text:
Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright (8 June 1867 – 9 April 1959) was an American architect, interior designer, writer, and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures, 532 of which were completed. Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment, with a philosophy he called organic architecture.

Quotes

 * If you would see how interwoven it is in the warp and woof of civilization ... go at night-fall to the top of one of the down-town steel giants and you may see how in the image of material man, at once his glory and his menace, is this thing we call a city. There beneath you is the monster, stretching acre upon acre into the far distance. High over head hangs the stagnant pall of its fetid breath, reddened with light from myriad eyes endlessly, everywhere blinking. Thousands of acres of cellular tissue, the city's flesh outspreads layer upon layer, enmeshed by an intricate network of veins and arteries radiating into the gloom, and in them, with muffled, persistent roar, circulating as the blood circulates in your veins, is the almost ceaseless beat of the activity to whose necessities it all conforms. The poisonous waste is drawn from the system of this gigantic creature by infinitely ramifying, thread-like ducts, gathering at their sensitive terminals matter destructive of its life, hurrying it to millions of small intestines to be collected in turn by larger, flowing to the great sewers, on to the drainage canal, and finally to the ocean.
 * Lecture to the Chicago chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (1904); later published as "The Art and Craft of the Machine" in On Architecture: Selected Writings (1894-1940) (1941)

 * Pictures deface walls oftener than they decorate them.
 * "In the Cause of Architecture", in The Architectural Record (March 1908)

 * It is where life is fundamental and free that men develop the vision needed to reveal the human soul in the blossoms it puts forth. ... In a great workshop like Chicago this creative power germinates, even though the brutality and selfish preoccupation of the place drive it elsewhere for bread. Men of this type have loved Chicago, have worked for her, and believed in her. The hardest thing they have to bear is her shame. These men could live and work here when to live and work in New York would stifle their genius and fill their purse.... New York still believes that art should be imported; brought over in ships; and is a quite contented market place. So while New York has reproduced much and produced nothing, Chicago's achievements in architecture have gained world-wide recognition as a distinctively American architecture.
 * Lecture to the Chicago Women's Aid (1918); later published as "Chicago Culture" in On Architecture: Selected Writings (1894-1940) (1941)

 * No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other.
 * Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography (1932) page 168

 * So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal.
 * An Organic Architecture (1939)

 * I'm no teacher. Never wanted to teach and don't believe in teaching an art. Science yes, business of course..but an art cannot be taught. You can only inculcate it, you can be an exemplar, you can create an atmosphere in which it can grow. Well I suppose I, being an exemplar, could be called a teacher, in spite of myself. So go ahead, call me a teacher.
 * Quote from an interview on the NBC television program, Wisdom- A Conversation with Frank Lloyd Wright (1953)

 * A free America, democratic in the sense that our forefathers intended it to be, means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call 'democracy' is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.
 * The Future of Architecture (1953), p. 174

 * Every great architect is — necessarily — a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.
 * The Future of Architecture (1953)

 * The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.
 * New York Times Magazine (4 October 1953) Sometimes paraphrased: "A doctor can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines."

 * I doubt if there is anything in the world uglier than a Midwestern city.
 * Address at Evanston Illinois (8 August 1954)

 * Clear out 800,000 people and preserve it as a museum piece.
 * On Boston, The New York Times (27 November 1955)

 * New York: Prison towers and modern posters for soap and whiskey. Pittsburgh: Abandon it.
 * On New York and Pittsburgh, The New York Times (27 November 1955)

 * If you're going to have centralization, why not have it!
 * On his designs for "The Illinois" a 528-story Chicago office building (10 September 1956)

 * The scientist has marched in and taken the place of the poet. But one day somebody will find the solution to the problems of the world and remember, it will be a poet, not a scientist.
 * As quoted in The Star (1959) and Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1982) by Jonathon Green.

 * I believe in God, only I spell it "Nature".
 * As quoted in Quote magazine (14 August 1966)

 * Nature is all the body of God we mortals will ever see.
 * As quoted in The Duality of Vision : Genius and Versatility in the Arts (1970) by Walter Sorrell, p. 28

 * Architecture is life, or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore it is the truest record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is lived today or ever will be lived.
 * As quoted in An Organic Architecture (1970)

 * Here I am, Philip, am I indoors or am I out? Do I take my hat off or keep it on?
 * On Philip Johnson's glass house, as quoted in Architectural Digest  (November 1985)

 * Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
 * As quoted in The Wright Style (1992) by Carla Lind, p. 3

 * Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.
 * As quoted in The World's Best Thoughts on Life & Living (1981) compiled by Eugene Raudsepp; also quoted in The Michigan Daily (10 November 1998)

 * God is the great mysterious motivator of what we call nature and it has been said often by philosophers, that nature is the will of God. And, I prefer to say that nature is the only body of God that we shall ever see. If we wish to know the truth concerning anything, we'll find it in the nature of that thing.
 * As quoted in Truth Against the World : Frank Lloyd Wright speaks for an organic architecture (1987) edited by Patrick J. Meehan

 * The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.
 * As quoted in My Favorite Quotations (1990) by Norman Vincent Peale

 * Human beings can be beautiful. If they are not beautiful it is entirely their own fault. It is what they do to themselves that makes them ugly. The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.
 * Quoted in A Living Architecture : Frank Lloyd Wright and Taliesin Architects (2000) by John Rattenbury

 * About Le Corbusier: Well, now that he's finished one building, he'll go write four books about it.

A Testament (1957)

 * Part One

 * Philosophy is to the mind of the architect as eyesight is to his steps. The term "genius" when applied to him simply means a man who understands what others only know about.

 * Everyone engaged in creative work is subject to persecution by the odious comparison. Odious comparisons dog the footsteps of all creation wherever the poetic principle is involved because the inferior mind learns only by comparisons; comparisons, usually equivocal, made by selfish interests each for the other. The the superior mind learns by analyses: the study of Nature.

 * So the poet in the engineer and the engineer in the poet and both in the architect may be seen here working together, lifelong.

 * To survive, our American art was cheating itself of life.

 * Everywhere these inventions of science by ignorant misuse of a new technique were wiping out the artist.

 * But soon this saving virtue appeared to me in our disgraceful dilemma: Realization that any true cultural significance our American free society could know lay in the proper use of the machine as a tool and used only as a tool.

 * Different were the prophets of the human soul.

 * Success was misunderstood as essential to progress. Really success was worse than failure.

 * If the abstraction is truly made well above the animal nature in man—his gregarious nature—it will keep the ancient rituals of his higher nature as long as possible. Human abstractions if true usually become ritual.

 * What means more to the life of the individual in our own place in Time than this study of the nature of human nature, the search to discover pertinent traces of hidden impulses of life, to form continually new abstractions uplifting the life he lives?

 * Might not the spirit of creative art, desperately needed by man, lie in the proper use of the radical new technologies of our times, and so arise?

 * This drift toward quantity instead of quality is largely distortion. Conformity is always too convenient? Quality means individuality, is therefore difficult. But unless we go deeper now, quantity at expense to quality will be our national tragedy—the rise of mediocrity into high places.

 * Servility increases—already a seemingly unguarded danger to democracy not only in art and architecture and religion but in all phases of life.

 * Between the radical and the conformist lies all the difference between a lithe tendon and a length of gas-pipe.

 * See the last chapter in Genesis where Cain, the murderer of his brother, went forth with his sons to found the city. The City is still murdering his brother.

 * I then believed critics were by nature no less confused than confusing.

 * Thus the plausible expedient has become gospel and continues to be generally foisted upon those who seek better things; the conformities proclaimed by authority, however specious, temporarily mistaken for Godhead.

 * In every new expression of a fundamental Idea there will always be the substitutes, the imitations, dangling from it, as the soiled fringe from a good garment.

 * Almost all our so-called "modern" is not yet new. It is merely novel by imitation or indirection; or pretense by imported picture.

 * Is false abstraction always the consequence of spiritual degeneration?

 * Creation is not only rare but always hazardous. Always was.

 * As a people we remain comparative strangers to our own life in our own time in our own home: native culture waiting in vain on our door step.

 * For this, if for no other reason, degeneration of creative ability in America has had ample support, and what nobility our society might still have is in danger of being submerged in overwhelming tides of rising conformity.

 * As for religion true to the teaching of the great redeemer who said "The Kingdom of God is within you—that religion is yet to come: the concept true not only for the new reality of building but for the faith we call democracy. Nevertheless and notwithstanding, I have wanted to build this faith—life-long.

 * Reform only means more conformity. It is form first that is needed.

 * The soul of any civilization on earth has ever been and still is Art and Religion, but neither has ever been found in commerce, in government of the police.

 * Votes are counted. Yes—but vision can neither be counted nor discounted.

