Otis Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Otis. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Otis," I said. "Shhh," he said. "I'm incognito. Call me...Otis." "I'm not sure that's how incognito works, but okay." Otis, aka Otis climbed into the chair I'd reserved for Sam.
Rick Riordan (The Hammer of Thor (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #2))
The world is full of monsters with friendly faces.
Heather Brewer (Eighth Grade Bites (The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, #1))
Everyone hates clowns," Otis said. "Even other clowns hate clowns.
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
I agree that it's a shame some books have to suffer ratings that clearly are invalid. However I can't think of a way to prevent it, and I didn't see any ideas in the thread either (I did skim though). I hope you'll appreciate that if we just start deleting ratings whenever we feel like it, that we've gone down a censorship road that doesn't take us to a good place.
Otis Y. Chandler
Otis D'ablo is alive! Do you here me? He is alive and trying to kill me!
Heather Brewer (Ninth Grade Slays (The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, #2))
We need our goats!” I yelled. I waded through the crowd until I reached our chariot. I grabbed Otis’s face and pressed my forehead against his. “Testing,” I whispered. “Is this goat on? Thor, can you hear me?” “You have beautiful eyes,” Otis told me.
Rick Riordan (The Hammer of Thor (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #2))
Otis barreled towards them empty-handed, before apparently realizing that a) he was empty-handed and b) charging towards a large body of water to fight a son of Poseidon was maybe not a good idea.
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
Otis and his brother, Marvin, pulled the god’s chariot. They also provided Thor with a never-ending supply of goat meat. Each night, Thor killed and ate them for dinner. Each morning, Thor resurrected them. This is why you should go to college, kids—so when you grow up you do not have to take a job as a magical goat.
Rick Riordan (The Hammer of Thor (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #2))
Otis clopped forward and sighed. "Well, if you need a volunteer to die, I suppose I can do it. I've always loved weddings-" Shut up, dummy!" Marvin said. "You're a goat!
Rick Riordan (The Hammer of Thor (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #2))
They'll torture you for months before killing you if you run" Otis shrugged, as if this was an everyday occurrence.
Heather Brewer (Twelfth Grade Kills (The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, #5))
If you believe in a cause, be willing to stand up for that cause with a million people or by yourself.
Otis S. Johnson (From "N Word" to Mr. Mayor: Experiencing the American Dream)
Woman's virtue is man's greatest invention.
Cornelia Otis Skinner
I wish you’d be quiet,” I muttered. “I also wish we had snowshoes.” “You’d need Uller for that,” said the goat. “Who?” “The god of snowshoes,” said Otis. “He invented them. Also archery and…I don’t know, other stuff.
Rick Riordan (The Sword of Summer (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #1))
Otis! Will you PLEASE stop killing me!
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
Oh my God. I'm not Keith Richards. I'm Otis from Mayberry! A fucking drunk!
Dave Mustaine (Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir)
Stand Fast, Stand Firm, Stand Sure, Stand True.
Harrison Gray Otis
My dear Hiram," cried Mrs. Otis, "what can we do with a woman who faints?" "Charge it to her like breakages," answered the Minister; "she won't faint after that;
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
One of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle.
James Otis
To be clear, Goodreads staff have not been deleting any posts. A value we've always had here is that we don't censor content (unless it's against our policies - eg porn, etc). [April 1, 2013]
Otis Y. Chandler
Great advantages are often attended with great inconveniences, and great minds called to severe trials.
Mercy Otis Warren
true friendship knows no distance
Emma Otis
You killed Thor!" Otis bleated. "You dropped a giantess on him!
Rick Riordan (The Sword of Summer (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #1))
Here is the problem: Poor Americans consume too little healthcare, especially preventive healthcare. Other Americans—often rich Americans—consume too much healthcare, often unwisely, and sometimes to their detriment. The American healthcare system combines famine with gluttony.
Otis Webb Brawley (How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America)
The waves have rolled upon me, the billows are repeatedly broken over me, yet I am not sunk down.
Mercy Otis Warren
Además, olvida usted, señor Otis, que el precio que pagó incluía tanto el castillo como el fantasma...
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
In the midst of death’s relentless power, I yet among the living stand
Mercy Otis Warren
Women keep a special corner of their hearts for sins they have never committed.
