Stitch Famous Quotes

Have you forgotten me? by Nancy B. Brewer The bricks I laid or the stitches I sewed. I was the one that made the quilt; a drop of blood still shows from my needle prick. Your wedding day in lace and satin, in a dress once worn by me. I loaned your newborn baby my christening gown, a hint of lavender still preserved. Do you know our cause, the battles we won and the battles we lost? When our soldiers marched home did you shout hooray! Or shed a tear for the fallen sons. What of the fields we plowed, the cotton, the tobacco and the okra, too. There was always room at my table for one more, Fried chicken, apple pie, biscuits and sweet ice tea. A time or two you may have heard our stories politely told. Some of us are famous, recorded on the pages of history. Still, most of us left this world without glory or acknowledgment. We were the first to walk the streets you now call home, Perhaps you have visited my grave and flowers left, but did you hear me cry out to you? Listen, my child, to the voices of your ancestors. Take pride in our accomplishments; find your strength in our suffering. For WE are not just voices in the wind, WE are a living part of YOU!

I haughtily dismissed the principles sponsored by philosophers, religious leaders, and the ideas of poets in exchange for seeking financial stability and shallow happiness. I imported into my conceited consciousness the values of a freewheeling American society, a culture that fawns on rich and famous celebrities, applauds fantastic risk-taking, and promotes a permissive lifestyle. I lack serious ambition – romantic or practical – to achieve any intellectual or spiritual worthwhile accomplishments. Decrepit and friendless, I am so lost that I do not even know what bellwether I seek. I went astray by callously disrespecting the life sustaining lessons handed down by our ancestors. Only by stripping myself of the rank costume cloaking personal shame, a remorseful suit of motley skin that I stitched together by living a selfishly tailored life, can embark on a journey to discover a better way to live.

I suddenly realized I was in the humiliating predicament of being a smaller boy who was having money taken from him by a bully. This was wholly unexpected. Reading about such situations, I would smile superciliously and think that nothing of that kind could ever happen to me, because I would immediately fight back. It is, after all, better to take a beating once than to be humiliated repeatedly. Unfortunately, I had never read that such a relationship might begin with a con, a seemingly amicable request. For the next six months this boy (Crane was his nickname) poisoned my existence. I had to avoid him, otherwise every meeting turned into an excruciating dialogue with poking and threats. I was desperate and didn't know what to do. In my class I was the biggest and strongest, but Crane was taller and older and brazen and self-assured, which is, of course, the most important asset in the art of street confrontation. I had no older brother I could turn to, not even an older pupil I was friendly with. Complaining to my parents would shame me; besides, I already knew the advice they would give. "Well, just give him a good punch and he'll back off." It is all very well for adults to advise you to throw a punch. All bullying seems to them mere childish nonsense, although its emotional and psychological intensity is a hundred times greater than any problems they might be facing.... "What's that there, is your lip swollen? Let me see," he said, pretending to be in a conciliatory mood. At that I did the most daring thing in my life. Nowadays I get asked in nearly every interview where I get my courage. I genuinely believe my work in the past twenty years has not called for bravery; it is more a matter of having made a conscious choice. It certainly does not require even 1 percent of the courage I needed at that moment. I am sure it is a feeling familiar to many people: from sheer rage, desperation, and, paradoxically, above all, fear, you gain the courage to take the most resolute and reckless action. Yelling at him every swear word I knew, I punched him in the face several times as hard as I could, landing about half the blows. Completely taken by surprise, he fell over and looked up at me in bewilderment, lying on his back and half covering himself with his hands, evidently expecting me to start kicking him. I looked down no less bewildered. The fit of rage had passed, the adrenaline was draining away, and with every millisecond I came closer to the famous predicament of Schrodinger's cat: Crane might now get up and I would be dead or not. At that moment I leaned a rule in life: it is easier to perform a bold action than to live with its consequences. I ran away as fast as I could and looked back: Crane was running after me. After a couple of minutes I had a stitch in my side, but I ignored it, aware that if I stopped, everything would be much worse. I got away, but the next three days or so were scary, I feared getting beaten up at school in front of my friends or, even worse, in front of girls. To my great surprise, though, when I came face-to-face several times with my nemesis at school, he just glared at me menacingly. This gradually mutated into his very deliberately seeming not to notice me, while I, similarly, did not seem to notice him. I am still not sure why he didn't try to take revenge. Perhaps the answer is to be found in economic theory: A free agent wanders through the market taking money from younger pupils, each of whom is intimidated. By my outburst of insanity, I raised the price of harassment in my torturer's eyes and he made the rational decision to move on to others who were less psychotic. So I was, you might say, saved by the invisible hand of the market...The second possible explanation is that I wisely did not blab about the incident, sharing it only with a couple of close friends. Crane realized I was not trying to sabotage his reputation as bully in chief...