 * Both Art and Religion are on the way. Both must go hand in hand as ever before. Both together illuminating our sciences will constitute the soul of this civilization.

 * Even though a disgrace, machine-made, ornament stayed and still thrives.

 * No jealousy is comparable to professional jealousy.

 * Part Two

 * Exuberance to me early meant ecstacy of love, the poetic principle of life.

 * Nature's own inexhaustible fertility is manifest exuberance, and never less than the elemental poetry of all her structure.

 * There is nothing so timid as a million dollars.

 * By being so far educated beyond his capacity is he unable to learn within himself from nature? Divorced as he is from her, who and what can now be his? Does the so-called free man of democracy merely exploit his sovereignity?

 * Architecture is intrinsic to Time, Place and Man.

 * Science is inventive but creative never.

 * Spirit is man's new power if he is to be truly mighty in his civilization.

 * Only Art and Religion can bring this new vision as reality to a nation.

 * The spiritual dignity of this new humane life for mankind is the Spirit of Man himself sacrosanct.

 * Man either learns to usefor humanity his new facilities or he perishes by them.

 * The petty bias of personal taste can no longer hide either excrescence or spiritual poverty in the name of style.

 * Poetic is prophetic insight.

 * Intellectual is not necessarily intelligent either.

 * Part Three

 * As melody is in music ornament is in architecture revelation of the poetic-principle, with character and significance.

 * No! is always easier to say than Yes.

 * ... the huge business of education is not on speaking terms with culture and such culture as we now have is not on speaking terms with reality.

 * Part Four

 * Genuine expressions as essence of the great art itself cannot be taught or imitated. Nor can they in any way be forced.

 * Great art has always, at first, been controversial. Now that our means of communication have multiplied, how much more so today?

 * Resemblances are mistaken for influences.

 * Again: I found repeatedly confirmed that the inferior mind not only learns by comparison, but loosely confers its superlatives, while the superior mind which learns by analysis refrains from superlatives.

 * I never had much respect for the collector's mind.

The Living City (1958)
Part 1.

 * The screech and mechanical uproar of the big city turns the citified head, fills citified ears — as the song of birds, wind in the trees, animal cries, or as the voices and songs of his loved ones once filled his heart. He is sidewalk-happy.
 * “Earth”

 * New York is the biggest mouth in the world. It appears to be prime example of the herd instinct, leading the universal urban conspiracy to beguile man from his birthright (the good ground), to hang him by his eyebrows from skyhooks above hard pavement, to crucify him, sell him, or be sold by him.
 * “The-Shadow-of-the-Wall–Primitive Instincts Still Alive”

Part 2

 * To look at the cross-section of any plan of a big city is to look at something like the section of a fibrous tumor.
 * “Social and Economic Disease”

Part 3

 * All fine architectural values are human values, else not valuable.
 * “Recapitulation”

Part 5

 * I find it hard to believe that the machine would go into the creative artist's hand even were that magic hand in true place. It has been too far exploited by industrialism and science at expense to art and true religion.
 * “Night Is but a Shadow Cast by the Sun”

 * The present is the ever moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope.
 * Closing words, “Night is but a Shadow Cast by the Sun”

Attributed

 * Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.
 * According to the New Yale Book of Quotations (2021 rev. ed.), this quote was attributed to Wright in Art Spiegelman and Bob Schneider, Whole Grains: Book of Quotations (1973), but a similar quote was credited to Will Rogers in The Washington Post on May 17, 1964: "Tilt this country on end and everything loose will slide into Los Angeles."

Misattributed

 * There is nothing more uncommon than common sense.
 * Anonymous saying, dating back at least to its citation in Natural Theology (1836) by Thomas Chalmers, Bk. II, Ch. III : On the Strength of the Evidences for a God in the Phenomena of Visible and External Nature, § 15, where the author states: "It has been said that there is nothing more uncommon than common sense."; it has since become misattributed to particular people, including Frank Lloyd Wright.

Quotes about Wright

 * She was in a 'facility' which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright-pink and blue nestled in the hills-what artistry!
 * 1987 interview in Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989)

 * Among the great modern architects, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Louis Kahn were arguably deists. ... Wright's use of the word “nature” did not mean only what-we-find-outdoors. It was something deeper. Wright knew that when people speak of the “nature of things” they mean their very essence, the that-which-makes-them-what- they-are, which is always and only one step away from that-who-makes- them-what-they-are. ... Wright thought not that he was God but that he brought or allowed God into the world through what he did, creating and designing. ... Wright actually thought himself a prophet, which of course is a different to being God, or an angel. ... bringing God into the world in an act of something like mid-wifery from the womb of nature, is not at all Moses-like. It is not a bringing down of Law from on high after personal coaching from God, but a bringing forth of a God already there in potential. There is no presumption of having seen or met God of the Bible. One makes the God one believes in happen.
 * Michael Benedikt, University of Texas at Austin, Director of the Center for American Architecture and Design, in God, Creativity, and Evolution : The Argument from Designers (2005)

 * He's the greatest architect of the nineteenth century.
 * Philip Johnson

 * His place in history is secure. His continuing influence is assured. This country's architectural achievements would be unthinkable without him. He has been a teacher to us all.
 * Tribute following his death in the The Journal of the American Institute of Architects (April 1959)

 * The social outcome of the arts and crafts movement was not commensurate with the needs of the new situation; as Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright pointed out in his memorable speech at Hull House in 1908, the machine itself was as much an instrument of art, in the hands of an artist, as were the simple tools and utensils.
 * Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (1934) Ch. 7 "Assimilation of the Machine"

 * So long, Frank Lloyd Wright. I can't believe your song is gone so soon. I barely learned the tune
 * Paul Simon in "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright" (1969); on Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Frank Lloyd Wright


text:
Snow Crash

Snow Crash (1992) is Neal Stephenson's third novel. It follows in the footsteps of cyberpunk novels by such authors as William Gibson and Rudy Rucker, but it differs from its predecessors in that it includes much satire and black humor. Like many of Stephenson's other novels, it contains references to history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography and philosophy.

The Deliverator — Raven’s nuclear sidecar (1-20)

music movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza delivery
 * When it gets down to it—talking trade balances here—once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out ... once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity—y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:
 * Chapter 1 (Introduction to Hiro Protagonist, known at this point in the novel as The Deliverator)

 * This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them.
 * Chapter 1

Last of the freelance hackers Greatest sword fighter in the world Stringer, Central Intelligence Corporation Specializing in software-related intel (music, movies & microcode) On the back is gibberish explaining how he may be reached: a telephone number. A universal voice phone locator code. A P.O. box. His address on half a dozen electronic communications nets. And an address in the Metaverse.
 * HIRO PROTAGONIST
 * Chapter 2, Hiro presents his business card to Y.T.

 * Hiro, who as of thirty seconds ago is no longer the Deliverator, gets out of the car and pulls his swords out of the trunk, straps them around his body, prepares for a breathtaking nighttime escape run…Above him, in the house that owns the pool, a light has come on, and children are looking down at him through their bedroom windows, all warm and fuzzy in their Li'l Crips and Ninja Raft Warrior pajamas, which can either be flameproof or noncarcinogenic but not both at the same time. Dad is emerging from the back door, pulling on a jacket. It is a nice family, a safe family in a house full of light, like the family he was a part of until thirty seconds ago.
 * Chapter 2

 * When you are wrestling for possession of a sword, the man with the handle always wins.
 * Chapter 3

 * Y.T. has been privileged to watch many a young Clint plant his sweet face in an empty Burbclave pool during an unauthorized night run, but always on a skateboard, never ever in a car. The landscape of the suburban night has much weird beauty if you just look.
 * Chapter 4

 * CHISELED SPAM is what you will see in the mirror if you surf on a weak plank with dumb, fixed wheels and interface with a muffler, retread, snow turd, road-kill, driveshaft, railroad tie, or unconscious pedestrian…Buy a set of RadiKS Mark II Smartwheels - it's cheaper than a total face retread and a lot more fun. Smartwheels use sonar, laser rangefinding, and millimeter-wave radar to identify mufflers and other debris before you even get honed about them.
 * Chapter 4 (Y.T. responded to this fictional advertisement in Thrasher. Decades later, in The Diamond Age, Miss Matheson would recall the same advertisement while contemplating the smartwheels on her wheelchair.)