Cornelia Otis Skinner
Knowledge is power; and power is best shared among friends.
Otis Chandler
The blood-stain has been much admired by tourists and others, and cannot be removed." "That is all nonsense," cried Washington Otis; "Pinkerton's Champion Stain Remover and Paragon Detergent will clean it up in no time," and before the terrified housekeeper could interfere, he had fallen upon his knees, and was rapidly scouring the floor with a small stick of what looked like a black cosmetic. In a few moments no trace of the blood-stain could be seen.
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
Purpose draws potential, potential brings to life Destiny. Understanding you have a purpose is the first brick on the road to Destiny!
Otis Teague
We are all human first and the human relationship regardless of race, religion or gender is one of respect.
Otis Teague (Lest We Forget)
Who the shit is Otis?
Caris O'Malley
Somewhere between banging on logs and the invention of M.I.D.I. technology we have made a terrible wrong turn. We must have ridden right past our stop. We should have stepped down off the train at that moment when rhythm and harmony and technology all culminated to a single Otis Redding whine. That moment of the truest, most genuine expression of what it means to be human.
Gabriel Roth
When it comes to screening, a doctor who says ‘Let’s err on the side of caution,’ may actually err on the side of reckless ignorance and grave harm.
Otis Webb Brawley (How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America)
Make the most of the moments with those you love, it's once upon a person to Live and then Die. Give them the most precious gift of all Time!
Otis Teague (Lest We Forget)
Everyone hates clowns,” Otis said. “Even other clowns hate clowns.
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
In white America, prisons are good places where bad men pay for their crimes. In black America, they are too often used as warehouses to keep minorities off the streets. Otis
John Grisham (The Guardians)
Querido Hiram - replicó mistress Otis - ¿qué podemos hacer con una mujer que se desmaya?Se lo descontaremos de su salario - respondió el Ministro-. Verás como no vuelve a desmayarse.
Oscar Wilde
Gary'nin hatırlayabildiği kadarıyla Gerta,ilk defa bu kadar hassas görünüyordu.Kirpikleri titriyor,ağzı bir köşeye doğru seyiriyordu.'Mükemmel bir iş çıkarıyorsun.Otis seni çok seviyor.
Caroline Leavitt
The circumstances of the world are continually changing, and the opinions of men change also,Government is for the living, and not for the dead; it is the living only that has any right in it.
Thomas Paine (The American Revolution and the Early Republic as witnessed by Mercy Otis Warren and Others)
I am forced to get my living by the labour of my hand; and the sweat of my brow... for bitter bread, earned under the frowns of some who have no natural or divine right to be above me, and entirely owe their grandeur and honor to grinding the faces of the poor...
James Otis
few weeks after this, the purchase was concluded, and at the close of the season the Minister and his family went down to Canterville Chase. Mrs. Otis, who, as Miss Lucretia R. Tappan, of West 53d Street, had been a celebrated New York belle, was now a very handsome, middle-aged woman, with fine eyes, and a superb profile.
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
Shut up.” It was Otis. He had come out of the house and had overheard that last bit. “You have no idea what legendary is. You wouldn’t know it if it hit you in the face.” “I sure would,” Pro said, balling his fists defiantly.
Dr. Block (Dark Fate (Life and Times of Baby Zeke #15))
Jesus did not define the kingdom as being in the hearts of the Pharisees or anyone else. The kingdom is an objective reality when the King is present.
J. Otis Yoder
These manly sentiments, in private life, make good citizens; in public life, the patriot and the hero.
James Otis
Any man's measure is determined by what he will do when he is faced with his own deep need. Not how high he may reach but how low he may kneel.
J. Otis Yoder (When You Pray)
Otis, on the other hand, didn't miss home a bit. He had always hated the stairs in our house in Massachusetts. He was now five years old and very large for a golden retriever. I thought he was fat, but Bruce insisted he was just "big-boned". Either way, climbing the steep stairs at home was a challenge. Whenever Bruce and I went upstairs, Otis would sit near the bottom step, carefully calculating whether we would be on the second floor long enough to make it worthwhile to heave himself up the stairs. And on the way down the stairs, Otis was like a fully loaded eighteen-wheeler barreling down a steep hill. We just got out of his way. But in the new Washington apartment building, Otis had an elevator. As far as he was concerned, life was sweet.
