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Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (July 24, 1878 – October 25, 1957) was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist, best known for his works of fantasy.

Quotes

 * It was quite dark when he went by the towers of Tor, where archers shoot ivory arrows at strangers lest any foreigner should alter their laws, which are bad, but not to be altered by mere aliens.
 * The Book of Wonder, Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller

 * I imagine that as one penetrated out from some enormous forest of the tropics, the wild beasts would become fewer, the gloom would lighten, and the horror of the place would slowly lift. Yet as one emerges nearer to the edge of London, and nearer to the beautiful influence of the hills, the houses become uglier, the streets viler, the gloom deepens, the errors of civilisation stand bare to the scorn of the fields.
 * Where ugliness reaches the height of its luxuriance, in the dense misery of the place, where one imagines the builder saying, "Here I culminate. Let us give thanks to Satan," there is a bridge of yellow brick, and through it, as through some gate of filigree silver opening on fairyland, one passes into the country.
 * A Dreamer's Tales, The Field

 * It is many a year ago, they say, when the vintage was last gathered in from the vineyards that I knew, where it is all desert now. It was a radiant day, and the people of the city were dancing by the vineyards, while here and there one played upon the kalipac. The purple flowering shrubs were all in bloom, and the snow shone upon the Hills of Hap. Outside the copper gates they crushed the grapes in vats to make the syrabub. It had been a goodly vintage. In the little gardens at the desert's edge men beat the tambang and the tittibuk, and blew melodiously the zootibar.
 * A Dreamer's Tales, Bethmoora

 * Indeed when we trace it all back to its origin we find at the beginning of this unhappy story a man who was only an emperor and wished to be something more. He would have ruled the world but has only meddled with it; and his folly has brought misery to millions, and there lies his broken dream on the broken earth.
 * Tales of War, The Nightmare Countries

 * Once, as Mung went his way athwart the Earth and up and down its cities and across its plains, Mung came upon a man who was afraid when Mung said: “I am Mung!”
 * And Mung said: “Were the forty million years before thy coming intolerable to thee?”
 * And Mung said: “Not less tolerable to thee shall be the forty million years to come!”
 * The Gods of Pegāna, The Deeds of Mung (Lord of all Deaths between Pegāna and the Rim)

 * Then said the people to the prophet: “Shall not black hills draw round in some forsaken land, to make a vale-wide cauldron wherein the molten rock shall seethe and roar, and where the crags of mountains shall be hurled upward to the surface and bubble and go down again, that there our enemies may boil for ever?”
 * And the prophet answered: “It is writ large about the bases of Pegāna’s mountains, upon which sit the gods: ‘Thine Enemies Are Forgiven.’”
 * The Gods of Pegāna, Pegāna

 * And cities arose and shed their houses in dust, and ever the desert returned again to its own, and covered over and hid the last of all that had troubled its repose.
 * And still men slew men.
 * And I came at last to a time when men set their yoke no longer upon beasts but made them beasts of iron.
 * And after that did men slay men with mists.
 * Then, because the slaying exceeded their desire, there came peace upon the world that was brought by the hand of the slayer, and men slew men no more.
 * The Gods of Pegāna, Of how Imbaun Became High Prophet in Aradec of All the Gods save One

 * "How much do you know?" she said. "Do you know that dreams are illusion?"
 * "Of course I do," I said. "Every one knows that."
 * "Oh no they don't," she said, "the mad don't know it."
 * "That is true," I said.
 * "And do you know," she said, "that Life is illusion?"
 * Tales of Three Hemispheres, A Shop In Go-By Street

 * I hope that when London is clean passed away and the defeated fields come back again, like an exiled people returning after a war, they may find some beautiful thing to remind them of it all; because we have loved a little that swart old city.
 * Fifty-One Tales, Roses

 * All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts upon doomed ships.
 * When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity with all that is ours our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile upon Oblivion's sea. They will not carry much over those tides, our names and a phrase or two and little else.
 * Fifty-One Tales, The Raft-Builders

 * What should a man do with the sword of Welleran?
 * The Sword of Welleran: And Other Tales of Enchantment, The Sword of Welleran

 * The source of all imagination is here in our fields, and Creation is beautiful enough for the furthest flights of the poets. What is called realism only falls far from these flights because it is too meticulously concerned with the detail of material; mere inventories of rocks are not poetry; but all the memories of crags and hills and meadows and woods and sky that lie in a sensitive spirit are materials for poetry, only waiting to be taken out, and to be laid before the eyes of such as care to perceive them.
 * Patches of Sunlight