 * The world is full of power and energy and a person can go far by just skimming off a tiny bit of it.
 * Chapter 4

 * He is not seeing real people, of course. This is all a part of the moving illustration drawn by his computer according to specifications coming down the fiber-optic cable. The people are pieces of software called avatars. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse.
 * Chapter 5

 * It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe they are too smart to be sexists.
 * Chapter 7 (Juanita and Hiro's backstory)

 * Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds.
 * Chapter 8 (Juanita talking with Hiro)

 * Ng Security Industries Semi-Autonomous Guard Unit #A-367 lives in a pleasant black-and-white Metaverse where porterhouse steaks grow on trees, dangling at head level from low branches, and blood-drenched Frisbees fly through the crisp, cool air for no reason at all, until you catch them. Out in the world beyond his yard, there are other yards with other doggies just like him. These aren't nasty dogs. They are all his friends.
 * Chapter 12

 * WELCOME! It is my pleasure to welcome all quality folks to visiting of Hong Kong. Whether seriously in business or on a fun-loving hijink, make yourself totally homely in this meager environment…We of Greater Hong Kong take many prides in our tiny nation's extravagant growth… The potentials of all ethnic races and anthropologies to merge under a banner of the Three Principles to follow: 1. Information, information, information! 2. Totally fair marketeering! 3. Strict ecology! have been peerless in the history of economic strife…Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong is a private, wholly extraterritorial, sovereign, quasi-national entity not recognized by any other nationalities and in no way affiliated with the former Crown Colony of Hong Kong… Join us instantly! Your enterprising partner, Mr. Lee
 * Chapter 12, excerpts from poster in a Mr. Lee's franchulate in the San Fernando Valley.

 * Only the Mafia drives cars like that…You see these Town Cars everywhere, but you never see them move…She's not even sure they have engines in them.
 * Chapter 12

"Of course I won the fucking sword fight," Hiro says. "I'm the greatest sword fighter in the world." "And you wrote the software." "Yeah. That, too," Hiro says.
 * "Did you win your sword fight?"
 * Chapter 13

 * There is something new: A globe about the size of a grapefruit, a perfectly detailed rendition of Planet Earth, hanging in space at arm's length in front of his eyes. Hiro has heard about this but never seen it. It is a piece of CIC software called, simply, Earth. It is the user interface that CIC uses to keep track of every bit of spatial information that it owns — all the maps, weather data, architectural plans, and satellite surveillance stuff.
 * Passage that partially inspired Google Earth, Chapter 13

 * The librarian daemon looks like a pleasant, fiftyish, silver-haired, bearded man with bright blue eyes, wearing a V-neck sweater over a work shirt, with a coarsely woven, tweedy-looking wool tie. The tie is loosened, the sleeves pushed up. Even though he's just a piece of software, he has reason to be cheerful; he can move through the nearly infinite stacks of information in the Library with the agility of a spider dancing across a vast web of cross-references. The Librarian is the only piece of CIC software that costs even more than Earth; the only thing he can't do is think.
 * Chapter 13

 * "Watching government regulators trying to keep up with the world is my favorite sport."
 * Chapter 14, L. Bob Rife, archival television interview.

 * "A monopolist's work is never done. No such thing as a perfect monopoly. Seems like you can never get that last one-tenth of one percent."
 * Chapter 14, L. Bob Rife, second archival television interview.

 * "The function of the Raft is to bring more biomass. To renew America. Most countries are static, all they need to do is keep having babies. But America's like this big old clanking smoking machine that just lumbers across the landscape scooping up and eating everything in sight…Nobody really gets eaten. It's just a figure of speech. They come here, they get decent jobs, find Christ, buy a Weber grill, and live happily ever after. What's wrong with that?"
 * Chapter 14, L. Bob Rife, subsequent archival television interview, at the beginning of the Raft phenomenon.

"The Iron Pumper," Jason reminds him. "Shut up. For the rest of this conversation, you don't say anything. When I tell you what you did wrong, you don't say you're sorry, because I already know you're sorry. And when you drive outta here alive, you don't thank me for being alive. And you don't even say goodbye to me." Jason nods. "I don't even want you to nod, that's how much you annoy me. Just freeze and shut up."
 * "Jason Breckinridge," the man says.
 * Fisheye, Chapter 18

 * Mental note: Whether or not Raven intended to take on a bunch of Crips and Enforcers single-handedly tonight, he didn't even bother to pack a gun.
 * Chapter 19

 * Hiro watches the large, radioactive, spear-throwing killer drug-lord ride his motorcycle into Chinatown. Which is the same as riding it into China, as far as chasing him down is concerned.
 * Chapter 19

 * "Raven's packing a torpedo warhead that he boosted from an old Soviet nuke sub," Squeaky says. "It was a torpedo that was designed to take out a carrier battle group with one shot. A nuclear torpedo. You know that funny-looking sidecar that Raven has on his Harley? Well, it's a hydrogen bomb…hooked up to EEG trodes embedded in his skull."
 * Chapter 20

Meeting Uncle Enzo — wreck of the Kowloon (21-46)

 * "You don't respect those people very much, Y.T., because you're young and arrogant. But I don't respect them much either, because I am old and wise."
 * Uncle Enzo and Y.T., discussing the predominantly suburban Young Mafia, Chapter 21

 * Y.T. stops walking, turns, finally looks at the guy. He's tall, lean. Black suit, black hair. And he's got a gnarly-looking glass eye. "What happened to your eye?" she says. "Ice pick, Bayonne, 1985," he says. "Any other questions?"
 * Chapter 22

 * "You want me to steal something," Y.T. says. The man with the glass eye is pained, wounded. "No, no, no. Kid, listen. We're the fucking Mafia. We want to steal something, we already know how to do that, okay?"
 * Chapter 22

Never been here before. It's like something on the top floor of a luxury high-rise casino in Atlantic City, where they put semi-retarded adults from South Philly after they've blundered into the mega-jackpot. It's got everything that a dimwitted pathological gambler would identify with luxury: gold-plated fixtures, lots of injection-molded pseudomarble, velvet drapes, and a butler.
 * Juanita's going to hire him, right? — he slams the button for LAVATORY GRANDE ROYALE.
 * Hiro opts for the upgrade in his local pay-bathroom, Chapter 24

 * The franchise and the virus work on the same principle: what thrives in one place will thrive in another. You just have to find a sufficiently virulent business plan, condense it into a three-ring binder — its DNA — xerox it, and embed it in the fertile lining of a well-traveled highway, preferably one with a left-turn lane….
 * Chapter 24

Follow the loglo outward, to where the growth is enfolded into the valleys and the canyons, and you find the land of the refugees…. They have parallel-parked their bimbo boxes in identical computer-designed Burbclave street patterns and secreted themselves in symmetrical sheetrock shitholes with vinyl floors and ill-fitting woodwork and no sidewalks …. The only ones left in the city are street people…immigrants…young bohos; and the technomedia priesthood…. Young, smart people like Da5id and Hiro, who take the risk of living in the city because they like stimulation and they know they can handle it.
 * "No surprises" is the motto of the franchise ghetto…. The people of America, who live in the world's most surprising and terrible country, take comfort in that motto.
 * Chapter 24

 * "But there have been several efforts to deliver us from the hands of primitive, irrational religion. The first was made by someone named Enki about four thousand years ago. The second was made by Hebrew scholars in the eighth century B.C. ... but eventually it just devolved into empty legalism. Another attempt was made by Jesus — that one was hijacked by viral influences within fifty days of his death. The virus was suppressed by the Catholic Church, but we're in the middle of a big epidemic that started in Kansas in 1900 and has been gathering momentum ever since."
 * Juanita to Hiro, Chapter 26

Juanita shrugs. "What's the difference?"
 * "Wait a minute, Juanita. Make up your mind. This Snow Crash thing — is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?"
 * Hiro and Juanita, Chapter 26

"Yes. But not in the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus." "How can you be a Christian without believing in that?" "I would say," Juanita says, "how can you be a Christian with it? Anyone who takes the trouble to study the gospels can see that the bodily resurrection is a myth that was tacked onto the real story several years after the real histories were written. It's so National Enquirer-esque, don't you think?"
 * "Do you believe in Jesus?" Hiro says.
 * Chapter 26

 * "Would Sumerian sound anything like glossolalia?" "Judgment call. Ask someone real," the Librarian says.
 * Chapter 27

 * "There is no provable genetic relationship between Sumerian and any tongue that came afterward," the Librarian says… "Okay. Does anyone understand Sumerian?" Hiro says. "Yes, at any given time, it appears that there are roughly ten people in the world who can read it." "Where do they work?" "One in Israel. One at the British Museum. One in Iraq. One at the University of Chicago. One at the University of Pennsylvania. And five at Rife Bible College in Houston, Texas." "Nice distribution.”
 * Chapter 27

 * "What is the nam-shub of Enki?" Hiro says. The Librarian stares off into the distance and clears his throat dramatically. "Once upon a time, there was no snake, there was no scorpion, There was no hyena, there was no lion, There was no wild dog, no wolf, There was no fear, no terror, Man had no rival. In those days, the land Shubur-Hamazi, Harmony-tongued Sumer, the great land of the me of princeship, Uri, the land having all that is appropriate, The land Martu, resting in security, The whole universe, the people well cared for, To Enlil in one tongue gave speech. Then the lord defiant, the prince defiant, the king defiant, Enki, the lord of abundance, whose commands are trustworthy, The lord of wisdom, who scans the land, The leader of the gods, The lord of Eridu, endowed with wisdom, Changed the speech in their mouths, put contention into it, Into the speech of man that had been one.”
 * Chapter 28, here Stephenson adapts a passage from Samuel Kramer's translation of Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, a legend with elements that parallel the Tower of Babel narrative relating to either the restoration or disruption of linguistic unity in Mesopotamia.