Elizabeth Warren
Yeah. Yeah, sure.” I was having trouble breathing, too, but it wasn’t because of the house. The way Alex spoke so approvingly of me…that had made something click. I realized who she reminded me of—her restless energy, her petite size and choppy haircut, her flannel shirt and jeans and boots, her disregard for what other people thought of her, even her laugh—on those rare occasions she laughed. She reminded me weirdly of my mom. I decided not to dwell on that. Pretty soon I’d be psychoanalyzing myself more than Otis the goat.
Rick Riordan (The Hammer of Thor (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #2))
And this is why I have concluded that although every racial, ethnic, and religious group in the United States claims to want a piece of the American dream, there is no group that apologizes more for its success than black people.
Lawrence Otis Graham (Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class)
There is no English equivalent for the French word flâneur. Cassell's dictionary defines flâneur as a stroller, saunterer, drifter but none of these terms seems quite accurate. There is no English equivalent for the term, just as there is no Anglo-Saxon counterpart of that essentially Gallic individual, the deliberately aimless pedestrian, unencumbered by any obligation or sense of urgency, who, being French and therefore frugal, wastes nothing, including his time which he spends with the leisurely discrimination of a gourmet, savoring the multiple flavors of his city.
Cornelia Otis Skinner (Elegant Wits and Grand Horizontals)
Jessilyn, ain't no man can't get someplace he never thought he'd get to. You let enough bad thoughts into your head, you can end up doin' all sorts of things you never thought possible. Otis let evil into his mind and it took over his heart. We best be on our guard and keep our minds on what's right and true so we don't become things we'll regret. His words scared me. I wanted to always be able to trust people, to know that good people stayed good people, but I was realizing all too quickly that the human heart is fragile and needs constant attention. I'd seen enough bleakness in my own heart to know my daddy was speaking the truth. That's why we all need to know Jesus in our hearts, Daddy said. Ain't no one else who can keep watch over our hearts like He can. Ain't no one else who can take the bad and replace it with good.
Jennifer Erin Valent (Fireflies in December (Calloway Summers #1))
Lord Canterville: "I feat that the ghost exists . . . and always makes its appearance before the death of any member of our family." Mr. Otis: "Well, so does the family doctor for that matter, Lord Canterville. But there is no such thing, sir, as a ghost, and I guess the laws of Nature are not going to be suspended for the British aristocracy.
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
The next morning, when the Otis family met at breakfast, they discussed the ghost at some length. The United States Minister was naturally a little annoyed to find that his present had not been accepted. “I have no wish,” he said, “to do the ghost any personal injury, and I must say that, considering the length of time he has been in the house, I don’t think it is at all polite to throw pillows at him”—a very just remark, at which, I am sorry to say, the twins burst into shouts of laughter. “Upon the other hand,” he continued, “if he really declines to use the Rising Sun Lubricator, we shall have to take his chains from him. It would be quite impossible to sleep, with such a noise going on outside the bedrooms.
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
I have two righteous addictions. Firstly are my observations. Secondly, my imaginations.
T. D. Otis (Dream Deep)
The measure of a man is not so much how tall he stands but how low he kneels.
J. Otis Yoder (When You Pray)
I got Otis into his travel cage thingy. He fucking despises that thing with a passion.
Chris Philbrook (Dark Recollections (Adrian's Undead Diary, #1))
—¿Por qué siempre está gritando? —preguntó Otis—. Quiero decir, solo tiene que pedirlo…
Terry Pratchett (Regimiento Monstruoso (Mundodisco 31) (Spanish Edition))
Can there be any liberty,” wrote James Otis in 1763, “where property is taken without consent?
Dinesh D'Souza (United States of Socialism: Who's Behind It. Why It's Evil. How to Stop It.)
think the Children of Zeke sounds amazing,” said Harold. “Amazingly stupid,” said Otis.
Dr. Block (A New Enemy (Life and Times of Baby Zeke #13))
they listened to Otis Taylor’s Banjo album as they made the short trip across town.