I saw a workman fall with his scaffolding right from the summit of some vast hotel. And as he came down I saw him holding a knife and trying to cut his name on the scaffolding. He had time to try and do this for he must have had nearly three hundred feet to fall. And I could think of nothing but his folly in doing this futile thing, for not only would the man be unrecognizably dead in three seconds, but the very pole on which he tried to scratch whatever of his name he had time for was certain to be burnt in a few weeks for firewood. Fifty-One Tales, The Workman

 * Once I found out the secret of the universe. I have forgotten what it was, but I know that the Creator does not take Creation seriously, for I remember that He sat in Space with all His work in front of Him and laughed.
 * The Hashish Man and Other Stories; Manic D Press; October 1996; Page 59; ISBN 0916397459

 * I know of the boons that machinery has conferred on men, all tyrants have boons to confer, but service to the dynasty of steam and steel is a hard service and gives little leisure to fancy to flit from field to field.
 * Romance of Modern Stage; National Review of London; 1911

About

 * Many authors, when one meets them for the first time, are comparatively unimpressive compared with their books. But Lord Dunsany, who died last week, never disappointed. He was every inch a poet, playwright, storyteller, Irish peer, big-game hunter, painter, modeller in clay, Conservative politician, soldier and country gentleman, all of which occupations he followed In the busiest and most-enjoyed life I have seen. He was a tall, splendid-looking man with a young voice, decided opinions and boundless energy. He was very happily married and had the good manners of an Edwardian autocrat.
 * John Betjeman, "City and Suburban", ''The Spectator Magazine." 1 November 1957, (Pg. 13).

 * One of the greatest writers of [the 20th] century.
 * Arthur C. Clarke, quoted on the backcover of Time and the Gods, the second volume of the Fantasy Masterworks series

 * I am reminded of a comment Lord Dunsany made. He saw a script which had a gorgeous description of a sun setting over a landscape, and this had to be crossed out, and it said, "Sun sets, left." This is what I mean by the visuals being supplied by someone else, in that case the stage designer and the director.
 * Neil Gaiman, pg 181 of The Neil Gaiman Reader

 * ...by the time I came along (I was the fourth kid), there was a lot of mythology around, mostly in kids' versions, but what's the difference. Beautiful big books with lots of illustrations. I plunged around in those books and in everything else; the Norse myths were my favorite. Sometime in here I also came across Dunsany's Dreamer's Tales, which proved to be another revelation. Dunsany was important to me because he was the first writer I had come across who wrote what I would call "pure fantasy." Today his works probably seem old-fashioned-I know my kids didn't take to him at all. He wrote in a Biblical-grand-Irish-Romantic language, a very mannered style. But as a kid in the 1930s, I wasn't so far from that early-twentieth-century mannerism. What I saw in Dunsany were these absolutely pure invented fantasies: a mythology that one person had made up. The idea that people could invent their own myths, use their imagination to the limit was a wonderful discovery.
 * Ursula Le Guin, 1982 interview in Conversations with Ursula Le Guin

 * Inventor of a new mythology and weaver of surprising folklore, Lord Dunsany stands dedicated to a strange world of fantastic beauty . . . unexcelled in the sorcery of crystalline singing prose, and supreme in the creation of a gorgeous and languorous world of incandescently exotic vision. No amount of mere description can convey more than a fraction of Lord Dunsany's pervasive charm.
 * H. P. Lovecraft, quoted in the Del Rey edition of The Charwoman's Shadow

 * No one can imitate Dunsany, and probably everyone who's ever read him has tried.
 * C. L. Moore, letter to H. P. Lovecraft dated January 30, 1936

 * The King of Elfland’ s Daughter is the most purely beautiful thing Lord Dunsany has written. There may be better or more exciting things in some of the short tales, but nowhere else has he had such a long run on that Pegasus of his that carries him east of the East and west of the West — not curving round the world, as he once said to me, but going on straight into regions that the makers of the Arabian tales of enchantment knew, or which lay in neighbouring kingdoms of romance.
 * George William Russell, "A Maker of Mythologies",The Living Age magazine, 29 March 1926. Also quoted in Harold Bloom, Classic Fantasy Writers, Chelsea Horse, 1994 (p.61)

 * These plays and stories have for their continual theme the passing away of gods and men and cities before the mysterious power which is sometimes called by some great god's name but more often 'Time.' His travellers, who travel by so many rivers and deserts and listen to sounding names none heard before, come back with no tale that does not tell of vague rebellion against that power, and all the beautiful things they have seen get something of their charm from the pathos of fragility. This poet who has imagined colours, ceremonies and incredible processions that never passed before the eyes of Edgar Allen Poe or of De Quincey, and remembered as much fabulous beauty as Sir John Mandeville, has yet never wearied of the most universal of emotions and the one most constantly associated with the sense of beauty; and when we come to examine those astonishments that seemed so alien we find that he has but transfigured with beauty the common sights of the world.
 * William Butler Yeats, in his introduction to Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsany

title: Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany


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What's Happening!!

