X Men Quotes

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

Teach her that if you criticize X in women but do not criticize X in men, then you do not have a problem with X, you have a problem with women.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions)
Have you ever fought an opponent you had no defense against? Like a fire breather or an acid spitter?" "Once I faced a female with diamond skin," Nix said breathlessly. "I was transfixed - even as she was choking the life out of me." "Really?" "No, I saw that character on X-Men. I just wanted to commiserate. Alas, I have no weaknesses.
Kresley Cole (Pleasure of a Dark Prince (Immortals After Dark, #8))
I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don't believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn't want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn't know how to return the treatment
Malcolm X
You really want to know what being an X-Man feels like? Just be a smart bookish boy of color in a contemporary U.S. ghetto. Mamma mia! Like having bat wings or a pair of tentacles growing out of your chest.
Junot Díaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao)
Zara: It's just a registry... Kit: Am I the only one who's read X-Men and realizes why this is a bad idea?
Cassandra Clare (Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2))
More girls were killed in the last 50 years, precisely because they were girls, than men killed in all the wars in the 20th century. More girls are killed in this routine gendercide in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century. The equivalent of 5 jumbo jets worth of women die in labor each day... life time risk of maternal death is 1,000x higher in a poor country than in the west. That should be an international scandal.
Nicholas D. Kristof (Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide)
The news isn't there to tell you what happened. It's there to tell you what it wants you to hear or what it thinks you want to hear.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 2: Dangerous)
Just because someone stumbles and loses their path, doesn't mean they're lost forever.
Charles Xavier (X-Men)
The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an incomplete X (female) gene, that is, it has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion, aborted at the gene stage. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.
Valerie Solanas (SCUM Manifesto)
The tragedy of Tupac is that his untimely passing is representative of too many young black men in this country....If we had lost Oprah Winfrey at 25, we would have lost a relatively unknown, local market TV anchorwoman. If we had lost Malcolm X at 25, we would have lost a hustler named Detroit Red. And if I had left the world at 25, we would have lost a big-band trumpet player and aspiring composer--just a sliver of my eventual life potential.
Quincy Jones
I don't believe we shall ever again have any form of society in which men will be free. One should not hope for it. One should not hope for anything. Hope is invented by politicians to keep the electorate happy.
Pier Paolo Pasolini
If Mr. Fantastic and Professor X had a baby, there would be tons of questions, but also it would be Abraham Lincoln.
Daniel O'Brien (How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country)
Everything is so fragile. There's so much conflict, so much pain...you keep waiting for the dust to settle and then you realize this is it; the dust is your life going on. If happy comes along--that weird, unbearable delight that's actual happy--I think you have to grab it while you can. You take what you can get, 'cause it's here, and then...gone.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 4: Unstoppable)
She couldn't repay him. She couldn't even appropriately thank him. How can you thank someone for The Cure? Or the X-Men? Sometimes it felt like she'd always be in his debt.
Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park)
What's plan b?' 'We all die now.' 'What's plan c?
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 4: Unstoppable)
I felt like I could never get enough of you even if I melted into you like snow on wet grass.
Marvel Comics (Rogue)
How do you know your Colossus is the genuine article in the first place? I read his mind. I matched his DNA. I smelled him. I also did that.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 1: Gifted)
Malcolm X and Edmund Burke shared an appreciation of this important insight, this painful truth--that the state wants men to be weak and timid, not strong and proud.
Thomas Szasz (Ceremonial Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts and Pushers)
Teach her that if you criticize X in women but do not criticize X in men, then you do not have a problem with X, you have a problem with women. For X please insert words like “anger,” “ambition,” “loudness,” “stubbornness,” “coldness,” “ruthlessness.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions)
I leave the world in terrible turmoil. I come back, same turmoil. Nothing at all different. Well, outfits are a little different...
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 1: Gifted)
You can't just throw people at all your problems, dear.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 2: Dangerous)
Hear me, X-Men! No longer am I the woman you knew! I am Fire and Life incarnate! Now and forever - I am PHOENIX!
Chris Claremont (X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga)
Time and again, racist ideas have not been cooked up from the boiling pot of ignorance and hate. Time and again, powerful and brilliant men and women have produced racist ideas in order to justify the racist policies of their era, in order to redirect the blame for their era’s racial disparities away from those policies and onto Black people.
Ibram X. Kendi (Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America)
He tried not to love that she could recite scenes from Ghostbusters, that she liked kung fu movies and could name all of the original X-Men— because those seemed like reasons a guy would fall for a girl in a Kevin Smith movie.
Rainbow Rowell (Attachments)
Once I faced a female with diamond skin," Nix said breathlessly. "I was transfixed - even as she was choking the life out of me." "Really?" " No, I saw that character on X men. I just wanted to commiserate. Alas, I have no weaknesses." "Except your insanity," Lucia pointed out. sigh. "Well played, Archer. then carry on...