 * Ng's Metaverse home is a French colonial villa in the prewar village of My Tho in the Mekong Delta. Visiting him is like going to Vietnam in about 1955, except that you don't have to get all sweaty. Somewhere in this house a radio is going, playing a mix of Vietnamese loungy type stuff and Yank wheelchair rock. "Are you a Nova Sicilia citizen?" Ng says. "No. I just chill sometimes with Uncle Enzo and the other Mafia dudes." "Ah…Very unusual." Ng is not a man in a hurry.
 * Chapter 29

"Everyone who lived between India and Spain, from the second millennium B.C. up into the Christian era. With the exception of the Hebrews, who only worshipped her until the religious reforms." "I thought the Hebrews were monotheists…." "Monolatrists. They did not deny the existence of other gods…Asherah was venerated as the consort of Yahweh." "I don't remember anything about God having a wife in the Bible." "The Bible didn't exist at that point. Judaism was just a loose collection of Yahwistic cults, each with different shrines and practices."
 * "Who worshipped Asherah?"
 * Hiro and the Librarian, Chapter 30

''SACRIFICE ZONE WARNING. The National Parks Service has declared this area to be a National Sacrifice Zone. The Sacrifice Zone Program was developed to manage parcels of land whose clean-up cost exceeds their total future economic value.'' And like all Sacrifice Zone fences, this one has holes in it and is partially torn down in places. Young men blasted out of their minds on natural and artificial male hormones must have some place to do their idiotic coming-of-age rituals.
 * Like all Sacrifice Zones, this one has a fence around it, with yellow metal signs wired to it every few yards:
 * Chapter 31

 * "Ah, this is good," Ng says. "A place where the young men gather to take drugs." Y.T. rolls her eyes at this display of tubularity. This must be the guy who writes all those antidrug pamphlets they get at school. Like he's not getting a million gallons of drugs every second through all of those gross tubes.
 * Chapter 31

 * "If you ever find yourself in the presence of a destructive force powerful enough to decapsulate those isotopes," Ng says, "radiation sickness will be the least of your worries."
 * Chapter 32

 * It's like, if you — people of a certain age — would make some effort to just stay in touch with sort of basic, modern-day events, then your kids wouldn't have to take these drastic measures.
 * Chapter 34 (Y.T., to her mother, after smashing her computer)

 * Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world…If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad. Hiro used to feel this way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this was liberating. He no longer has to worry about being the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken.
 * Chapter 36

 * All these beefy Caucasians with guns! Get enough of them together, looking for the America they always believed they'd grow up in, and they glom together like overcooked rice…With their power tools, portable generators, weapons, four-wheel-drive vehicles, and personal computers, they are like beavers hyped up on crystal meth, manic engineers without a blueprint, chewing through the wilderness, building things and abandoning them, altering the flow of mighty rivers and then moving on because the place ain't what it used to be.
 * Chapter 39 (Hiro's observation as he drives along the Alaska Highway)

Y.T.’s date on the Raft — war at LAX (47-71)

 * He's got something written on his forehead: POOR IMPULSE CONTROL. Which is kind of scary. Sexy, too. This guy is the first person she's seen around this place who really looks like he belongs on the Raft.
 * Chapter 47

 * There are four men in the life raft:
 * Hiro Protagonist, self-employed stringer for the Central Intelligence Corporation, whose practice used to be limited to so-called "dry" operations, meaning that he sat around and soaked up information and then later spat it back into the Library, the CIC database, without ever actually doing anything. Now his practice has become formidably wet. Hiro is armed with two swords and a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, known colloquially as a nine, with two ammunition clips, each carrying eleven rounds.
 * Vic, unspecified last name. If there was still such a thing as income tax, then every year when Vic filled out his 1040 form he would put down, as his occupation, "sniper." In classic sniper style, Vic is reticent, unobtrusive. He is armed with a long, large-caliber rifle with a bulky mechanism mounted on its top, where a telescopic sight might be found if Vic were not at the leading edge of his profession. Vic may safely be presumed to be carrying additional small concealed weapons.
 * Eliot Chung. Eliot used to be the skipper of a boat called the Kowloon. At the moment, he is between jobs. Eliot grew up in Watts, and when he speaks English, he sounds like a black guy. Genetically speaking, he is entirely Chinese. He is fluent in both black and white English as well as Cantonese, Taxilinga, and some Vietnamese, Spanish, and Mandarin. Eliot is armed with a .44 Magnum revolver, which he carried on board the Kowloon "just for the halibut," i.e., he used it to execute halibut before passengers hauled them on board. Halibut grow very large and can thrash so violently that they can easily kill the people who hook them.
 * "Fisheye." This is the man with the glass eye. He will only identify himself by his nickname. He is armed with a large, fat black suitcase.
 * Chapter 48

 * The powerless life raft, sloshing around the North Pacific, emits a vast, spreading plume of steam like that of an Iron Horse chugging full blast over the Continental Divide. Neither Hiro nor Eliot ever mentions, or even notices, the by-now-obvious fact that Fisheye is traveling with a small, self-contained nuclear power source.... As long as Fisheye refuses to notice this fact, it would be rude for them to bring it up.
 * Chapter 48

 * "The important thing is, Hiro, that you have to understand the Mafia way. And the Mafia way is that we pursue larger goals under the guise of personal relationships. ... This is how we avoid the trap of self-perpetuating ideology. Ideology is a virus. So getting this chick back is more than just getting a chick back. It's the concrete manifestation of an abstract policy goal."
 * Fisheye explaining the purpose of his stalled rescue mission to Hiro, Chapter 48

 * Hiro knows one thing: The Metaverse has now become a place where you can get killed. Or at least have your brain reamed out to the point where you might as well be dead…Guns have come to Paradise. It serves them right, he realizes now. They made the place too vulnerable. They figured that the worst thing that could happen was that a virus might get transferred into your computer… The Metaverse is wide open and undefended, like airports in the days before bombs and metal detectors, like elementary schools in the days before maniacs with assault rifles. There are no cops. You can't defend yourself, you can't chase the bad people. It's going to take a lot of work to change that — a fundamental rebuilding of the whole Metaverse, carried out on a planetwide, corporate level.
 * Chapter 48

He fires another round. "Correction. Four guys on it." Boom. "Correction. They're not headed our way anymore." Boom. A fireball erupts from the ocean two hundred feet away. "Correction. No boat."
 * "It's, like, one of them drug dealer boats," Vic says, looking through his magic sight. "Five guys on it. Headed our way."
 * Chapter 51

"Customer service." "Whom are you with?" "You name it, I'm with them." "I'm sorry?" Like human receptionists, the daemon is especially bad at handling irony. "At the moment, I think I'm working for the Central Intelligence Corporation, the Mafia, and Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong." "I see," says the receptionist, making a note. Also like a human receptionist, it is not possible to impress her.
 * "Yes, sir," she says. "Is this in regard to sales or customer service?"
 * Hiro, attempting to download a Reason software update in the Metaverse, Chapter 55

 * The [CGI] cigarette smoke swirls in the air ostentatiously. It takes as much computing power realistically to model the smoke coming out of Ng's mouth as it does to model the weather system of the entire planet.
 * Hiro in Ng's 397th floor Metaverse office, Chapter 55

"I need to take over an aircraft carrier tomorrow morning."
 * "What kind of combat environment do you want to use Reason in?" Ng says.
 * Hiro in Ng's 397th floor Metaverse office, Chapter 55

 * "We would all like to know what the hell is going on," Mr. Lee says. His English is almost devoid of a Chinese accent; clearly his cute, daffy public image is just a front.
 * Chapter 55

 * We are all susceptible to the pull of viral ideas. Like mass hysteria. Or a tune that gets into your head that you keep on humming all day until you spread it to someone else. Jokes. Urban legends. Crackpot religions. Marxism. No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating information.
 * Chapter 56

 * "Babel led to an explosion in the number of languages. That was part of Enki's plan…After a few thousand years, one new language developed — Hebrew — that possessed exceptional flexibility and power. The deuteronomists, radical monotheists, were the first to take advantage of it. They lived in a time of extreme nationalism and xenophobia, which made it easier for them to reject foreign ideas like Asherah worship. They formalized their old stories into the Torah and implanted within it a law that insured its propagation throughout history — a law that said, in effect, 'make an exact copy of me and read it every day.'"
 * Hiro, explaining early struggles against the Metavirus to Mr. Ng, Mr. Lee and Uncle Enzo, Chapter 56

