at all, but her struggle for composure and her love for her brother were obvious. It made Leni feel strangely connected to her, as if they had this one important thing in common. “I’m glad he has you. He’s … struggling now, aren’t you, Mattie?” Aly’s voice broke. “But he’ll be fine. I hope.” Leni saw suddenly how hope could break you, how it was a shiny lure for the unwary. What happened to you if you hoped too hard for the best and got the worst? Was it better not to hope at all, to prepare? Wasn’t that what her father’s lesson always was? Prepare for the worst.

But why does she want them, really? Because Susan has them? Because the Salem bookstore manager has them? Because she always vaguely assumed she would have them herself? Or does the desire come from some creaturely place, pre-civilized, some biological throb that floods her bloodways with the message Make more of yourself! To repeat, not to improve.

The drive to live in the master’s house is also symbolic of the desire to become like the master. Our colonized consciousness has convinced us that to be is to be like the master. To be Filipino is not good enough—or so we we have been taught (or coerced) to believe. It is a reflection of the internalization of the dark shadows projected by the colonizer onto the colonized. These are shadows from which there is no escape, shadows that will keep haunting until they are withdrawn, atoned for, and integrated within the colonizer’s self

Documentaries     All My Loved Ones, directed by Matej Minac, 1999.     As If It Were Yesterday, directed by Myriam Abramowicz and Esther Hoffenberg, 1980.     The Flat, directed by Arnon Goldfinger, 2012.     Four Seasons Lodge, directed by Andrew Jacobs, 2008.     Generation War (Our Mothers, Our Fathers in the original German), directed by Philipp Kadelbach, 2013.     Hidden Children, directed by John Walker, 1994.     Hitler’s Children, directed by Chanoch Ze’evi, 2011.     Image Before My Eyes, directed by Josh Waletzky, 1981.     Imaginary Witness, directed by Daniel Anker, 2004.     Inheritance, directed by James Moll, 2006.     A Life Apart: Hasidism in America, directed by Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky, 1997.     The Nazi Officer’s Wife, directed by Liz Garbus, 2003.     Torn, directed by Ronit Krown Kertsner, 2011.     Triumph of the Will, directed by Leni Riefenstahl, 1935. Features     Defiance, directed by Edward Zwick, 2008.     In Darkness, directed by Agnieszka Holland, 2011.     Inside Hana’s Suitcase, directed by Larry Weinstein, 2002.     The Pianist, directed by Roman Polanski, 2002.     Sarah’s Key, directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner, 2010.     Schindler’s List, directed by Steven Spielberg, 1993.     A Year of the Quiet Sun, directed by Krzysztof Zanussi, 1984.

She didn’t know what to do. There was no good answer. She was smart enough to know that. And dumb enough to be in this situation. “Leni?” She heard her mother’s voice, recognized the concerned tone, but it didn’t matter. Leni felt distance spreading between them. That was how change came, she supposed: in the quiet of things unspoken and truths unacknowledged. “How was Matthew?” Mama asked. She walked over to Leni, peeled off her parka, hung it up, and led her to the sofa, but neither of them sat down. “He’s not even him,” Leni said. “He can’t think or talk or walk. He didn’t look at me, just screamed.” “He’s not paralyzed, though. That’s good, right?” That was what Leni had thought, too. Before. But what good was being able to move if you couldn’t think or see or talk? It might have been better if he’d died down there. Kinder. But the world was never kind, especially not to kids. “I know you think it’s the end of the world, but you’re young. You’ll fall in love again and … What’s that in your hand?” Leni held out her fist, uncurled her fingers to reveal the thin vial in her hand. Mama took it, studied it. “What is this?” “It’s a pregnancy test,” Leni said. “Blue means positive.” She thought about the chain of choices that had led her here. A ten-degree shift anywhere along the way and everything would be different. “It must have happened the night we ran away. Or before? How do you know a thing like that?” “Oh, Leni,” Mama said. What Leni needed now was Matthew. She needed him to be him, whole. Then they would be in this together. If Matthew were Matthew, they’d get married and have a baby. It was 1978, for God’s sake; maybe they didn’t even have to get married. The point was, they