Kresley Cole (Pleasure of a Dark Prince (Immortals After Dark, #8))
Like he cared about a lot of stupid settlers and Indians and soldiers who hung around out here before he was even born. Hell, before his prehistoric grandparents had been born. Who gave a shit about Crazy Horse and Sitting Bullshit. He cared about X-Men and the box scores.
Nora Roberts (Black Hills)
God cheats men into living on by hiding how blessed it is to die.
Lucan (De bello civili libri X (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana) (Latin Edition))
Scramblers deactivated, then? Well here's some good news. You feel no pain. You will go straight to a hospital. Remember nothing of this place. And every time you hear the words "parsley", "intractable" or "longitude", you will vomit uncontrollably for forty-eight hours.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 1: Gifted)
I am not made of steel. Rage. I...am made... of RAGE!!!!
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 1: Gifted)
I'm totally cool. I'm totally calm, and I'm totally cool. My calm is exceeded only by my cool. Which is total. Here we go.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 3: Torn)
I really like beer.
Joss Whedon
We are men who find chess fascinating. Did you expect our lives to be secretly interesting?
Noah Boyd (Agent X (Steve Vail, #2))
When women cover songs by men, they don’t swap the pronouns. Is this a.) a lack of anxiety about convention, b.) a biologically essential fluidity native to humans with vaginas and/or two X chromosomes, c.) rampant queerness among women singers, or d.) the universal male default?
Andrea Lawlor (Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl)
Wise men don't need concrete answers. By definition, they need wisdom." ~ Geraki
Richelle Mead (Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X, #1))
When men oppress their fellow-men, the oppressor ever finds, in the character of the oppressed, a full justification for his oppression.” Douglass, amazingly, summed up the history of racist ideas in a single sentence.
Ibram X. Kendi (Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America)
I blink rapidly, breaking our reverie and force myself to focus on something,anything, other than his beauty. Or his body. A body I want pressed against mine, limbs and tongues twisted and tangled, our flesh contortioned into X-rated abstract art...
S.L. Jennings (Dark Light (Dark Light, #1))
Lockheed! You found me! You are the best X-Dragon ever.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 1: Gifted)
You know I believe true balance lies somewhere between rage and serenity.
Charles Xavier (X-Men)
That wouldn't be a first, now would it?" "Jean." "Jean Grey is dead, Agent." "Yeah, that'll last.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 1: Gifted)
Bobby: So assuming I survive the next 24 hours, where do you want to go on our first date? Kitty: Some place that doesn't allow children. Bobby: The strip club it is.
Jason Aaron (Wolverine and the X-Men, Vol. 4)
I think that you appreciate that there are extraordinary men and women and extraordinary moments when history leaps forward on the backs of these individuals, that what can be imagined can be achieved, that you must dare to dream, but that there's no substitute for perseverance and hard work and teamwork because no one gets there alone; and that, while we commemorate the... the greatness of these events and the individuals who achieve them, we cannot forget the sacrifice of those who make these achievements and leaps possible.
Chris Carter
I’m assuming you’re as mystified by this as the rest of us, Rasputin. No. I’m not. I have been planning to destroy the Breakworld since I was a child. [silence] This is why I don’t make so many jokes. I never know when is good.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 4: Unstoppable)
Diplomatic #@@@@@##%%%%#%%%%@@@@@@$$$$$####!!! Immunity?
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 1: Gifted)
Some days it just feels like I'm here for the shoes and the eternal hope that I shall be issued minions.
Matt Fraction (Uncanny X-Men: Lovelorn)
Men want power,” Ana said. It was the first time she had spoken, and everyone at the table turned to look at her. “Women want to exist without fear.
Scarlett St. Clair (Queen of Myth and Monsters (Adrian X Isolde, #2))
Any person who claims to have deep feeling for other human beings should think a long, long time before he votes to have other men kept behind bars--caged. I am not saying there shouldn't be prisons, but there shouldn't be bars. Behind bars, a man never reforms. He will never forget. He will never get completely over the memory of the bars.
Alex Haley (The Autobiography of Malcolm X)
People talk about you like you're Jesus, but you're not. You only pull out the miracles to save yourself. Which kind of makes you the opposite of Jesus, doesn't it?”  – Hellion (Julian Keller) X-Men: Legacy Vol 1 242
Krista Ritchie (Addicted for Now (Addicted #3))
As I pulled into the parking lot, I reflected that odds were that not a lot of clandestine meetings involving mystical assassination, theft of arcane power, and the balance of power in the realms of the supernatural had taken place in a Wal-Mart Super Center. But then again, maybe they had. Hell, for all I knew, the Mole Men used the changing rooms as a place to discuss plans for world domination with the Psychic Jellyfish from Planet X and the Disembodied Brains-in-a-Jar from the Klaatuu Nebula. I know I wouldn't have looked for them there.
