Playing Quotes (page 130)
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Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. The change seems abysmal. Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face of tyranny. Then another cycle, and another. But under the play of all these opposites there is something fundamental and permanent? the basic delusion that men may be governed and yet be free.
H. L. Mencken
There's something beautifully friendly and elevating about a bunch of guys playing music together. This wonderful little world that is unassailable. It's really teamwork, one guy supporting the others, and it's all for one purpose, and there's no flies in the ointment, for a while. And nobody conducting, it's all up to you. It's really jazz__that's the big secret. Rock and roll ain't nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat.
Keith Richards
War is not a polite recreation but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to understand that and not play at war. Our attitude towards the fearful necessity of war ought to be stern. It boils down to this: we should have done with humbug, and let war be war and not a game. Otherwise, war is a favourite pastime of the idle and frivolous...
Leo Tolstoy
To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world. By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something true about the world. This is the consoling function of narrative? the reason people tell stories, and have told stories from the beginning of time.
Umberto Eco
I became convinced that the advanced industrial countries, through international organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the World Bank, were not only not doing all that they could to help these [developing] countries but were sometimes making their life more difficult. IMF programs had clearly worsened the East Asian crisis, and the "shock therapy" they had pushed in the former Soviet Union and its satellites played an important role...
Joseph Stiglitz
Over the road there was a church: a modern gray building, which constantly played a recording of church bells. Strange it was. Why no proper bells? I never went in but I bet it was a robot church for androids, where the Bible was in binary and their Jesus had laser eyes and metal claws.
Russell Brand
(Joe) Dimaggio was, in fact, mostly just a cold fish. Not even his brother Dom, who played outfield for the Red Sox..., seemed to care much for the Yankee Clipper. As someone best summed up Dimaggio: "What kind of guy learns to love the most beautiful woman in the world only after she dies?
Frank Deford
A kite is a victim you are sure of. You love it because it pullsgentle enough to call you master, strong enough to call you fool; because it liveslike a desperate trained falconin the high sweet air, and you can always haul it downto tame it in your drawer. A kite is a fish you have already caughtin a pool where no fish come, so you play him carefully and long, and hope he won't give up, or the wind die down. A kite is the last poem you've writtenso you give it to the wind, but you don't let...
Leonard Cohen