"Hello, everyone," he says cheerfully. "Who are you?" Tony says. The new guy looks crestfallen. "Greg Ritchie," he says. Then, when no one seems to react, he jogs their memory. "President of the United States." "Oh! Sorry. Nice to meet you, Mr. President," Tony says, extending his hand.... "Frank Frost," Frank says, extending his hand and looking bored. "Don't mind me," Y.T. says, when Ritchie looks her way. "I'm a hostage."
 * Another man duck-walks across the flight deck…
 * Chapter 60

 * Their eyes meet and her heart starts flopping around weakly, like a bunny in a Ziploc bag.
 * Chapter 62

 * Fido comes out of his doggie house, curls his long legs beneath him, and jumps over the fence around his yard before he has remembered that he is not capable of jumping over it. This contradiction is lost on him, though; as a dog, introspection is not one of his strong points.
 * Chapter 65

''Jack the sound barrier. Bring the noise.''
 * As part of Mr. Lee's good neighbor policy, all Rat Things are programmed never to break the sound barrier in a populated area. But Fido's in too much of a hurry to worry about the good neighbor policy.
 * Chapter 65

It is almost pleasant here. Weenie-roasting weather.
 * They have shut down the airport. This was easy to do: they just pulled Lincoln Town Cars onto all the runways, for starters, and then went into the control tower and announced that in a few minutes they would be going to war. Now, LAX is probably quieter than it has been at any point since it was built. Uncle Enzo can actually hear the faint crashing of surf on the beach, half a mile away.
 * The Mafia declares war on L. Bob Rife, Chapter 69

The lieutenant looks somewhat taken aback that Uncle Enzo is concerning himself with such a tiny detail. It is as if the don were going up and down highways picking up litter or something. But he nods respectfully, having just learned something: details matter.
 * "Send someone out to pick up the abandoned pizza car. And give the driver a day off," Uncle Enzo says.
 * Chapter 69

Stephenson on Snow Crash

 * This book germinated in a collaboration between me and the artist Tony Sheeder, the original goal of which was to publish a computer-generated graphic novel. In general, I handled the words and he handled the pictures; but even though this work consists almost entirely of words, certain aspects of it stem from my discussions with Tony…I became intimately familiar with the inner workings of the Macintosh during the early phases…when it became clear that the only way to make the Mac do the things we needed was to write a lot of custom image-processing software. I have probably spent more hours coding during the production of this work than I did actually writing it, even though it eventually turned away from the original graphic concept.
 * Author's acknowledgments, Snow Crash, Bantam, 2003 (reissue), pp. 469-70

 * The idea of a "virtual reality" such as the Metaverse is by now widespread in the computer-graphics community and is being implemented in a number of different ways. The particular vision of the Metaverse as expressed in this novel originated from idle discussion between me and Jaime (Captain Bandwidth) Taaffe — which does not imply that blame for any of the unrealistic or tawdry aspects of the Metaverse should be placed on anyone but me. The words "avatar" (in the sense used here) and "Metaverse" are my inventions, which I came up with when I decided that existing words (such as "virtual reality") were simply too awkward to use. [...] after the first publication of 'Snow Crash' I learned that the term "avatar" has actually been in use for a number of years as part of a virtual reality system called "Habitat" [...] in addition to avatars, Habitat includes many of the basic features of the Metaverse as described in this book.
 * Author's acknowledgments, Snow Crash, Bantam, 2003 (reissue), pp. 469-70

 * Such a world wouldn't be stable unless each little "burbclave" had the ability to defend itself from all external threats. This is not plausible, barring some huge advances in defensive technology.
 * "Neal Stephenson's Past, Present, and Future", interview with Reason Magazine, February 2005

Once you write a book or two with controversial endings — and that meme gets going, of “Stephenson can’t write endings” — then that gets slapped on everything that you do no matter how elaborate the ending is.
 * So I’m well aware that there are certain people frustrated with the endings of my books. I can remember at the time I was writing it, I told a friend of mine that the climax of Snow Crash was now longer than Moby-Dick: There’s a helicopter that gets brought down; there’s a private jet that blows up; some people die; there’s confrontation and a girl goes home with her mom — so it seems like a good ending to me. [audience laughter]
 * Response to audience question at a Authors@google appearance, Google headquarters, Mountain View, CA., September 12, 2008

title: Snow Crash


text:
Talk:Richard Feynman on UFOs

It might not have been immediately found by the contributor of these quotes, but a more appropriate place for these would be on the Richard Feynman quote page. Pages like this of a particular person on a particular subject should not be casually created as it complicates the finding of quotes by that person. I noticed that Feynman had not been listed in the List of people by name page and ammended that deficiency. There is a subsection on Feynman's page that can be used to place quotes by him on UFOs. Feynman was certainly a great and witty genius and all manner of quotes illustrating his wit, wisdom, and unique character are clearly welcome there. Kalki 20:28, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:Richard Feynman on UFOs


text:
Wesley Clark

Wesley Kanne Clark (born 23 December 1944) is a former United States Army officer. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he obtained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He later graduated from the Command and General Staff College with a master's degree in military science. He spent 34 years in the U.S. Army, receiving many military decorations, several honorary knighthoods, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Clark commanded Operation Allied Force during the Kosovo War during his term as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO from 1997 to 2000.

Clark joined the 2004 race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination as a candidate in 2003, but withdrew from the primary race in 2004, after winning the Oklahoma state primary, endorsing and campaigning for the eventual Democratic nominee, John Kerry.

Quotes

 * I have grown up with guns all my life, but people who like assault weapons they should join the United States Army, we have them.
 * CNN Crossfire, Interview with General Wesley Clark, (25 June 2003)

 * G. Gordon Liddy says that Democrats haven't given the president enough credit. I think the president deserves full credit. In fact I think he should be held fully accountable.
 * Esquire magazine (August 2003)

 * I am saying what I believe. And I'm being drawn into the political process because of what I believe and what I've said about it. So it's precisely the opposite of a man like Tom DeLay, who is only motivated by politics and says whatever he needs to say to get the political purpose. And so, you know, it couldn't be more diametrically opposed, and I couldn't be more opposed than I am to Tom DeLay. You know, Wolf, when our airmen were flying over Kosovo, Tom DeLay led the House Republicans to vote not to support their activities, when American troops were in combat. To me, that's a real indicator of a man who is motivated not by patriotism or support for the troops, but for partisan political purposes.
 * Responding to criticism by Tom DeLay, in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer (17 August 2003)

 * We live in a liberal democracy....That's what we created in this country. I think we should be very clear on this. You know, this country was founded on the principles of the Enlightenment... It was the idea that people could talk, reason, have dialogue, discuss the issues. It wasn't founded on the idea that someone would get struck by a divine inspiration and know everything right from wrong. I mean, people who founded this country had religion, they had strong beliefs, but they believed in reason, in dialogue, in civil discourse. We can't lose that in this country. We've got to get it back.
 * Interview with Bill Maher, on Real Time with Bill Maher (5 September 2003)

 * But you don't have a chance if you can't find a job. I don't think it penetrates the minds of this Administration what it must be like for a factory worker to arrive home to his family with the news that he's been laid off. What it must be like not to know what the future holds for your children, because you don't know what the future holds for you. What it must be like to see the government take hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used to fund job training, unemployment benefits, or jobs programs — and instead to send that money off to people who have such staggering wealth that the new money won't make the tiniest improvement in their lifestyle. What it must be like to be told that tax cuts for the rich are necessary to create jobs for working people, and then to see jobs fall month after month for more than 30 months. If that doesn't break your heart, you don't have a heart.
 * Jobs Plan speech (24 September 2003)

 * Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than to consciously make a war based on false claims.
 * Conference of Military Reporters and Editors (October 2003)

 * War creates its own intensity of hatred... You don't want to use force except as an absolute last resort.
 * Interview with Laura Knoy, New Hampshire Public Radio (5 November 2003)

 * I think General Eisenhower was exactly right, I think we should be concerned about the military-industrial complex. I think if you look at where the country is today you've consolidated all these defense firms into just a few large firms — like Halliburton — and with contracts and contacts at the top level of government. You've got most of the retired generals are one way or another associated with the defense firms — that's the reason that you'll find very few of them speaking out in any public way — I'm not. When I got out I determined I wasn't going to sell arms, I was going to do as little as possible with the Department of Defense because I just figured it was time to make a new start. But I think the military-industrial complex does wield a lot of influence — I'd like to see us create a different complex. And I'm going to be talking about foreign policy in a major speech tomorrow, but we need to create an agency that is not about waging war but about creating conditions for peace around the world. We need some people who will be advocates for peace, advocates for economic development abroad, not just advocates for better weapon systems. So we need to create countervailing power to the military-industrial complex.
 * Interview with Laura Knoy, New Hampshire Public Radio (5 November 2003)