Jim Butcher (Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, #4))
Look, without our stories, without the true nature and reality of who we are as People of Color, nothing about fanboy or fangirl culture would make sense. What I mean by that is: if it wasn't for race, X-Men doesn't sense. If it wasn't for the history of breeding human beings in the New World through chattel slavery, Dune doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the history of colonialism and imperialism, Star Wars doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the extermination of so many Indigenous First Nations, most of what we call science fiction’s contact stories doesn't make sense. Without us as the secret sauce, none of this works, and it is about time that we understood that we are the Force that holds the Star Wars universe together. We’re the Prime Directive that makes Star Trek possible, yeah. In the Green Lantern Corps, we are the oath. We are all of these things—erased, and yet without us—we are essential.
Junot Díaz
I tell sincere white people, 'Work in conjunction with us- each of us working among our own kind.' Let sincere white individuals find all other white people they can who feel as they do- and let them form their own all-white groups, to work trying to convert other white people who are thinking and acting so racist. Let sincere whites go and teach non-violence to white people! We will completely respect our white co-workers. They will deserve every credit. We will give them every credit. We will meanwhile be working among our own kind, in our own black communities- showing and teaching black men in ways that only other black men can- that the black man has got to help himself. Working separately, the sincere white people and sincere black people actually will be working together. In our mutual sincerity we might be able to show a road to the salvation of America's very soul.
Malcolm X
We come into this world alone, and we leave the same way, the time we spend in between ... time spent alive, sharing, learning ... together ... is all that makes life worth living.
Jean Grey Uncanny X-Men Volume 1 Issue 303
After It happens when I’m at bodegas. It happens when I’m at school. It happens when I’m on the train. It happens when I’m standing on the platform. It happens when I’m sitting on the stoop. It happens when I’m turning the corner. It happens when I forget to be on guard. It happens all the time. I should be used to it. I shouldn’t get so angry when boys—and sometimes grown-ass men— talk to me however they want, think they can grab themselves or rub against me or make all kinds of offers. But I’m never used to it. And it always makes my hands shake. Always makes my throat tight. The only thing that calms me down after Twin and I get home is to put my headphones on. To listen to Drake. To grab my notebook, and write, and write, and write all the things I wish I could have said. Make poems from the sharp feelings inside, that feel like they could carve me wide open. It happens when I wear shorts. It happens when I wear jeans. It happens when I stare at the ground. It happens when I stare ahead. It happens when I’m walking. It happens when I’m sitting. It happens when I’m on my phone. It simply never stops.
Elizabeth Acevedo (The Poet X)
That all you got...Bub?
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 2: Dangerous)
Men are attracted by spirit. By power men are forced. Love is engendered by spirit. By power anxieties are created.
Malcolm X (The Autobiography of Malcolm X)
Hank: As unbelievable as you may find this, Scott, we can do some things without your guidance. Warren: You're right, Hank! Why, did you know I went to the bathroom this morning- Hank: Not without Scott! Warren: Yes!
Jeff Parker (X-Men: First Class - Tomorrow's Brightest)
The 'medium' is unaware of its attractiveness, that's all. Everyone loves comics. I've proven this to my own satisfaction by handing them out to acountants, insurance brokers, hairdressers, mothers of children, black belts, pop stars, taxi drivers, painters, lesbians, doctors etc. etc. The X-Files, Buffy, the Matrix, X-Men - mainstream culture is not what it once was when science fiction and comics fans huddled in cellars like Gnostic Christians dodging the Romans. We should come up into the light soon before we suffocate.
Grant Morrison
Why do the X-Men need another girl telepath?” she asked. “This one has purple hair.” “It’s all so sexist.” Park’s eyes got wide. Well, sort of wide. Sometimes she wondered if the shape of his eyes affected how he saw things. That was probably the most racist question of all time. “The X-Men aren’t sexist,” he said, shaking his head. “They’re a metaphor for acceptance; they’ve sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them.” “Yeah,” she said, “but—” “There’s no but,” he said, laughing. “But,” Eleanor insisted, “the girls are all so stereotypically girly and passive. Half of them just think really hard. Like that’s their superpower, thinking. And Shadowcat’s power is even worse—she disappears.
Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park)
It is good to know, no matter how long I am gone...you do not grow up too much.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 2: Dangerous)
If I become like you, then how can I live with all the things I've done?” - X-10
Donna Galanti
You think that if you die, and manage to come back, you’ll turn into what, one of the X-Men?
V.E. Schwab (Vicious (Villains, #1))
Obviously one of us went to Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and one of us didn't." "Obviously one of is a total nerd.
Bryan Lee O'Malley (Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (Scott Pilgrim, #1))
Are you all right?" "Oh my god! I phased!" "Are you all right?" "Are you?" "It was strange." "I can't believe I phased just then! That's never...it was totally your fault." "I like to think so, yes." "Tee hee.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 3: Torn)
The first thing you learn is how to be alone. You learn, or suffer. It is an easy lesson. You suffer more when people are around. People make you feel alone. And loneliness is a quiet wound.