John Sandford (Judgment Prey (Lucas Davenport, #33; Virgil Flowers, #15))
When Mr. Hiram B. Otis, the American Minister, bought Canterville Chase, every one told him he was doing a very foolish thing, as there was no doubt at all that the place was haunted.
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
To Mr. Blot, who went through life an unconscious example of the raison d'être of the British Empire, a shipwreck was merely one of the many things to be ignored. His was a calming influence.
Cornelia Otis Skinner (Our Hearts Were Young and Gay: An Unforgettable Comic Chronicle of Innocents Abroad in the 1920s)
Indeed, son of Poseidon,” Hagno said. “I know your father well. Ephialtes and Otis promised you would come.” Piper put her hand on Jason’s arm for balance. “The giants,” she said. “You’re working for them?
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
I listened to Otis harrumphing and snoring down by my feet and felt like the only person left on earth still awake, the only person who knew the secret that not a single thing in this world was worth a damn.
Carrie Mesrobian (Perfectly Good White Boy)
Yes, madam,” replied the old housekeeper in a low voice, “blood has been spilt on that spot.” “How horrid,” cried Mrs. Otis; “I don’t at all care for blood-stains in a sitting-room. It must be removed at once.
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
If the Otis family did not want it, they clearly did not deserve it. They were evidently people on a low, material plane of existence, and quite incapable of appreciating the symbolic value of sensuous phenomena.
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
Good riddance, you might imagine. But the worries about operator-less elevators were quite similar to the concerns we hear today about driverless cars. In fact, I learned something surprising when I was invited to speak to the Otis Elevator Company in Connecticut in 2006. The technology for automatic elevators had existed since 1900, but people were too uncomfortable to ride in one without an operator. It took the 1945 strike and a huge industry PR push to change people’s minds,
Garry Kasparov (Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins)
178 "Secondo me la gente non è più felice come una volta. Non si vedono più facce contente, o almeno io non ne vedo. Quando Frances ci ha portato a fare spese, ho detto alla signora Otis: "Guarda, hanno tutti quanti la faccia scura, anche i giovani.
Fannie Flagg (Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (Whistle Stop #1))
We have witnessed in the 20th century a tremendous phenomenon: the birth of the modern State of Israel. ...God is at work with His ancient chosen earthly people. We ought to pay attention to what is going on for behind the movement of nations is the hand of God.
J. Otis Yoder
tongue after you lose a tooth. Time after time, my mind kept going to that empty spot, the spot where I felt like she should be. When I told Gloria Dump about Otis and how he got arrested, she laughed so hard she had to grab hold of her false teeth so they wouldn’t fall out of her mouth.
Kate DiCamillo (Because of Winn-Dixie)
By the time the war was over, Great Britain also had a new monarch in George III, who had taken the throne in 1760. And in Boston, a feisty American lawyer named James Otis would issue his first political tract and argue that American colonists possessed all the rights of an English citizen.
Kenneth C. Davis (America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation)
Thomas Edison was a graduate of Cooper Union. Like Otis, he is principally famous for things he didn’t do. He didn’t invent electricity, or the lightbulb, the phonograph or the movies. These misappropriations didn’t bother him much: he didn’t correct folk. What he was good at, what he really knew, was patents.
A.A. Gill (To America with Love)
Take my hand, don't be afraid. I'm wanna prove every word I say.
Otis Redding
Her life was expected to be as anonymous as the era's needlework.
Nancy Rubin Stuart (The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation)
I would rather fail doing God's work than have a pseudo-victory being co-opted by someone else.
Otis Moss III
If you distrust everything, you'll believe anything.
Cindy L. Otis (At the Speed of Lies)
I always keep thinkin' that maybe I could find a place where you nevah have to get mad, and then I'd be cool. My daddy told me before he died that that place was called Dead.
Walter Mosley (The Awkward Black Man: Stories)
Knowing Emily and knowing she attracts incidents as blue serge attracts lint, I grew apprehensive.
Cornelia Otis Skinner
Every man's measurement is determined by his responses when he is on his knees before God.
J. Otis Yoder (When You Pray)
The measure of a man is determined by how he responds to the truth of God.