What's Happening!!, US TV series (1976–1979)

Rerun (Fred Berry)

 * [repeated line; screams bloody murder] WHAT'S HAPPENI-I-I-I-I-ING?!?!?!?!

Dee (Danielle Spencer)

 * I can't eat jackass meat without ketchup!

 * I'm not Amy Carter. I have to work for a living.

 * (on school) All you have to remember is listen for the bell. The first time the bell rings, you sit down. The second time the bell rings, you stand up. In between, that's the teacher's problem.

''Context: Dee threatened Roger with telling Mama a secret unless he paid hush money. Roger is angry.''

 * If you lay one hand on me, I'll tell Mama and report you to the child abuse center. They'll put your picture on 60 Minutes and Mike Wallace will hate you until you die.

 * [repeated line; to Raj or anyone else] Ooooh, I'm tellin' Mama.

Dwayne (Haywood Nelson)

 * Who knows? After this one...who knows what could be next. You could become President of the United States. Mom would be the first lady and I could be Amy.

 * Uh-huh, Uh-huh, Uh awn

 * [repeated line] Hey, HEY, hey!

Principal Bradley

 * If you don't tell me who sprung the leak, you'll be expelled for at least a week. -Nipsey Russell on The Match Game

Dialogue

 * Dee: (reading the underground newspaper) "Principal Bradley smells badly." You're gonna get in trouble from Mama.
 * Roger: How is Mama gonna find out?
 * Dee: She knows me.

 * Mama: I'm gonna be the oldest one there, and you know they're gonna laugh at me.
 * Dee: Look, you're the oldest one here and you don't see us laughing.

(on Miss Collins, the gang's teacher)
 * Roger: Mama, she's a good teacher.
 * Rerun: No, she's not, and I'm gonna fail again. All she ever puts on her tests are questions.

 * Roger: Miss Collins? Would you keep an eye on my mother? Go easy on her because she hasn't studied in years.
 * Miss Collins: Oh? Then she and Rerun have a lot in common.

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

title: What's Happening!!


text:
Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (born Marie Jana Korbelová; May 15, 1937 – March 23, 2022) was an American politician and diplomat who served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and the 64th United States Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. She was the first female secretary of state in U.S. history.

1990s

 * It is the threat of the use of force [against Iraq] and our line-up there that is going to put force behind the diplomacy. But if we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us.
 * Stated on NBC's Today Show (February 19, 1998)

 * Our nation's memory is long and our reach is far.
 * Public statement in response to the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. In: Schweid, Barry (August 10, 1998) "Albright Offers $2M Bombings Reward".

 * Lesley Stahl: We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it? Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price—we think the price is worth it.
 * Stated on CBS's 60 Minutes (May 12, 1996). Albright was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations at the time.

2000s

 * My deepest regret from my years in public service is the failure of the United States and the international community to act sooner to halt these crimes.
 * Comment on the Rwandan Genocide in Madam Secretary (2003), p. 147.

 * What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?
 * To Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the 1990s, on Bosnia, recounted in Madam Secretary (2003), p. 182

 * Little effort was made to explain Saddam's culpability, his misuse of Iraqi resources, or the fact that we were not embargoing medicine or food. I was exasperated that our TV was showing what amounted to Iraqi propaganda...I must have been crazy; I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it. Saddam Hussein could have prevented any child from suffering simply by meeting his obligations. Instead, I said the following: 'I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.' As soon as I had spoken, I wished for the power to freeze time and take back those words. My reply had been a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy, and wrong. Nothing matters more than the lives of innocent people. I had fallen into a trap and said something that I simply did not mean. That is no one's fault but my own.
 * Comment on Stahl interview in Madam Secretary (2003), pp. 274-275

 * I was taught to strive not because there were any guarantees of success but because the act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life
 * On her upbringing, Madam Secretary (2003), p. 512

 * Mahmoud Abbas is a puppet.
 * (BBC HARDTALK 17-MAY-2004) uncut version.