 * I think we're at a time in American history that's probably analogous to, maybe, Rome before the first emperors, when the Republic started to fall... I think if you look at the pattern of events, if you look at the disputed election of 2000, can you imagine? In America, people are trying to recount ballots and a partisan mob is pounding on the glass and threatening the counters? Can you imagine that? Can you imagine a political party which does its best to keep any representatives from another party — who've even been affiliated with another party — from getting a business job in the nation's capital? Can you imagine a political party that wants to redistrict so that its opponents can be driven out entirely?...it's a different time in America and the Republic is — this election is about a lot more than jobs. I'm not sure everybody in America sees it right now. But I see it, I feel it.
 * Interview with Laura Knoy, New Hampshire Public Radio (5 November 2003)

 * I don't have labels. I believe in human beings, I believe in a strong national security, I believe in maximizing freedom... I can give you a whole list of things i'm for, but I believe in solving problems. I guess, more than anything else, I'm a pragmatist with strong beliefs in people.
 * Interview with Laura Knoy, New Hampshire Public Radio (5 November 2003)

 * I'm not running to bash George Bush. A lot of Americans really love him. They love what he represents, a man who's overcome adversity in his life from alcoholism and pulled his marriage back together and — and moved forward. But I'm running because I think this country must have better leadership in moving forward.
 * Remark, reported in The New York Post (24 November 2003)

 * The time has passed in America when this party can be the party of compassion and let the executive branch run foreign policy. It won't work. We have to be the party that can stand toe to toe with George W. Bush on national security, as well as the party of compassion.
 * Democratic candidate debates (9 December 2003)

 * I made the decision that I couldn't not run. I had to run. This country is in great danger. It's in great difficulty. It's being taken the wrong way by a leadership team that has no real vision for the country other than trying to posture and pose and aim for winning the next election. I think Americans deserve a more visionary, a more selfless and a more dedicated leadership than that.
 * CNN Interview (10 December 2003)

 * Well, last I checked, there was no 'if' in the 15th Amendment. One person one vote isn't just a slogan — it's the highest law of this land. As president, I will not rest until every single American can cast their vote, and every single one of those votes is counted. We shouldn't have to wait for another Florida to fully fund election reform.
 * Remarks on voting rights (29 December 2003)

 * If Karl Rove is watching today, Karl, I want you to hear me loud and clear: I am going to provide tax cuts to ease the burdens for 31 million American families — and lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty — by raising the taxes on 0.1 percent of families — those who make more than $1,000,000 a year. You don't have to read my lips, I'm saying it. And if that makes me an 'old-style' Democrat, then I accept that label with pride and I dare you to come after me for it.
 * Families First tax plan speech (5 January 2004), reported in Clark unveils tax plan" — CNN'' (5 January 2004)

 * Maybe it's because I've never been in politics, but I don't believe that America is run by politicians in Washington. I believe it's run by people like us, in places like this.
 * True Values Tour (January 2004)

 * George W. Bush has helped those who have most, hurt those who have least and ignored everyone in between.
 * Response to State of the Union speech (20 January 2004)

 * I believe in open, honest government, where we hold our leaders accountable. I believe in putting the national interests over the special interests. I believe in putting principle above politics. The bottom line: I believe we can do better. I believe we must do better. And if the system's broke — fix it.
 * Tennessee True Values Tour remarks, Jackson, Tennessee (4 February 2004)

 * I've forgotten more about national security than George W. Bush will ever learn.
 * Speaking at the 2004 Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner, Richmond, Virginia — as reported by CNN (7 February 2004)]

 * The safety of our country demands an end to the doctrinaire, ineffective policies that currently grip Washington. Enough is enough! A safe America — a just America — that's what we want, that's what we need.
 * Democratic Convention (19 July 2004)

 * ... they said, "Sir, we want to tell you a joke." I said, "You don't have time to tell me a joke." They said, "Oh, you gotta hear this one." So I came in, they shut the door, and they said, "Here's"— I said, "What's the joke?" I said, "What's the joke?" They said, "9/11. Saddam Hussein. If he didn't do it, too bad. He should've! Because we're gonna get him anyway." I said, "But that's not funny." I said, "That's not very funny." They said, "It sure isn't."
 * Recalling a conversation with unidentified generals at the Pentagon "about ten days after 9/11" (circa 21 September 2001), on Real Time with Bill Maher [2.22] (episode 42), (29 October 2004); panel discussion with Maher, Kevin Costner, and Richard Belzer.

 * The purpose of military is to start wars and change governments and it's not sort of...deter conflict? we're gonna invade countries? and you know, my mind was spinning...
 * Address to Commonwealth Club of California (3 October 2007)

 * This country was taken over by a group of people with a 'policy coup'! Wolfowitz and Cheney and Rumsfeld, and...you can name a...dozen other collaborators from 'Project for a New American Century' they wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control. It went back to those comments in 1991, Did they bother to tell you that? Was there a national dialogue on this? Did senators, and congressmen stand up and denounce this plan? Was there a full-fledged American debate on this? Absolutely not, and there's still isn't...
 * Address to Commonwealth Club of California (3 October 2007)

 * Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, if you're an American you ought to be concern about strategy of the United States in this region, What is our aim? What is our purpose? Why are we there? Why are Americans dying in this region? That is the issue.
 * Address to Commonwealth Club of California (3 October 2007)

There needs to be a multidimensional, multilayered and multi-azimuth defense. That is, defense has to look in all directions. When you're talking about cybersecurity, you're talking about being able to protect your points. It's not directed against a country, but to secure your points of access or specific end points or network access. It's not as though you're arming yourself against a specific threat — you're simply undertaking all aspects of protection.
 * I think we should have international, legal community studies of cybersecurity and necessary laws, and countries should be encouraged to adopt these laws through the United Nations just like they adopt laws to prevent the abuse of children and protect human rights.
 * "Civilization's High Stakes Cyber-Struggle: Q&A With Gen. Wesley Clark (ret.)" by Richard Adhikari, TechNewsWorld (2 December 2009)

 * Mr. Trump may know something about buildings and real estate — but he has a lot to learn about how the world really works.
 * [https://www.votevets.org/press/statement-of-retired-general-wesley-k-clark-former-nato-supreme-allied-commander-on-donald-j-trumps-remarks-about-u-s-involvement-with-nato "Statement of retired General Wesley K. Clark, Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander on Donald J. Trump's remarks about U.S. involvement with NATO", VoteVets.org (21 July 2016)

On one hand, there is Donald Trump. He admits he doesn't read or study deeply, thrives on Tweet-style communications, has a thin skin and a deep drive to avenge any slight, and has demonstrated very little knowledge of national security, foreign policy or the policies and strategies concerning nuclear weapons in particular. Educating someone like this once he became President could be a difficult — and extremely dangerous for our country. On the other hand is Hillary Clinton, former Senator and former Secretary of State, a person who does read and study deeply, communicates with nuance and sophistication born of years of experience in public life, has proven herself strong and steady under repeated personal attacks, and has become through her service and studies an expert on foreign and security policies, including the policies and strategies regarding nuclear weapons.
 * I would ask Americans to think deeply about who should be entrusted with the nation's nuclear codes. There is a clear choice.
 * "Retired General Wesley Clark to Joe Heck: How can you support Trump with nukes?" as Chairman of the Advisory Board at VoteVets.org (October 2016)

But when he accepts Mr. Putin putting bounties on our soldier and encouraging them to be killed — that's a line no president should accept.
 * I think the real question is if President Trump is going to look out for the welfare and safety of American soldiers and service members, or is he going to bow to Putin? ... He's taken many steps that look like he's trying to curry favor with Mr. Putin. And when he tries to do that for diplomatic reasons, you could disagree with that or maybe you'd agree with that.
 * As quoted in "Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark: Trump can't let Putin get away with putting bounties on Americans" by Erin Prater, The Gazette{Colorado Springs} (5 July 2020)

Seton Hall Address (2002)

 * Commencement speech at Seton Hall University (13 May 2002)

 * It is customary at occasions such as this for some old person to pass on his accumulated pearls of wisdom and life story to the young. But this is not a customary year. It is a year marked by distinctive tragedy and challenge, by events that no one at last year's commencement ceremony could have possibly anticipated. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took the lives of so many — Seton Hall graduates among them — and have affected us so deeply that it is impossible to speak here today without acknowledging the witness to tragedy which this University and its students have borne. These events delivered a four-fold shock to us and our country. The shock of our country, under attack. The shock that others would hate so much that they would kill themselves to hurt us. The shock of death to the youthful and innocent. The shock that the murderers would claim to have acted in the name of God.