J. Otis Yoder (When You Pray)
Unfaithfulness to the marriage vow can never be justified.
J. Otis Yoder (Glory in the Lord)
Inside me, the taste Of things unspoken dries my mouth. Time goes on without force, without haste, Slow as lean cattle in some long drouth.
Otis Kidwell Burger
I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainy on the other, as this Writ of Assistance is.
James Otis
I don’t know, how about Flowie?” The flower clapped its two leaves together with joy. “Oh, I love it. Flowie the flower. What a brilliant name! I’m sure no one has ever thought to call a flower ‘Flowie’.
Dr. Block (Otis: Diary of a Baby Zombie Pigman, Complete Edition (Baby Zombie Pigman #1-3))
Generally places that are comfortable with excellence don’t call themselves centers of excellence. Has anyone heard of a Princeton University Center of Excellence? Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of Excellence?
Otis Webb Brawley (How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America)
From the race’s conception, the press viewed it with skepticism. Sportswriters argued that the rich event was a farce arranged to pad Seabiscuit’s bankroll. Del Mar, conscious of the potential conflict of interest for the Howards and Smiths, barred public wagering on the race. But the press’s distrust and the absence of gambling did nothing to cool the enthusiasm of racing fans. On the sweltering race day, special trains and buses poured in from San Diego and Los Angeles, filling the track with well over twenty thousand people, many more than the track’s official capacity. Lin plastered a twenty-foot LIGAROTI sign on the wall behind the “I’m for Ligaroti” section, and scores of Crosby’s movie friends, including Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, Spencer Tracy and Ray Milland, took up their cerise and white pennants and filed in. “Is there anyone left in Hollywood?” wondered a spectator. Dave Butler led a chorus of Ligaroti cheers, and the crowd grew boisterous. Crosby perched on the roof with Oscar Otis, who would call the race for a national radio broadcast. In the jockeys’ room, Woolf suited up to man the helm on Seabiscuit while Richardson slipped on Ligaroti’s polka dots. Just before the race, Woolf and Richardson made a deal. No matter who won, they would “save,” or split, the purse between them.
Laura Hillenbrand (Seabiscuit: An American Legend)
You Can Fly But Your Body Can't My first seat was in first class between Penny and Belinda. Before I poured Rémy Martin down my throat and had to come see what the folks back here think of things. 316 'Cool out, you know, I didn't mean it, I don't really hate you,' I hear someone say. While, over the intercom, the pilot jabbers. He's explaining that some dysfunction, once we're on the ground, can be easily fixed with a pin. I don't know, at that point, how much any of us will care. Maybe I'm drunk, but seems like they could give the plane to the Arabs once we've all made our connecting flights. 317 The beer nuts just served to me in a cello packet are the most delicious food I've ever tasted in my life. Back at Dallas-Fort Worth I put an Otis Redding CD into my player and I doubt I'll ever have a reason to take it out. Through the window, trigonometry, under a silky pink sky.
Mary Robison (Why Did I Ever)
Otis, at last, removed his eyes from Jane. "All very well, my friend, but I must side with Miss Clarke here. The soldiers in this town have been treated abominably." The table went still. Otis went on. "Admit it, Freeman. Mud throwing and name-calling are one thing, but the courts - any flimsy charge against a soldier upheld, outrageous fines put down - criminal! The law must not be conscripted to serve one particular cause. To lost the law is to lose the fight." "With respect, sir," Nate said, "I say when a people are under an illegal occupation they must fight with what they've got to hand." Aunt Gill said, "And what have we got to hand but a few stories in the paper?" Jane looked at her aunt in surprise. Another we. "We have the people, Aunt," Nate answered her. "Thirty thousand from all the outlying towns, ready to march at a minute's notice, and all it takes to call them is a flaming barrel of pitch on the beacon hill.