 * I never should have made it. It was stupid.
 * Comment on Stahl interview, BBC Radio 4 Today Programme (October 19, 2005)

 * What really troubles me is that democracy is getting a bad name because it is identified with imposition and occupation. I'm for democracy, but imposing democracy is an oxymoron. People have to choose democracy, and it has to come up from below.
 * When asked what she considered the greatest mistake of the George W. Bush administration, interview with Deborah Solomon, New York Times (April 23, 2006)

 * There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.
 * Keynote speech at "Celebrating Inspiration" luncheon with the WNBA's All-Decade Team, quoted in Mechelle Voepel, ESPN (July 13, 2006)

 * I'm not a person who thinks the world would be entirely different if it was run by women. If you think that, you've forgotten what high school was like.
 * Quoted in Time (July 18, 2006)

 * The victor of the war in Iraq is Iran.
 * Speech at a Harvard Institute of Politics/Harvard Divinity School forum (April 11, 2007), quoted in the Harvard Crimson

 * Armageddon is not a foreign policy.
 * Speech at Harvard forum (April 11, 2007)

 * When we're trying to solve difficult national issues its sometimes necessary to talk to adversaries as well as friends. Historians have a word for this: diplomacy.
 * Speech at Harvard forum (April 11, 2007)

 * There is a significant moral difference between a person who commits a violent crime and a person who tries to cross a border illegally in order to put food on the family table. Such migrants may violate our laws against illicit entry, but if that's all they do then they are trespassers, not criminals. They deserve to have their dignity respected.
 * On illegal migrants to the United States from Mexico and Central America, in Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership (2008), p. 225

 * I'm a critic. I think the administration has really undermined America's power and reputation and that Iraq may go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy, which means that I think it's worse than Vietnam in its unintended consequences and for our reputation. This president, because his administration is imposing democracy, which is an oxymoron, has, I think, hurt the concept. It is not just that the administration has been unilateral but that it has been unidimensional. It has paid attention primarily to one part of the world, without enough attention being paid to other parts.
 * When asked what the George W. Bush administration's legacy in foreign affairs would be, interview with Thomas Omestad, U.S. News & World Report (January 2, 2008)
 * Get out, you disgusting Serbs!
 * At a book signing in Prague

Putin Is Making a Historic Mistake (2022)

 * Opinion Guest Essay: "Putin Is Making a Historic Mistake", The New York Times (23 February 2022)

 * In early 2000, I became the first senior U.S. official to meet with Vladimir Putin in his new capacity as acting president of Russia. We in the Clinton administration did not know much about him at the time — just that he had started his career in the K.G.B. I hoped the meeting would help me take the measure of the man and assess what his sudden elevation might mean for U.S.-Russia relations, which had deteriorated amid the war in Chechnya. Sitting across a small table from him in the Kremlin, I was immediately struck by the contrast between Mr. Putin and his bombastic predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. Whereas Mr. Yeltsin had cajoled, blustered and flattered, Mr. Putin spoke unemotionally and without notes about his determination to resurrect Russia’s economy and quash Chechen rebels. Flying home, I recorded my impressions. “Putin is small and pale,” I wrote, “so cold as to be almost reptilian.” He claimed to understand why the Berlin Wall had to fall but had not expected the whole Soviet Union to collapse. “Putin is embarrassed by what happened to his country and determined to restore its greatness.”

 * I have been reminded in recent months of that nearly three-hour session with Mr. Putin as he has massed troops on the border with neighboring Ukraine. After calling Ukrainian statehood a fiction in a bizarre televised address, he issued a decree recognizing the independence of two separatist-held regions in Ukraine and sending troops there. Mr. Putin’s revisionist and absurd assertion that Ukraine was “entirely created by Russia” and effectively robbed from the Russian empire is fully in keeping with his warped worldview. Most disturbing to me: It was his attempt to establish the pretext for a full-scale invasion. Should he invade, it will be a historic error.

 * In the 20-odd years since we met, Mr. Putin has charted his course by ditching democratic development for Stalin’s playbook. He has collected political and economic power for himself — co-opting or crushing potential competition — while pushing to re-establish a sphere of Russian dominance through parts of the former Soviet Union. Like other authoritarians, he equates his own well-being with that of the nation and opposition with treason. He is sure that Americans mirror both his cynicism and his lust for power and that in a world where everyone lies, he is under no obligation to tell the truth. Because he believes that the United States dominates its own region by force, he thinks Russia has the same right.