 * Had we seen an earthquake, or the results of a powerful storm, the devastation and loss would have been awful — but our country has seen terrible tragedies before: fires, earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes. We prayed for the lost, rebuilt for the survivors, and strengthened our laws, dikes, weather warnings and earthquake predictors. We prepare for an eventual recurrence of acts of nature... But 9-11 was not a natural catastrophe: these events were deliberate, conceived, organized and ruthlessly executed by human beings. And so, their significance must be assessed differently — and the actions to prepare for “next time” must be different, also.

 * They killed in the name of God. But they are not the first. This began in pre-history; the tragedy is that it persists today. Some would characterize the events of 9-11 as a clash of civilizations, and a conflict of religions. And to many it seems a simple and satisfying explanation. But others would suggest, correctly in my view, that such an interpretation is both wrong-headed and dangerous. They recognize a civil war within Islam itself, as contending factions compete for power. They would argue that we must influence the struggle where we can, by supporting greater attention to the secular structures in the Islamic world, and by encouraging our own American Islamic community to speak out in support of America's democratic values. Ultimately, your generation will have the decisive voice. You will determine whether rage or reason guides the United States in the struggle to come. You will choose whether we are known for revenge or compassion. You will choose whether we, too, will kill in the name of God, or whether in His Name, we can find a higher civilization and a better means of settling our differences. And this is not a new choice, not for your generation — it is a choice that many others have faced throughout history. Only now, we can hope that with your help and engagement we can find a new answer.

Twenty Year Vision for America (2004)

 * Manchester, New Hampshire (10 January 2004)

 * We'll still need our armed forces and we'll take every necessary action to make America safe — but we'll gain that safety not by force of arms, but by who we are and what we represent. For we should be an America not puffed up by pride in our own power, but rather an America humbled by the recognition of our common humanity. We must make sure that globalization helps people around the world, raising living standards and improving the environment everywhere — rather than leading a race to the bottom.

 * Working together, we can build a world in which the rule of law — not the rule of force — governs relations between states. A world in which leaders respect the rights of their people, and nations seek peace, not destruction or domination. And neither we nor anyone else should live in fear ever again.

 * As with science and technology, there could be a dark side of globalization, in which progress for some means poverty for others, as jobs and opportunities ebb and flow, securities and currencies fluctuate in value, and the tension between private profit and public good persists. But surely these are risks that we can manage in a world with an America more attuned to its larger purpose and responsibilities. The final frontier is perhaps the most difficult, but it's also the most important — and that's the frontier of the human spirit. For too long, people have allowed differences on the surface — differences of color, ethnicity, and gender — to tear apart the common bonds they share. And the human spirit suffers as a result. Imagine a world in which we saw beyond the lines that divide us, and celebrated our differences, instead of hiding from them. Imagine a world in which we finally recognized that, fundamentally, we are all the same. And imagine if we allowed that new understanding to build relations between people and between nations. Our goal for the next twenty years should be to finally recognize that our differences are our greatest strength. That's true not only here in America, but in all parts of the world, where we've allowed historic rifts to poison the well of opportunity. They've arisen from the natural prides and passion of humanity. Only when we recognize that — when we respect the human spirit — will we be a great nation and a great world. These are the steps we must take in the next twenty years, as we reach out for the newest frontiers.

92nd Street Y Cultural Center (2007)

 * 92nd Street Y Cultural Center in New York City (27 Feb 2007)

 * You see, essentially, you cannot win the war on terror by military force. It is first and foremost a battle of ideas. It is secondly a law enforcement effort and a cooperative effort among nations. And only as a last resort do you use military force. This president has distorted the capabilities of the United States Armed Forces. He's used our men and women in uniform improperly in Guantanamo and engaged in actions that I think are totally against the Uniform Code of Military Justice and against what we stand for as the American people.

 * The truth is, about the Middle East is, had there been no oil there, it would be like Africa. Nobody is threatening to intervene in Africa.

 * I'd like to get rid of landmines. I did participate in getting rid of laser blinding weapons. And I was part of the team that put together the agreement that got rid of laser blinding weapons. I'd like to get rid of nuclear weapons. But I can't agree with those who say that force has no place in international affairs. It simply does for this country. And I would like to work to make it so that it doesn't. But the truth is, for now it does. And so, I can't go against giving our men and women in uniform the appropriate weapons they need to fight, to fight effectively to succeed on the battlefield, and to minimize their own casualties.

Interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now (2 March 2007)

 * Gen. Wesley Clark Weighs Presidential Bid: “I Think About It Every Day” (2 March 2007)

 * About 10 days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon, and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September.

 * I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military, and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”

 * So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the secretary of defense's office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.”

 * It's wrong to fight in Iraq? Well, I think it's a mistake. I think it's a bad strategy. I think it's brought us a lot of grief, and it will bring us a lot more grief. I think it's been a tremendous distraction from the war on terror, a diversion of resources, and it's reinforced our enemies... We need the courage of the leaders in the United States government: the generals who could affect the policy, the people in Congress who could force the president to change his strategy. That's...the courage that's needed.

 * Do you remember that there was going to be a study released by the Senate, that the senator from Iowa or from Kansas who was the Republican head of the Senate Intelligence Committee was going to do this study to determine whether the administration had, in fact, misused the intelligence information to mislead us into the war with Iraq? Well, I've never seen that study. I'd like to know where that study is. I'd like to know why we've spent three years investigating Scooter Libby, when we should have been investigating why this country went to war in Iraq.
 * Well, I'm sure there are a lot of reasons why John would go back to the State Department. John's a good — he's a good man. But, you know, the question is, in government is, can you — are you bigger than your job? Because if you're not bigger than your job, you get trapped by the pressures of events and processes into going along with actions that you know you shouldn't.

 * I think it's [torture] a violation of international law and a violation of American law and a violation of the principles of good government in America. There have always been evidences of mistreatment of prisoners... George Washington told his soldiers... “No, treat them well.” He said, “They’ll join our side.” And many of them did. It was a smart policy, not only the right thing to do, but a smart policy to treat the enemy well. We've made countless enemies in that part of the world by the way we've treated people and disregarded them. It's bad, bad policy.

 * People make mistakes. And one of the mistakes that the United States consistently made was that it could intervene and somehow adjust people's governments, especially in the Middle East.

 * The truth is, about the Middle East is, had there been no oil there, it would be like Africa. Nobody is threatening to intervene in Africa. The problem is the opposite. We keep asking for people to intervene and stop it. There's no question that the presence of petroleum throughout the region has sparked great power involvement.

 * These discussions with the Palestinians.... this administration has failed to lead. They came into office basically determined not to do anything that Bill Clinton did. I think that was the basic guideline. And so, they have allowed unremitting violence between Israel and the Palestinians with hardly an effort to stop that through U.S. leadership.

 * If you want to talk about tragedies, how about this one? We bombed what we thought was a Serb police station in Kosovo... we found that there were Serb police vehicles parked there at night, so we sent an F-16 in, dropped two 500-pound laser-guided bombs and took it out. We killed 80 Albanians who had been imprisoned by the Serbs there. They were trying to escape, and the Serbs locked them up in this farmhouse... So, I regret every single innocent person who died, and I prayed every night that there wouldn't be any innocent people who died. But this is why I say you must use force only as a last resort.

 * We had a malfunction with a cluster bomb unit, and a couple of grenades fell on a schoolyard, and some, I think three, school children were killed... And two weeks later, I got a letter from a Serb grandfather. He said, “You’ve killed my granddaughter.” He said, “I hate you for this, and I’ll kill you.” And I got this in the middle of the war. And it made me very, very sad. We certainly never wanted to do anything like that. But in war, accidents happen. And that's why you shouldn't undertake military operations unless every other alternative has been exhausted, because innocent people do die.

 * I think the United States military was as humane and careful as it possibly could have been in the Kosovo campaign. But still, civilians died. And I'll always regret that.

 * I'd like to get rid of landmines. I did participate in getting rid of laser blinding weapons. And I was part of the team that put together the agreement...I'd like to get rid of nuclear weapons. But I can't agree with those who say that force has no place in international affairs. It simply does for this country. And I would like to work to make it so that it doesn't...