Sally Cabot Gunning (The Rebellion of Jane Clarke (Satucket #3))
Clean code can be read, and enhanced by a developer other than its original author. It has unit and acceptance tests. It has meaningful names. It provides one way rather than many ways for doing one thing. It has minimal dependencies, which are explicitly defined, and provides a clear and minimal API. Code should be literate since depending on the language, not all necessary information can be expressed clearly in code alone. -Dave Thomas, founder of OTI, godfather of the Eclipse strategy
Robert C. Martin (Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship)
Doug Spears; the rancher who lived at the mouth of Hell Roaring Creek. ‘So you’re the lady who found the body,’ he said. She hesitated, wondering which body he meant, how much they knew. ‘I mean the hiker’s body,’ he said. ‘Archie told us Jed Trotter got took by a bear too.’ She said: ‘I was talking to Otis Lenhart this afternoon; he says someone was shooting on Wapiti on Sunday.’ Spears smiled and shook his head. ‘It wasn’t me, ma’am.’ Zack Coons regarded her without expression, chewing solemnly.
Gwen Moffat (Grizzly Trail (Miss Pink #8))
Lawrence Otis Graham is a sprightly gossip in the Clamorgan mode: he writes largely for white magazines and is considered something of an upstart by old-line blacks. His 1999 Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class is a cross-country social whirl of interviews and personal anecdotes. Graham chronicles our old ways, and makes sure to certify their current value with the status symbols of integration; “exclusive” and “prestigious” schools and neighborhoods; “impeccable,” even “inspiring” professional credentials; friendships
Margo Jefferson (Negroland: A Memoir)
Es sangre de lady Eleonore de Canterville, que fue muerta en ese mismo sitio por su propio marido, sir Simon de Canterville, en 1565. Sir Simon la sobrevivió nueve años, desapareciendo de repente en circunstancias misteriosísimas. Su cuerpo no se encontró nunca, pero su alma culpable sigue embrujando la casa. La mancha de sangre ha sido muy admirada por los turistas y otras personas y no puede quitarse. —Todo eso son tonterías —exclamó Washington Otis—. El producto quitamanchas, el limpiador incomparable Campeón, marca Pinkerton, y el detergente Paragon harán desaparecer eso en un instante.
Oscar Wilde (El fantasma de Canterville)
I think you're in love,' she said. And with a sort of shock, Nickie realized it was true. She had definitely fallen in love with Otis. This was being in love, wasn't it? Looking forward to seeing him every day, feeling like a hole was ripped in her heart when he was gone, jumping for joy when he came back, not minding if he smelled bad, wanting to take care of him? Surely it was being in love. It was true that she hadn't fallen in love with...the obvious candidate. She'd fallen in love with a dog instead of a person. But that didn't matter. It was still love. She'd apply it to a person later on.
Jean Duprat
As if somehow irony,” she recaps for Maxine, “as practiced by a giggling mincing fifth column, actually brought on the events of 11 September, by keeping the country insufficiently serious — weakening its grip on ‘reality.’ So all kinds of make-believe—forget the delusional state the country’s in already—must suffer as well. Everything has to be literal now.” “Yeah, the kids are even getting it at school.” Ms. Cheung, an English teacher who if Kugelblitz were a town would be the neighborhood scold, has announced that there shall be no more fictional reading assignments. Otis is terrified, Ziggy less so. Maxine will walk in on them watching Rugrats or reruns of Rocko’s Modern Life, and they holler by reflex, “Don’t tell Ms. Cheung!” “You notice,” Heidi continues, “how ‘reality’ programming is suddenly all over the cable, like dog shit? Of course, it’s so producers shouldn’t have to pay real actors scale. But wait! There’s more! Somebody needs this nation of starers believing they’re all wised up at last, hardened and hip to the human condition, freed from the fictions that led them so astray, as if paying attention to made-up lives was some form of evil drug abuse that the collapse of the towers cured by scaring everybody straight again.