Marjorie M. Liu (X-23, Vol. 1: The Killing Dream)
Here was one of the white man's most characteristic behavior patterns - where black men are concerned. He loves himself so much that he is startled if he discovers that his victims don't share his vainglorious self-opinion.
Malcolm X (The Autobiography of Malcolm X)
Gert: What... what just happened? Chase: I don't know, but guess who totally stole Cookie Monster's glasses! Gert: Whew, for a second there, I was worried we almost learned something. Chase: Ooo, look at me! I'm a big fluffy nerd!
Brian K. Vaughan (Runaways: The Complete Collection, Vol. 2)
This, children, is Kitty Pryde, who apparently feels the need to make a grand entrance. I'm sorry. I was busy remembering to put all my clothes on.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 1: Gifted)
Never ask a woman about other men. Either she'll tell you a lie, and you still won't know, or if she tells you the truth, you might not have wanted to hear it in the first place.
Malcolm X (The Autobiography of Malcolm X)
But as a young woman in X-ville, I had no idea that other people—men or women—felt things as deeply as I did.
Ottessa Moshfegh (Eileen)
I've Got Him! You've got to keep at her. Forget all your training--she's fought you a thousand times." "Don't presume to run my team, you little tart-" (Colossus throws Emma at Danger) "Yes. I see how it works. Normally, I wouldn't have done that.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 2: Dangerous)
Wisdom: "Oh, fantastic. We've got an army made up of fairies and Beatles, and we're fighting H. G. Wells' martians and bloody Jack the Rippers. Who's next? Dick Van Dyke? Mr Bean? John Cleese and his dead parrot?
Paul Cornell (X-Men: Wisdom - Rudiments of Wisdom (MAX Comics))
A leader knows it's not so hard to die for your people. It's hard to order your people to die for you. And leading with certainty in an uncertain future doesn't require sight. It requires vision. It requires holding on. And no matter what happens, never letting go.
Paul Jenkins (X-men: Prelude to Schism)
Men have those God’s created guns inbuilt that are 24X7 hours loaded to shoot out.
Deepanshu Saini (Girls Hostel - Unspoken Memories)
Okay. So...serious wedgie...
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 2: Dangerous)
There's so much you thought you could never face. The decision not to try to control your power, to let it be your demon. Too shameful to remember, so you let it eat your life up instead. But you're past it now, Scott. And all you had to defeat, all you had to let go of...was you. You're free, my love. You're free.
Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 3: Torn)
(The Skrull Beatles discuss their future.) "So when this is all over, are we still gonna be the Skrull Beatles then?" "I quite fancy being the Skrull Monkees for a bit." "The dialogue's easier." "As long as I get to be Peter Tork.
Paul Cornell (X-Men: Wisdom - Rudiments of Wisdom (MAX Comics))
I have always been accused of taking the things I love – football, of course, but also books and records – much too seriously, and I do feel a kind of anger when I hear a bad record, or when someone is lukewarm about a book that means a lot to me. Perhaps it was these desperate, bitter men in the West Stand at Arsenal who taught me how to get angry in this way; and perhaps it is why I earn some of my living as a critic – maybe it’s those voices I can hear when I write. ‘You’re a WANKER, X.’ ‘The Booker Prize? THE BOOKER PRIZE? They should give that to me for having to read you.
Nick Hornby (Fever Pitch)
Hawkeye: ...Remember when Magneto brain-zapped the X-Men into fightin' us? There's mind control goin' on here. That or Cyclops is- Hank: I appreciate your concern, Hank, but I consulted Wolverine. He vouched for both Magneto and Ms Frost. And we, of all people, can't begrudge someone a second chance. Hawkeye: Second chance? Magneto's had, like, THIRTY! How many times're we gonna get burned before we stop cookin' naked? [...] Hank: Listen, why don't you stay here and supervise the students? Things are tense enough with Pietro in there. Hawkeye: Okay, kids, huddle up! We're gonna work on resisting mind control today. No particular reason.
Christos Gage (Avengers Academy, Vol. 3: Second Semester)
He is a symbol. He is a legend. He is immortal. He is incorruptible. He is Batman. I am not him. When I die, he will live. Batman has no secret identity. He has no other. He is no one. He has only hosts--mere mortal men who don this suit, this symbol, to continue his crusade. He isn't a hero. He is a cure, a cure to the virus of the human condition. He is exactly like his enemies, and yet strikingly different. He is just as swift, strong, and smart as them, just as brutal, but in the other direction. He will never kill, and he will never die. He has no name. He is Batman.
Richard John "Dick" Grayson A.K.A. "Robin Red-X NightWing Red Robin Renegade Bat Breaker The Batman"
It’s a crime, the lie that has been told to generations of black men and white men both. Little innocent black children, born of parents who believed that their race had no history. Little black children seeing, before they could talk, that their parents considered themselves inferior. Innocent black children growing up, living out their lives, dying of old age—and all of their lives ashamed of being black. But the truth is pouring out of the bag now.
