Swinton Quotes

It's a real comfort zone for me to feel alien.

God's time is slow, patient, and kind and welcomes friendship; it is a way of being in the fullness of time that is not determined by productivity, success, or linear movements toward personal goals. It is a way of love, a way of the heart.

Loneliness is the deal. Loneliness is the last great taboo. If we don't accept loneliness, then capitalism wins hands down. Because capitalism is all about trying to convince people that you can distract yourself, that you can make it better. And it ain't true.

We continually move backward and forward in time as we use our stories to describe who we were, who we are, and what we hope we will become. Storytelling

Tilda Swinton’s

I was playing a new part in a new play: the messed-up adult child coming home in a truly pitiful state in the back of her parents’ luxury sedan. It was a glorious suburban homecoming.

What kind of woman tells all her secrets?” my mother continued, flabbergasted and disappointed in me. “Especially anything that has to do with your body making babies! I know a woman who had no ovaries when she got married. Her husband found out only years later that they couldn’t have children. The two of them are happy together still; they live in a big house, and have a cute dog.

Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling? . . . Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine!2 Bonhoeffer’s question “Who am I?

At the Veracruz Mexico Temple dedication six weeks later, he spoke of the temple helping the members there. "We all have certain talents, and the Lord knows what they are," he said. "We all have limitations and the Lord knows what they are. Whatever our limitations may be, the Lord said this: 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,' [Matthew 5:48.] He would not give us commandments we could not fulfill. We can become perfect in our love of God. We can become perfect in our love of our fellow men. We can become perfect in the payment of our tithing. We can become perfect in living the Word of Wisdom. We can become perfect in our home teaching. In other words, all of those degrees of perfection are within our reach... We know what we must do.

I was never any dolly-bird, was I?

How

Our dreams are the place where we can remember that which we never realized we knew.

One day, an unusually exciting event interrupted the rhythm of our regular middle-class teenage lives. A Russian woman, the mother of a girl in our class, was run over by a New York City bound train right in the center of town. Our classmate left school in the middle of the semester. The gossip was that the woman must have thrown herself under the train. The adults whispered about reasons, usual ones, but my friends and I were too busy planning what to wear to the prom to wonder about the savagery of adult passion.

Swinton articulates an important differentiation between Christ-like friendship and professional services aimed at people with mental health problems: Unlike many agents with whom people with mental health problems may come into contact, the task of the Christlike friend is not to do anything for them, but rather to be someone for them—someone who understands and accepts them as persons; someone who is with and for them in the way that God is also with and for them; someone who reveals the nature of God and the transforming power of the Spirit of Christ in a form that is tangible, accessible, and deeply powerful.6

how they had managed to get close up all round within snapshooting

Everybody has to be heard, everyone has to contribute, everyone has to be on board before we take any action. No one can be waved off.”14

I gave up everything for you, Jacob Swinton. Everything. And now you want my mind, too? Well you can’t have it.

I firmly believe,” he has said many times, “that the sweetest experience in mortality is to know that our Heavenly Father has worked through us to accomplish an objective in the life of another person”—to help make someone whole.8 “Reach out to rescue . . . the aged, the widowed, the sick, the handicapped, the less active,” he has said, and then he has led the charge. “Extend to them the hand that helps and the heart that knows compassion.

Bishop Monson became known—and loved—for his heart and willing mind, as expressed in the attention he paid to the welfare of the people in his congregation. He has said, “I always considered myself as a bishop who erred on the side of generosity; and if I had it to do again, I would be even more generous.”5

We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance.  Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." —John Swinton, Head of Editorial Staff, New York Times, at a banquet thrown in his honour, 1880

everyday work what he calls “Wisdom’s Seven Watchwords: Vision, Patience, Balance, Effort, Understanding, Courtesy and Love.

Remember, my friends,” Elder Lee said, “whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies.” He shared other wisdom with them: “When you are on the Lord’s errand, you are entitled to the Lord’s help,” and, “Remember, God shapes the back to bear the burden placed upon it.”4

who we are is not the sum of our neurological configurations.

This book will make an attempt to displace the centrality of the brain as the essence of our humanness and replace it with the centrality of Jesus. We are not our brains! Brains may be a necessary aspect of being human, but they are certainly not sufficient. Damage to the brain is not damage to our humanness. Quite the opposite.

As I watched people with advanced dementia sing and worship, I could not help but be caught up in the deep mystery of what it might mean to worship Jesus when you have forgotten who he is. Holding the hand of someone with advanced dementia and coming to realize that they are not someone who “used to be,” but someone who is important in the present and indeed has a vocation that will lead them into the future was, to say the least, humbling, challenging, and quite beautiful.

As it turns out, woke activists are more easily appeased: to mollify them, Disney made the Tibetan monk a woman instead of a man, casting popular actress Tilda Swinton in the role.

The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.” ―John Swinton, Former Managing Editor The New York Times and New York Sun

It is important to note that the four pillars operate on a systemic level. In other words, these logics are applied to racial/ethnic groups, not merely to individuals. We can at times see how they exert their influence on the lives of individuals. But to focus at the individual level would cause us to ignore the larger patterns. For example, Tilda Swinton’s portrayal of an elderly, Asian male character in Doctor Strange could be viewed as a unique experiment in race/gender bending. However, it cannot be separated from the film industry’s longtime pattern of using White actors to portray Indigenous and Asian/Asian American characters while simultaneously relegating actors from those cultural groups to supporting roles that are often highly limited in scope.

He greeted me in his usual attire - pajama pants. "Hey stranger!" he said, hugging me for a few long seconds. "I've already set up the board. Can I get you some rose" I nodded, overwhelmingly relieved to be with another human being - even if he was really a wolf in grandma's clothing. Or was he just a wolf in wolf's clothing? After all, he wore pajamas... Hmmm. I contemplated all this as he poured me a glass of wine. "Mind if I smoke?" he asked as he lit up a joint and motioned me over to the sleek brown couch. Italian, of course. Through the three windows that faced south, north, and west, I saw the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island, where I had paid to have my parents' names inscribed in the immigrant wall of honor. Some American Dream this was!

I never quite understand the way society decides who is beautiful and who is not. But an open face and a capacity for kindness always feel like reliable signifiers to me.” actress TILDA SWINTON

The worst part is—I actually rather enjoy my new career. It’s been surprisingly liberating. The danger of it all. Not to mention the money. And the trinkets. I’ve been literally and figuratively getting into bed with some of the worst type of scoundrels this planet has to offer. I mean, total scumbags. No one would ever miss these guys. I saw the evil that men do and I decided that—it kind of looked like fun.

The life of a whistleblower is a long and lonely road—especially in law enforcement.

My dad foolishly brainwashed me into supporting these sad-sack franchises. Had he just moved the family to Cali like any normal Chinese person would, I’d be rooting for the Lakers or the Warriors as we speak.

Unbelievable. Apparently, the warrior’s code is universal. I guess at the end of the day all we’re meant to do is kill each other. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about that.

There’s nothing on this planet I haven’t done or tried in some way, shape, form or fashion. Everyone has these ideas of what it would mean to become a billionaire. You know this better than most. It’s not the money that we’re after. It’s the experiences.

I don’t know. Perhaps that’s the nostalgia in me talking. To think that everything that I’ve built here, could possibly be undone by one man. It’s unconscionable. To lose everything as a child only to gain so much and lose it all again before I die. Sadly, there’s no greater killer of men in this world than ambition.

Sadly, there’s no greater killer of men in this world than ambition.

The world’s a gangster’s paradise, Floyd, and unfortunately, we’re just living in it.