Thomas Pynchon (Bleeding Edge)
It's weird not being in our subculture of two any more. There was Jen's culture, her little habits and ways of doing things; the collection of stuff she'd already learnt she loved before we met me. Chorizo and Jonathan Franken and long walks and the Eagles (her dad). Seeing the Christmas lights. Taylor Swift, frying pans in the dishwasher, the works absolutely, arsewipe, heaven. Tracy Chapman and prawn jalfrezi and Muriel Spark and HP sauce in bacon sandwiches. And then there was my culture. Steve Martin and Aston Villa and New York and E.T. Chicken bhuna, strange-looking cats and always having squash or cans of soft drinks in the house. The Cure. Pink Floyd. Kanye West, friend eggs, ten hours' sleep, ketchup in bacon sandwiches. Never missing dental check-ups. Sister Sledge (my mum). Watching TV even if the weather is nice. Cadbury's Caramel. John and Paul and George and Ringo. And then we met and fell in love and we introduced each other to all of it, like children showing each other their favourite toys. The instinct never goes - look at my fire engine, look at my vinyl collection. Look at all these things I've chosen to represent who I am. It was fun to find out about each other's self-made cultures and make our own hybrid in the years of eating, watching, reading, listening, sleeping and living together. Our culture was tea drink from very large mugs. And looking forward to the Glastonbury ticket day and the new season of Game of Thrones and taking the piss out of ourselves for being just like everyone else. Our culture was over-tipping in restaurants because we both used to work in the service industry, salty popcorn at the cinema and afternoon naps. Side-by-side morning sex. Home-made Manhattans. Barmade Manhattans (much better). Otis Redding's "Cigarettes and Coffee" (our song). Discovering a new song we both loved and listening to it over and over again until we couldn't listen to it any more. Period dramas on a Sunday night. That one perfect vibrator that finished her off in seconds when we were in a rush. Gravy. David Hockney. Truffle crisps. Can you believe it? I still can't believe it. A smell indisputably reminiscent of bums. On a crisp. And yet we couldn't get enough of them together - stuffing them in our gobs, her hand on my chest, me trying not to get crumbs in her hair as we watched Sense and Sensibility (1995). But I'm not a member of that club anymore. No one is. It's been disbanded, dissolved, the domain is no longer valid. So what do I do with all its stuff? Where so I put it all? Where do I take all my new discoveries now I'm no longer a tribe of two? And if I start a new sub-genre of love with someone else, am I allowed to bring in all the things I loved from the last one? Or would that be weird? Why do I find this so hard?
Dolly Alderton (Good Material)
What is Strange and disconcerting about Jesus is the fact that he rarely makes demands. The style of teaching he engages in is not rote on memorization or indoctrination but Socratic, propositional and inductive. The listener is invited to explore and come to a conclusion. It is the desire of Christ for his audience to reach a conclusion and not be told what to think. Stories, sayings, reversals, parables and other forms of teaching used by Jesus are not good teaching tools for people who seek simplistic answers. Jesus teaches but requires more of a listener. We are invited to join the journey, wrestle with our assumptions, confront our spiritual bigotry and struggle with the humbling mystery and profound profundity of God. This is HARD faith, especially for the modern reader. We want the speaker to tell us what to think. We want our stories tidy, without complication, and we do not want questions designed to coerce us beyond easy answers. This is the LIFE and MINISTRY of Jesus. He was a walking mobile university, a theological gadfly, a spiritual teacher and Savior who cannot be contained by tradition, conformity or assimilation. Jesus is loose in the world quietly upending all assumptions, ideas and concepts we hold true.
Otis Moss II
Why were hippies such a threat, from the President on down to local levels, objects for surveillance and disruptions? Many of the musicians had the potential to become political. There were racial overtones to the black-white sounds, harmony between Janis Joplin, Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix. Black music was the impetus that drove the Rolling Stones into composing and performing. The war in Vietnam we escalated. What if they stopped protesting the war in Southeast Asia and turned to expose domestic policies at home with the same energy? One of the Byrds stopped singing at Monterey Pop to question the official Warren Report conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was a “lone assassin.” Bob Dylan’s Bringing it All Back Home album features a picture of Lyndon Johnson on the cover of Time. By 1966, LBJ had ordered writers and critics of his commission report on the JFK murder under surveillance. That research was hurting him. Rock concerts and Oswald. What next?