Malcolm X (The Autobiography of Malcolm X)
The city was a real city, shifty and sexual. I was lightly jostled by small herds of flushed young sailors looking for action on Forty-Second Street, with it rows of x-rated movie houses, brassy women, glittering souvenir shops, and hot-dog vendors. I wandered through Kino parlors and peered through the windows of the magnificent sprawling Grant’s Raw Bar filled with men in black coats scooping up piles of fresh oysters. The skyscrapers were beautiful. They did not seem like mere corporate shells. They were monuments to the arrogant yet philanthropic spirit of America. The character of each quadrant was invigorating and one felt the flux of its history. The old world and the emerging one served up in the brick and mortar of the artisan and the architects. I walked for hours from park to park. In Washington Square, one could still feel the characters of Henry James and the presence of the author himself … This open atmosphere was something I had not experienced, simple freedom that did not seem oppressive to anyone.
Patti Smith (Just Kids)
All of that Hollywood stuff! Like these women wanting men to pick them up and carry them across thresholds and some of them weigh more than you do. I don't know how many marriage breakups are caused by these movie and television addicted women expecting some bouquets and kissing and hugging and being swept out like Cinderella for dinner and dancing then getting mad when a poor, scraggly husband comes in tired and sweaty from working like a dog all day, looking for some food. ~Malcolm X
Alex Haley (The Autobiography of Malcolm X)
I am in this same river. I can't much help it. I admit it: I'm racist. The other night I saw a group (or maybe a pack?) or white teenagers standing in a vacant lot, clustered around a 4x4, and I crossed the street to avoid them; had they been black, I probably would have taken another street entirely. And I'm misogynistic. I admit that, too. I'm a shitty cook, and a worse house cleaner, probably in great measure because I've internalized the notion that these are woman's work. Of course, I never admit that's why I don't do them: I always say I just don't much enjoy those activities (which is true enough; and it's true enough also that many women don't enjoy them either), and in any case, I've got better things to do, like write books and teach classes where I feel morally superior to pimps. And naturally I value money over life. Why else would I own a computer with a hard drive put together in Thailand by women dying of job-induced cancer? Why else would I own shirts mad in a sweatshop in Bangladesh, and shoes put together in Mexico? The truth is that, although many of my best friends are people of color (as the cliche goes), and other of my best friends are women, I am part of this river: I benefit from the exploitation of others, and I do not much want to sacrifice this privilege. I am, after all, civilized, and have gained a taste for "comforts and elegancies" which can be gained only through the coercion of slavery. The truth is that like most others who benefit from this deep and broad river, I would probably rather die (and maybe even kill, or better, have someone kill for me) than trade places with the men, women, and children who made my computer, my shirt, my shoes.
Derrick Jensen (The Culture of Make Believe)
Of Dixie Doyle it is said that she could convince grown men of anything. While she is only a mediocre student and a wholly untalented tennis player, she possesses a quality of performed girlishness that turns sex into a ragged paradox for men beyond the age of thirty. She speaks with the hint of a babyish lisp, the pink end of her tongue frequently peeking out from between her teeth, but her eyes are implacable fields of gray that at any moment could conceal everything you imagine - or nothing at all. She might be an X-ray registering the skeleton of your soul, or, like Oscar Wilde's women, she might be a sphinx without a secret.
Joshua Gaylord (Hummingbirds)
When Pope Pius XII died, LIFE magazine carried a picture of him in his private study kneeling before a black Christ. What was the source of their information? All white people who have studied history and geography know that Christ was a black man. Only the poor, brainwashed American Negro has been made to believe that Christ was white, to maneuver him into worshiping the white man. After becoming a Muslim in prison, I read almost everything I could put my hands on in the prison library. I began to think back on everything I had read and especially with the histories, I realized that nearly all of them read by the general public have been made into white histories. I found out that the history-whitening process either had left out great things that black men had done, or some of the great black men had gotten whitened.
Malcolm X
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird. II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds. III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime. IV A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one. V I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after. VI Icicles filled the long window With barbaric glass. The shadow of the blackbird Crossed it, to and fro. The mood Traced in the shadow An indecipherable cause. VII O thin men of Haddam, Why do you imagine golden birds? Do you not see how the blackbird Walks around the feet Of the women about you? VIII I know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know. IX When the blackbird flew out of sight, It marked the edge Of one of many circles. X At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the bawds of euphony Would cry out sharply. XI He rode over Connecticut In a glass coach. Once, a fear pierced him, In that he mistook The shadow of his equipage For blackbirds. XII The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying. XIII It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedar-limbs.
