Stack Or Starve Quotes

People are like bees. They’re all workers who could be queens, with the right stuff, but once a queen-making has begun, it can’t be reversed. A bee that’s halfway a queen can’t turn back into a worker. She’d starve. She must keep growing and then she must leave.

The next morning, Louie was taken to an airfield to be flown to Okinawa, where many POWs were being collected before being sent home. Seeing a table stacked with K rations, he began cramming the boxes under his shirt, brushing off an attendant who tried to assure him that he didn't have to hoard them, as no one was going to starve him anymore. Looking extremely pregnant, Louie boarded the plane.

The swaying figure's white, haggard face was rough with beard-stubble. His shirt was in tatters which blew back behind him in twisted ribbons, showing the starved stack of his ribs. A filthy rag was wrapped around his right hand. He looked sick, sick and dying, but even so he also looked tough enough to make Andolini feel like a soft-boiled egg.

People are like bees. They're all workers who could be queens, with the right stuff, but once a queen-making has begun, it can't be reversed. A bee that's half way a queen can't turn back into a worker. She'd starve. She must keep growing and then she must leave.

The receiving office was a plain wooden structure next in line after the weighbridge. It was purely utilitarian. It was what it was. It made no concession to style or appeal. It didn’t need to. It was the only game in town, and farmers either used it or starved. Inside, it had counters for form-filling, and a worn floor where drivers waited in line, and a stand-up desk where deliveries were recorded. Behind the desk was a white-haired guy in bib overalls, with a blunt pencil behind his ear. He was fussing around with stacks of paper. He was gearing up ahead of the harvest, presumably. He had the look of a guy entirely happy in his little fiefdom.

We've given them more than we've taken away, said the Commander. Think of the trouble they had before. Don't you remember the singles' bars, the indignity of high school blind dates? The meat market. Don't you remember the terrible gap between the ones who could get a man easily and the ones who couldn't? Some of them were desperate, they starved themselves thin or pumped their breasts full of silicone, had their noses cut off. Think of the human misery. He waved a hand at his stacks of old magazines. They were always complaining. Problems this, problems that. Remember the ads in the Personal columns, Bright attractive woman, thirty-five… This way they all get a man, nobody's left out. And then if they did marry, they could be left with a kid, two kids, the husband might just get fed up and take off, disappear, they'd have to go on welfare. Or else he'd stay around and beat them up. Or if they had A job, the children in daycare or left with some brutal ignorant woman, and they'd have to pay for that themselves, out of their wretched little paychecks. Money was the only measure of worth, lor everyone, they got no respect as mothers. No wonder they were giving up on the whole business. This way they're protected, they can fulfill their biological destinies in peace. With full support and encouragement. Now, tell me. You're an intelligent person, I like to hear what you think. What did we overlook? Love, I said. Love? said the Commander. What kind of love? Falling in love, I said. The Commander looked at me with his candid boy's eyes. Oh yes, he said. I've read the magazines, that's what they were pushing, wasn't it? But look at the stats, my dear. Was it really worth it, falling in love? Arranged marriages have always worked out just as well, if not better.

Thousands of bushels of grain would ferment and rot at one station; hundreds of barrels of meat stacked at another, while the army starved because [of] ‘no transportation!

The cost was not, as I have been led to believe, that women had been prevented from working. Quite the opposite: we have been doing all of the work, around the clock, for centuries. Somebody, after all, must wash and feed and train the kids and get the food and clean the house and care for the sick and elderly. That work is physically depleting, logistically daunting, and relentless. It is not a job, but a constant gaping demand for labor. It's a ceaseless work that has gobbled up our energy and stamina, eroded our collective health, and starved our communal mind of oxygen for generations. We did the work, taught our daughters to do the work (assuming we survive their births), and then we died. That was it. Domestic toil had ground us, one after the next, to dust. We have not been educated because then, naturally, we might balk at the work. We might have the audacity to point out that we were doing all the work. We might ask the man to do some of the work, themselves. And they didn't want to do that work. Nobody wants to do the work, if they can escape it. Still we go around thinking about our primary problem, the essence of our position, is that men explain things to us or that we make less money for the same job. but, most basically, it's the work —the work that we still, somehow, have not managed to escape. It is the work we pretend doesn't exist.

Dinner. That’s what I want. I’m starving.” I supposed it was too much to ask if my cock would suffice, so I zipped my jeans and went to the drawer where I kept a stack of menus.

You really don’t like him, do you?” Xavier asked in surprise. “Who?” I asked innocently. “Darius,” he said, his gaze moving over my shoulder. “This is the part where I insult him and he’s right behind me, isn’t it?” Xavier’s eyes sparked with amusement and he nodded. Well far be it from me to disappoint. “In that case, I happen to think he’s a vindictive, pretentious twat-waffle who really needs to pull the stick out of his ass and let loose more often,” I said. “I thought we were being nice this evening?” Darius murmured behind me and I stifled a flinch at just how close he was. “You said you’d be nice. I made no such promises,” I pointed out, turning to look up at him as he moved to my side. Although now that I thought about it, maybe I had... the champagne tequila cocktail taking place in my digestive system was wreaking havoc with my memory as well as my manners. Now that he and Xavier were so close to each other it was obvious they were brothers, though Xavier didn’t seem as intense as Darius. But they shared the same jaw, the same colouring, even though Xavier’s build was a lot less stacked. “Well you’re making Xavier smile so I’ll forgive you this once,” Darius said. “Poor Tory is starving to death,” Xavier said, though his smile fell a little in response to his brother’s words. “Maybe you can find her something good to eat while I take my leave of this party.” I followed his gaze and noticed Lionel looking our way. He didn’t seem pleased about something and Xavier got to his feet hastily. “It was nice to meet you,” I said. “You too, Tory. See you later, Darius.” Xavier tucked his chair back into place and quickly left the room. (Tory)

Somebody, after all, must wash and feed and train the kids and get the food and clean the house and care for the sick and elderly. That work is physically depleting, logistically daunting, and relentless. It is not a job, but a constant gaping demand for labor. It's a ceaseless work that has gobbled up our energy and stamina, eroded our collective health, and starved our communal mind of oxygen for generations. We did the work, taught our daughters to to the work (assuming we survived their births), and then we died. That was it. Domestic toil had ground us, one after the next, to dust. We had not been educated because then, naturally, we might balk at the work. We might have the audacity to point out that we were doing all the work. We might ask men to do some of the work, themselves.