Mae Brussell (The Essential Mae Brussell: Investigations of Fascism in America)
Scene I. A little dark Parlour in Boston: Guards standing at the door. Hazlerod, Crusty Crowbar, Simple Sapling, Hateall, and Hector Mushroom. Simple. I know not what to think of these sad times, The people arm'd,—and all resolv'd to die Ere they'll submit.—— Crusty Crowbar. I too am almost sick of the parade Of honours purchas'd at the price of peace. Simple. Fond as I am of greatness and her charms, Elate with prospects of my rising name, Push'd into place,—a place I ne'er expected, My bounding heart leapt in my feeble breast. And ecstasies entranc'd my slender brain.— But yet, ere this I hop'd more solid gains, As my low purse demands a quick supply.— Poor Sylvia weeps,—and urges my return To rural peace and humble happiness, As my ambition beggars all her babes. Crusty. When first I listed in the desp'rate cause, And blindly swore obedience to his will, So wise, so just, so good I thought Rapatio, That if salvation rested on his word I'd pin my faith, and risk my hopes thereon. Hazlerod. Any why not now?—What staggers thy belief? Crusty. Himself—his perfidy appears— It is too plain he has betray'd his country; And we're the wretched tools by him mark'd out To seal its ruins—tear up the ancient forms, And every vestige treacherously destroy, Nor leave a trait of freedom in the land. Nor did I think hard fate wou'd call me up From drudging o'er my acres, Treading the glade, and sweating at the plough, To dangle at the tables of the great; At bowls and cards to spend my frozen years; To sell my friends, my country, and my conscience; Profane the sacred sabbaths of my God; Scorn'd by the very men who want my aid To spread distress o'er this devoted people. Hazlerod. Pho—what misgivings—why these idle qualms, This shrinking backwards at the bugbear conscience; In early life I heard the phantom nam'd, And the grave sages prate of moral sense Presiding in the bosom of the just; Or planting thongs about the guilty heart. Bound by these shackles, long my lab'ring mind, Obscurely trod the lower walks of life, In hopes by honesty my bread to gain; But neither commerce, or my conjuring rods, Nor yet mechanics, or new fangled drills, Or all the iron-monger's curious arts, Gave me a competence of shining ore, Or gratify'd my itching palm for more; Till I dismiss'd the bold intruding guest, And banish'd conscience from my wounded breast. Crusty. Happy expedient!—Could I gain the art, Then balmy sleep might sooth my waking lids, And rest once more refresh my weary soul.
Mercy Otis Warren (The Group A Farce)
For the bus ride, which Delaney estimated would be ninety minutes, she had prepared a mix of happy journeying music, which she activated as they pulled out of the campus gate. The first song was by Otis Redding, and the first message came via her phone. Woman-hater, it said, with a link to an unsigned and evidence-less post hinting that he had been unkind to an ex-girlfriend who he’d met shortly before the bay and the dock and the sitting. Thanks for the early-morning pick-me-up! the writer said, meaning that Delaney had ruined the day and tacitly endorsed Redding’s newly alleged misogyny. Delaney skipped to the next song, Lana Del Rey’s “High by the Beach,” and then quickly figured it was too big a risk so skipped ahead. The third song, the Muppets’ “Movin’ Right Along,” was unknown to most on the bus, and survived its three-minute length, during which a handful of passengers furiously tried to find a reason the song was complicit in evil committed or implied. Delaney skipped the next song, by Neil Diamond, thinking any Jewish singer dubious in light of the Israeli sandwich debacle, skipped songs six and seven (from Thriller), briefly considered the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” but then remembered Phil Spector, and so finally settled on a young Ghanian rapper she’d recently discovered. His first song was hunted down quickly in a hail of rhetorical buckshot—as a teen, the rapper had zinged a borderline joke about his female trigonometry teacher—so Delaney turned off the shared music, leaving everyone, for the next eighty-one minutes, to their earbuds and the safety of their individualized solitude.
Dave Eggers (The Every)
(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" Sittin' in the morning sun I'll be sittin' when the evening comes Watching the ships roll in Then I watch them roll away again, yeah I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay Wastin' time I left my home in Georgia Headed for the Frisco Bay Cuz I've had nothing to live for And look like nothing's gonna come my way So, I'm just gon' sit on the dock of the bay Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay Wastin' time Looks like nothing's gonna change Everything still remains the same I can't do what ten people tell me to do So I guess I'll remain the same, listen Sittin' here resting my bones And this loneliness won't leave me alone, listen Two thousand miles I roam Just to make this dock my home, now I'm just gon' sit at the dock of a bay Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh Sittin' on the dock of the bay Wastin' time [Ends in harmonic whistling]
Otis Redding