Wallace Stevens
If this were a courageous country, it would ask Gloria to lead it since she is sane and funny and beautiful and smart and the National Leaders we've always had are not. When I listen to her talk about women's rights children's rights men's rights I think of the long line of Americans who should have been president, but weren't. Imagine Crazy Horse as president. Sojourner Truth. John Brown. Harriet Tubman. Black Elk or Geronimo. Imagine President Martin Luther King confronting the youthful "Oppie" Oppenheimer. Imagine President Malcolm X going after the Klan. Imagine President Stevie Wonder dealing with the "Truly Needy." Imagine President Shirley Chisholm, Ron Dellums, or Sweet Honey in the Rock dealing with Anything. It is imagining to make us weep with frustration, as we languish under real estate dealers, killers, and bad actors.
Alice Walker (Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful)
Men do not live in perfect harmony with each other. Rather, again and again conflicts arise between them. And the source of these conflicts is always the same: the scarcity of goods. I want to do X with a given good G and you want to do simultaneously Y with the very same good. Because it is impossible for you and me to do simultaneously X and Y with G, you and I must clash. If a superabundance of goods existed, i.e., if, for instance, G were available in unlimited supply, our conflict could be avoided. We could both simultaneously do ‘our thing’ with G. But most goods do not exist in superabundance. Ever since mankind left the Garden of Eden, there has been and always will be scarcity all-around us.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe (A Short History of Man: Progress and Decline)
There was some kind of X-men emergency, so all the teachers were gone. This happens every now and then. It's one of the perks of having super heroes for your teachers - when the world is about to end (which is like at least twice a month), school gets canceled. Heck, three weeks ago there was a big chemistry final for the upperclassmen. Beast was the teacher - he's this big, burly guy who can do acrobatic stuff like a monkey, but he also happens to be a super-genius. He's, like, legendary for his tough finals, so there were kids walking through the halls, going, "Oh, God, please let Galactus try to eat the earth. Please please please let there be an alien invasion by the Skrulls!
Barry Lyga (Wolverine: Worst Day Ever)
This morning, when she got on the bus, it kind of felt like he was waiting for her. He was holding a comic called Watchmen, and it looked so ugly that Eleanor decided not to bother eavesdropping. Or eavesreading. Whatever. (She liked it best when he read the X-Men, even though she didn’t get everything that was going on there; the X-Men were worse than General Hospital. It took Eleanor a couple weeks to figure out that Scott Summers and Cyclops were the same guy, and she still wasn’t sure what was up with Phoenix.)
Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park)
The more obsessed with personal identity campus liberals become, the less willing they become to engage in reasoned political debate. Over the past decade a new, and very revealing, locution has drifted from our universities into the media mainstream: 'Speaking as an X' . . . This is not an anodyne phrase. It tells the listener that I am speaking from a privileged position on this matter. (One never says, 'Speaking as an gay Asian, I fell incompetent to judge on this matter'). It sets up a wall against questions, which by definition come from a non-X perspective. And it turns the encounter into a power relation: the winner of the argument will be whoever has invoked the morally superior identity and expressed the most outrage at being questioned. So classroom conversations that once might have begun, 'I think A, and here is my argument', now take the form, 'Speaking as an X, I am offended that you claim B'. This makes perfect sense if you believe that identity determines everything. It means that there is no impartial space for dialogue. White men have one "epistemology", black women have another. So what remains to be said? What replaces argument, then, is taboo. At times our more privileged campuses can seem stuck in the world of archaic religion. Only those with an approved identity status are, like shamans, allowed to speak on certain matters. Particular groups -- today the transgendered -- are given temporary totemic significance. Scapegoats -- today conservative political speakers -- are duly designated and run off campus in a purging ritual. Propositions become pure or impure, not true or false. And not only propositions but simple words. Left identitarians who think of themselves as radical creatures, contesting this and transgressing that, have become like buttoned-up Protestant schoolmarms when it comes to the English language, parsing every conversation for immodest locutions and rapping the knuckles of those who inadvertently use them.
Mark Lilla (The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics)
I have to admit, this place gives me the creeps.' [said Scully]. 'The creeps?' said Mulder with a smile. 'Just because a bunch of big, strong men cleared out so fast they didn't finish their food? And then vanished into thin air? Don't be silly. I'm sure there's a nice scientific explanation. Oh, sorry Scully. You're the one who's supposed to be telling me that, right?
Les Martin (Darkness Falls (The X-Files: Middle Grade, #2))
The Mennonites did not intend to leave behind one site of oppression to build another in America. Mennonites therefore circulated an antislavery petition on April 18, 1688. “There is a saying, that we shall doe to all men like as we will be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent or colour they are,” they wrote. “In Europe there are many oppressed” for their religion, and “here those are oppressed” for their “black colour.” Both oppressions were wrong. Actually, as an oppressor, America “surpass[ed] Holland and Germany.” Africans had the “right to fight for their freedom.” The 1688 Germantown Petition Against Slavery was the inaugural antiracist tract among European settlers in colonial America. Beginning with this piece, the Golden Rule would forever inspire the cause of White antiracists. Antiracists of all races—whether out of altruism or intelligent self-interest—would always recognize that preserving racial hierarchy simultaneously preserves ethnic, gender, class, sexual, age, and religious hierarchies. Human hierarchies of any kind, they understood, would do little more than oppress all of humanity.