On a global scale, the international diaspora of Filipinos must be seen in the context of our search for a home. For many, the economic conditions of the Philippines can hardly be called home—pushing hundreds of thousands of men and women (primarily) to seek economic relief elsewhere in order to provide a home for the families they left behind in the Philippines. This diaspora must also be seen in the historical context of our imbalance as a result of colonialism/imperialism and the displacement of the self through negation by the master’s narratives. That this diaspora is perceived by the Philippine government as its own version of “foreign aid” is symptomatic of a consciousness that remains uncritical of its marginal situatedness. The paradox of the “colonized taking care of the colonizer” is being played out in hospitals and convalescent homes, where Filipino nurses abound; in Europe and in the United States, where Filipino nannies and domestic workers are taking care of other people’s children It is evident in Japan’s Filipino entertainers and in Denmark and Australia’s Filipino mail-order brides, who provide caretaking services, especially to men. This is the most stark and depressing legacy of colonization as a patriarchal legacy—the exploitation of women

Leni

Frymëzim i pafat Frymzim' i em i pafat, që vjen e më djeg mu në gji, për kë po më flet? për kë të shkruej? përse po më ban që kaq të vuej? pse vjen e më djeg mu në gji, frymzim' i em i pafat? Për të gjorët? për ata që nuk kanë dritë? 0 frymzim' i em i ngratë, mjaft me plagë që s'kan shërim, leni të dergjen në mjerim, Njerzit s'duen ma trishtim, botës s'ia kande atë kangë të thatë, thot se mjell një farë të idhtë. Far' e idhtë... far' e idhë... - O njerz të bimë nga far' e ambël! Frigë të mos keni, pse një kangë mund t'ju theri në ndjesi, t'ju kujtojnë zemrën në gji në ndërgjegje dhe një dangë... porju t'ju bajë edhe ma zi. Frymzim' i em i pafat! Shporru ktej! Nuk të due! S'i due hovet tueja të nalta, as fluturimet... Nëpër balta... të ditve tona të shklas un due rrokë me njerzit që rrok nata.

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I just want you near me. I love you, Leni. I love you with my whole heart and I’m ready for whatever you need.

They sat in companionable silence which amazed Leni. Usually she was a nervous wreck around kids she wanted to befriend.

She's my heroine. You know that.' Leni knew it wasn't a good thing, not a normal mom-and-dad thing, to compare your love to a drug that could hollow your body and fry your brain and leave you for dead. But they said it to each other all the time.

The actor Kurt Krueger said: “I do not recall Leni to have been hateful towards anyone, even Hitler, except Susan Sontag.

Muller (General Muller)

Behind the façade lies a girl distinctly uncertain about where she is, where she is going, even how she got there.

Leni thought maybe that he would haunt her. Not just him, but the idea of him, the sad and scary truth that you could love and hate the same person at the same time, that you could feel a deep and abiding loss and shame for your own weakness and still be glad that this awful thing had been done.

What are we going to do in the face of what we remember? (Langston Hughes)

Leni took a picture of Matthew in front of the Salty Dawg Saloon. One hundred years ago, it had been the post office and grocery store for this out-of-the-way spot that even Alaskans called Land’s End. Now the old girl was a dark, twisty tavern where locals rubbed elbows with tourists and the walls were decorated in memorabilia. Matthew wrote LENI AND MATTHEW on a dollar bill and pinned it to the wall where it was immediately lost among the thousands of bills and scraps of paper around it.

My vadge isn't having a good year

Lenie " odzywa się Joel "Słucham?" "Próbowałaś się kiedyś zabić?" "Jasne, jak każdy" odpowiada

She wants to stretch her mind wider than "to have one". Wider than "not to have one". To quit shaking her head. To go to the protest in May. To do more than to go to a protest. To be okay with not knowing. [...] To see what is. And to see what is possible.