President Trump's weak support of troops amid Russian bounty to Taliban shows lack of leadership (2020)

 * Opinion essay: "President Trump's weak support of troops amid Russian bounty to Taliban shows lack of leadership", USA Today (1 July 2020)

This is why I find it so galling that, as commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces, President Donald Trump has done nothing despite the fact Russia has put a bounty on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. That a president would do so little to protect the people to whom he has a sacred obligation is unfathomable. It is a dereliction of his duty as commander in chief, an abandonment of the troops who depend upon him and a betrayal of leadership.
 * Fifty years ago, the men I commanded in Vietnam taught me what loyalty meant. I was a captain then, and A Company, 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry of the 1st Infantry Division was my responsibility. My troops and I were on patrol when we encountered a dug-in enemy force, and I was the first man hit — four rounds from an AK-47. I called the men to come forward and they ran forward, under fire and then, when we gained fire superiority, stood up and assaulted the enemy position. The men in my command put their lives on the line: Their courage saved my life. For the rest of my military career, there was no action I would not take to protect the troops in my command. As any good leader would.

 * Service members' lives demand a strong response. We should be slapping additional sanctions on Russia and freezing the assets of the oligarchs in Russian President Vladimir Putin's circle. We should be stationing more troops in Europe to counter Russia. We should not, as President Trump has done, give Russia a major strategic victory by pulling 9,500 troops out of Germany.

This is not what leadership looks like. These are not the actions of someone who serves — or even cares about — the troops to whom he has a duty. These are the actions of a man concerned with self-preservation and little else. President Trump receives well-deserved criticism for failing to serve his country in Vietnam. Yet, given the lack of loyalty to the troops he has displayed in recent months, that might have been for the best.
 * Unfortunately, the president's first reaction was not, “How can I protect the troops?” It was, “How can I protect myself?” He issued a Twitter denial that he knew about the bounties, then proceeded to launch irrelevant attacks at former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. As is so often the case with President Trump, the welfare of the nation and of our troops did not come up.

title: Wesley Clark


text:
Björk

Björk Guðmundsdóttir (born 21 November 1965) is an Icelandic singer, composer, producer, and actor.

Quotes

 * It's so amazing when people tell me that … electronic music has not got soul. And they blame the computers. They got the finger pointed at the computers like, "There's no soul here." … You can't blame the computer. If there's not soul in the music, it's because nobody put it there. And it's not the tool's fault.
 * The South Bank Show, series 21, episode 4: "Björk" (9 November 1997)

 * I am grateful grapefruit.
 * From her acceptance speech for the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist at the 18th Brit Awards, 9 February 1998

 * I don't like records that are the same from beginning to end, that are too styled and slick. Everything is so designed and airbrushed and Botoxed, it makes us think, 'Oh, everybody's perfect except me. Everything's smooth except me.' But nothing is smooth.
 * Defending her song "Ancestors", which had been alleged to be "really hard to listen to". Newsweek, 6 September 2004.

 * Everyone is bisexual: I’ve always had as many powerful, creative ladies in my life as I have men, and you could probably describe some of those relationships as romantic. I think everyone's bisexual to some degree or another. It's just a question of whether or not you choose to recognise it and embrace it. Personally, I think choosing between men and women is like choosing between cake and ice cream: You'd be daft not to try both when there are so many different flavours.
 * Diva magazine, October 2004

 * But, but, these are the people that made the Busby Berkeley movies, yeah? So they're not exactly subtle.
 * Explaining her swan dress on ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, season 9, episode 177 (19 October 2001)

 * It's interesting for me to bring up a girl. You go to the toy store and the female characters there—Cinderella, the lady in Beauty and the Beast—their major task is to find Prince Charming. And I'm like, wait a minute, it's 2005! We've fought so hard to have a say, and not just live through our partners, and yet you're still seeing two-year-old girls with this message pushed at them that the only important thing is to find this amazing dress so that the guy will want you. It's something my mum pointed out to me when I was little—so much [so] that I almost threw up; but, she's right.
 * From The Observer, March 13 2005 issue

 * It's a big question. Getting rid of religion would be a good start, wouldn't it? It seems to be causing a lot of havoc.
 * When asked "Given the chance, how would you change the world?" (The Independent, 18 March 2005.)

 * The thing about making [Dancer in the Dark] that upset me most was how cruel Lars is to the woman he is working with. Not that I can't take it, because I'm pretty tough and completely capable of defending myself, but because my ideals of the ultimate creator were shattered. And my friend said, 'What did you expect? All major directors are sexist; a maker is not necessarily an expert in human rights or female–male equality.' My answer was that you can take quite sexist film directors like Woody Allen or Stanley Kubrick, and still they are the one[s] that provide the soul to their movies. In Lars von Trier's case it is not so, and he knows it. He needs a female to provide his work soul. And he envies them and hates them for it. So he has to destroy them during the filming, and hide the evidence. What saves him as an artist, though, is that he is so painfully honest that even though he will manage to cover up his crime in the "real" world (he is a genius to set things up [so] that everybody thinks it is just his female-actress-at-the-moment imagination, that she is just hysterical or pre-menstrual), his films become a documentation of this 'soul-robbery'. Breaking the Waves is the clearest example of that.
 * Posted by Björk to the bjork.com 4um, in response to a question about her conflict with director Lars von Trier during the production of Dancer in the Dark

 * You know, it's ironic that just at the point the lawyers and the businessmen had calculated how to control music, the Internet comes along and fucks everything up." Björk gives the finger again, this time waving it into the air. "God bless the Internet," she adds. And what about you, then? "I'll still be there, waving a pirate flag.
 * Quoted by Valur Gunnarsson in "Waving a pirate flag—Björk: Seditious superstar", Reykjavik Grapevine

Debut (1993)

 * There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic To human behaviour … There's no map And a compass Wouldn't help at all
 * "Human Behaviour"
 * His wicked sense of humour suggests exciting sex His fingers focus on her Her touches He's Venus as a boy
 * Venus as a Boy

Post (1995)

 * I'm back at my cliff Still throwing things off I listen to the sounds they make On their way down I follow with my eyes 'til they crash Imagine what my body would sound like Slamming against those rocks And when it lands Will my eyes Be closed or open?
 * "Hyper-Ballad"

Homogenic (1997)

 * I'm a fountain of blood In the shape of a girl … Leave me now, return tonight Tide will show you the way If you forget my name You will go astray Like a killer whale Trapped in a bay
 * "Bachelorette"
 * If travel is searching And home what's been found I'm not stopping I'm going hunting I'm the hunter I'll bring back the goods But I don't know when
 * Hunter, (1997)
 * I thought I could organize freedom How Scandinavian of me
 * Hunter, (1997)
 * I want to go on a mountaintop With a radio and good batteries And play a joyous tune And free the Human Race From suffering (saccharine)
 * "Alarm Call"

 * Emotional landscapes They puzzle me The riddle gets solved and you push me up to This state of emergency How beautiful to be State of emergency Is where I want to be
 * "Jóga"
 * I dare you to take me on I dare you to show me your palms I'm so bored of cowards who say they want (love) Then they can't handle love
 * "5 Years"

Vespertine (2001)

 * He offers a handshake, crooked five fingers They form a pattern yet to be matched On the surface simplicity But the darkest pit in me Is pagan poetry
 * "Pagan Poetry"

Medúlla (2004)

 * When in doubt, give.
 * "Pleasure is All Mine"
 * You have done Good for yourselves Since you left my wet embrace And crawled ashore … My sons and my daughters Ho-oh Your sweat is salty I am why
 * "Oceania"

Volta (2007)

 * Declare independence Don't let them do that to you ... Start your own currency Make your own stamp Protect your language
 * "Declare Independence"

Quotes about Björk

 * Do not fuck with Björk! Björk will beat your ass! … I saw Björk beat this woman's ass one time in this videotape. She was in the Bangkok Airport and she was pushing her luggage cart, and this woman came up and just touched her, and Björk went [roars and hisses]. And it was so scary because you didn't expect it at all, because Björk is so cute. … And Björk called the woman she attacked afterwards to apologize. 'I'm very sorry I tried to pull your eyes up over your head. Somebody must have fed me after midnight.' But Björk wore the best dress ever to the Oscars ever: She wore a swan. And I'm not talking about a dress with white feathers on it. Oh, no. She rocked the whole bird. The beak was up here and shit. And she accessorized it with an egg. What else you gon' wear with your bird? And all of the fashion magazines said she was the worst dressed, but when they say you're the worst, that means you're the best.
 * Margaret Cho, Assassin (2005)

 * I … thought about all the artists that I really respected and liked. They were just them. … They're people who always stuck to who they were, and were true and honest about who they were. So, I think that kind of gave me … confidence to just stick at it. Just thinking about people like Björk. You know? [Like] Bob Dylan … artists that truly were strong in themselves.
 * M.I.A. during a guest appearance MuchOnDemand (26 September 2005).

 * She has a weird energy about her as a woman. We were in this town to do a show, and she spread such positive vibes. There were birds singing, and rainbows; we could even see a tornado going on. We could actually see it! … I think that every artist has an aura and persona that develops, and Björk spreads such a positive energy. You can just feel it.
 * M.I.A.

title: Björk