Ibram X. Kendi (Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America)
I know you think I didn't know," he says, flipping through the pages and opening it to the middle of the book where there is a collage of all the X-Men, "but sometimes, you forget to shut the blinds." (...) "Zo, I dont think I could ever hate you. You hurt me, but whenever I saw you grab one of those books and duck under here, I knew you were probably hurting too, and I'd let it go." "Just like that?" "I guess I make it sound easier than it was. But yeah, I'd let it go because I knew it wasn't the girl at school under this blanket. It was my friend.
Cassie Mae (How to Date a Nerd (How To, #1))
Welcome true believers, this is Stan Lee. We’re about to embark the exploration of a fantastic new universe and the best part is that you are gonna create it with me. You may know me as a storyteller, but hey on this journey consider me your guide. I provide the widy and wonderful worlds and you create the sights, sounds and adventures. All you need to take part is your brain. So take a listen and think big, no bigger, we make it an epic. Remember when I created characters like the Fantastic Four and the X-Men? We were fascinated by science and awed by the mysteries of the great beyond. Today we consider a nearer deeper unknown one inside ourselves. […] we asked: What is more real? A world that we are born into or the one we create ourselves. As we begin this story, we find humanity lost within is own techno bubble. With each citizen the star of their own digital fantasy. […] But the real conundrum is, just because we have the ability to recreated ourselves, should we? […] Excelsior!” 
Stan Lee
Oh God, my chin. I have a cluster of five hairs on the left side of my chin. They’re coarse and wiry, like boar hair, and for the past couple of years, they’ve been my hideous secret and my sworn enemies. They sprout up every couple of days, and so I have to be vigilant. I keep my weapons—Revlon tweezers and a 10X magnifying mirror—at home, in my Sherpa bag, and in my desk drawer at work, so in theory, I can be anywhere, and if one of those evil little weeds pokes through the surface, I can yank it. I’ve been in meetings with CEOs, some of the most powerful men in the world, and could barely stay focused on what they were saying because I’d inadvertently touched my chin and become obsessed with the idea of destroying five microscopic hairs. I hate them, and I’m terrified of someone else noticing them before I do, but I have to admit, there is almost nothing more satisfying than pulling them out.I stroke my chin, expecting to feel my Little Pig beard, but touch only smooth skin. My leg feels like a farm animal, which suggests I haven’t shaved in at least a week, but my chin is bare, which would put me in this bed for less than two days. My body hair isn’t making any sense.
Lisa Genova (Left Neglected)
So, Mulder,' Colton spoke in a mocking tone. 'What do you think? Look like the work of Little Green Men?' 'Gray,' Mulder said seriously. 'What?' Colton asked. 'Gray,' Mulder explained. You said green men. A Reticulan's skin tone is gray. They're known for their extraction of human livers due to a lack of iron in the Reticulian Galaxy.' Colton looked confused- as though he couldn't tell whether Mulder was joking. 'You can't be serious,' he said. 'Do you know how much liver and onions go for on Reticulum?' Mulder asked Colton.
Ellen Steiber (Squeeze (The X-Files: Middle Grade, #4))
Q. Your original, self-published version of The Martian became a phenomenon online. Were you expecting the overwhelmingly positive reception the book received? A. I had no idea it was going to do so well. The story had been available for free on my website for months, and I assumed anyone who wanted to read it had already read it. A few readers had requested I post a Kindle version because it’s easier to download that way. So I went ahead and did it, setting the price to the minimum Amazon would allow. As it sold more and more copies I just watched in awe. Q. Film rights to The Martian were sold to writer-producer Simon Kinberg (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Sherlock Holmes, X-Men: First Class). What was your first reaction? A. Of course I’m thrilled to have a movie in the works. The movie deal and print publishing deal came within a week of each other, so I was a little shell-shocked. In fact, it was such a sudden launch into the big leagues that I literally had a difficult time believing it. I actually worried it could all be an elaborate scam. So I guess that was my first reaction: “Is this really happening!?
Andy Weir (The Martian)
Aren't you a Republican? Just about everyone is in the whole town of Learning." "No, I'm not a Republican. And I'm not no Democrat. I'm not nothing." "Why not?" "Because I'm not allowed to vote." "Me either. You have to be twenty-one to vote. I'm only twelve." "Reckon I'm soon looking at sixty." "Then why can't you vote? Is it because you're a Shaker?" "No, it's account of I can't read or write. When a man cannot do these things, people think his head is weak. Even when he's proved his back is strong. "Who decides?" "Men who look at me and take me not for what I be. Men who only see my mark, my X, when I can't sign my name. They can't see how I true a beam to build our barn, or see that the rows of corn in my field are straight as fences. They just seem me walk the street in Learning in clothes made me by my own woman. They do not care that my coat is strudy and keeps me warm. They'll not care that I owe no debt and I am beholding to no man.
Robert Newton Peck (A Day No Pigs Would Die)
Ribs hurting?" When he only shrugged, she shook her head. "Let me take a look." "She barely caught me." "Oh,for heaven's sake." Impatient, Keeley did what she would have done with one of her brothers: She tugged Brian's T-shirt out of his jeans. "Well,darling,if I'd known you were so anxious to get me undressed,I'd have cooperated fully,and in private." "Shut up.God, Brian, you said it was nothing." "It's not much." His definition of not much was a softball-size bruise the ribs in a burst of ugly red and black. "Macho is tedious, so just shut up." He started to grin,then yelped when she pressed her fingers to the bruise. "Hell, woman,if that's your idea of tender mercies, keep them." "You could have a cracked rib. You need an X ray." "I don't need a damned-ouch! Bollocks and bloody hell, stop poking." He tried to pull his shirt down, but she simply yanked it up again. "Stand still,and don't be a baby." "A minute ago it was don't be macho, now it's don't be a baby. What do you want?" "For you to behave sensibly." "It's difficult for a man to behave sensibly when a woman's taking his clothes off in broad daylight. If you're going to kiss it and make it better, I've several other bruises. I've a dandy one on my ass as it happens." "I'm sure that's terribly amusing.One of the men can drive you to the emergency room" "No one's driving me anywhere. I'd know if my ribs are cracked as I've had a few in my time.It's a bruise, and it's throbbing like a bitch now that you've been playing with it." She spotted another, riding high on his hip,and gave that a poke. This time he groaned. "Keeley,you're torturing me here." "Im just trying..." She trailed off as she lifted her head and saw his eyes. It wasn't pain or annoyance in them now. It was heat,and it was frustration. And it was surprisingly gratifying. "Really?" It was wrong,and it was foolish, but a sip of power was a heady thing.She trailed her fingers along his hip, up his ribs and down again, and felt his mucles quiver. "Why don't you stop me?" His throat hurt. "You make my head swim. And you know it." "Maybe I do.Now.Maybe I like it." She'd never been deliberately provocative before. Had never wanted to be. And she'd never known the thrill of having a strong man turn to putty under her hands. "Maybe I've thought about you, Brian,the way you said I would." "You pick a fine time to tell me when there's people everywhere, and your father one of them.
Nora Roberts (Irish Rebel (Irish Hearts, #3))
Entirely my own opinion,” said Ivanov. “I am glad that we have reached the heart of the matter soon. In other words: you are convinced that “we” – that is to say, the Party, the State and the masses behind it – no longer represent the interests of the Revolution.” “I should leave the masses out of it,” said Rubashov. […] “Leave the masses out of it, “ he repeated. “You understand nothing about them. Nor, probably, do I any more. Once, when the great “we” still existed, we understood them as no one had ever understood them before. We had penetrated into their depths, we worked in the amorphous raw material of history itself…” […] “At that time,” Rubashov went on, “we were called the Party of the Plebs. What did the others know of history? Passing ripples, little eddies and breaking waves. They wondered at the changing forms of the surface and could not explain them. But we had descended into the depths, into the formless, anonymous masses, which at all times constituted the substance of history; and we were the first to discover her laws of motion. We had discovered the laws of her inertia, of the slow changing of her molecular structure, and of her sudden eruptions. That was the greatness of our doctrine. The Jacobins were moralists; we were empirics. We dug in the primeval mud of history and there we found her laws. We knew more than ever men have known about mankind; that is why our revolution succeeded. And now you have buried it all again….” […] “Well,” said Rubashov, “one more makes no difference. Everything is buried: the men, their wisdom and their hopes. You killed the “We”; you destroyed it. Do you really maintain that the masses are still behind you? Other usurpers in Europe pretend the same thing with as much right as you….” […] “Forgive my pompousness,” he went on, “but do you really believe the people are still behind you? It bears you, dumb and resigned, as it bears others in other countries, but there is no response in their depths. The masses have become deaf and dumb again, the great silent x of history, indifferent as the sea carrying the ships. Every passing light is reflected on its surface, but underneath is darkness and silence. A long time ago we stirred up the depths, but that is over. In other words” – he paused and put on his pince-nez – “in those days we made history; now you make politics. That’s the whole difference.” […] "A mathematician once said that algebra was the science for lazy people - one does not work out x, but operates with it as if one knew it. In our case, x stands for the anonymous masses, the people. Politics mean operating with this x without worrying about its actual nature. Making history is to recognize x for what it stands for in the equation." "Pretty," said Ivanov. "But unfortunately rather abstract. To return to more tangible things: you mean, therefore, that "We" - namely, Party and State - no longer represent the interests of the Revolution, of the masses or, if you like, the progress of humanity." "This time you have grasped it," said Rubashov smiling. Ivanov did not answer his smile.
Arthur Koestler (Darkness at Noon)