 * Instead of paving Russia’s path to greatness, invading Ukraine would ensure Mr. Putin’s infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance.

 * Mr. Putin’s actions have triggered massive sanctions, with more to come if he launches a full-scale assault and attempts to seize the entire country. These would devastate not just his country’s economy but also his tight circle of corrupt cronies — who in turn could challenge his leadership. What is sure to be a bloody and catastrophic war will drain Russian resources and cost Russian lives — while creating an urgent incentive for Europe to slash its dangerous reliance on Russian energy. ... Such an act of aggression would almost certainly drive NATO to significantly reinforce its eastern flank and to consider permanently stationing forces in the Baltic States, Poland and Romania. ... And it would generate fierce Ukrainian armed resistance, with strong support from the West.

 * Although Mr. Putin will, in my experience, never admit to making a mistake, he has shown that he can be both patient and pragmatic. He also is surely conscious that the current confrontation has left him even more dependent on China; he knows that Russia cannot prosper without some ties to the West.

 * Mr. Putin must know that a second Cold War would not necessarily go well for Russia — even with its nuclear weapons. Strong U.S. allies can be found on nearly every continent. Mr. Putin’s friends, meanwhile, include the likes of Bashar al-Assad, Alexander Lukashenko and Kim Jong-un. If Mr. Putin feels backed into a corner, he has only himself to blame. As Mr. Biden has noted, the United States has no desire to destabilize or deprive Russia of its legitimate aspirations. That’s why the administration and its allies have offered to engage in talks with Moscow on an open-ended range of security issues. But America must insist that Russia act in accordance with international standards applicable to all nations.

 * Ukraine is entitled to its sovereignty, no matter who its neighbors happen to be. In the modern era, great countries accept that, and so must Mr. Putin. That is the message undergirding recent Western diplomacy. It defines the difference between a world governed by the rule of law and one answerable to no rules at all.

Quotes about Albright

 * Consider Madeleine Albright. The U.N. imposed draconian sanctions on Iraq, pushed by the U.S. and Britain after it invaded Kuwait. Before that, in 1989 Iraq was reported to have “one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world, as well as universal, free healthcare and education.” (“Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq,” johnpilger.com, 1-15-05) Iraq’s remarkable health was due to President Saddam Hussein nationalizing the country’s vast oil resources, and investing certain of its revenue in the Iraqi people. This policy did not set well with Western oil corporations, which saw Iraq’s bountiful oil reserves as a gold mine to be controlled and tapped. The sanctions prevented Iraq from importing supplies of food and medicine and other necessities. A survey by two scientists, Drs. Mary Smith Fawzi and Sarah Zaidi, found that “as many as 576,000 Iraqi children may have died since the end of the Persian Gulf war because of economic sanctions imposed by the Security Council.” (“Iraqi Sanctions, Kill Children, U.N. Reports,” By Barbara Crossette, The New York Times, Dec. 1, 1995)
 * America’s Respectable War Criminals, William Alberts, CounterPunch, 2019

 * Shortly after the end of the Cold War, virtually the entire American foreign-policy establishment succumbed to a monumentally self-destructive ideological fever. Call it INS.... Indispensable Nation Syndrome, along with the militarism that it’s spawned in this century... Back in 1998, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright not only identified INS, but also captured its essence. Appearing on national TV, she famously declared, “If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.” Now, allow me to be blunt: this is simply not true. It’s malarkey, hogwash, bunkum, and baloney.,, The United States does not see further into the future than Ireland, Indonesia, or any other country, regardless of how ancient or freshly minted it may be.,, To charge Albright with lying, however, somehow rates as bad form, impolite, even rude...To be fair, Albright herself is not solely or even mainly responsible for the havoc that INS has caused. While the former secretary of state promoted the syndrome in notably expansive language, the substance of her remark was anything but novel. She was merely reiterating what, in Washington, still passes for a self-evident truism: America must lead... we make the rules.
 * Belief in America as the "Indispensible Nation" Is Bullshit—And Always Has Been, by Andrew Bacevich, TomDispatch, August 5, 2021

 * ..veteran Pentagon officials told the Senate Budget Committee in 1991 that military spending could safely be cut by 50% over the next 10 years... U.S. officials instead set out to exploit the post-Cold War "power dividend," a huge military imbalance in favor of the United States, by developing rationales for using military force more freely and widely around the world. During the transition to the new Clinton administration, Madeleine Albright famously asked Gen. Colin Powell, then chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?"  In 1999, as secretary of state under Bill Clinton, Albright got her wish, running roughshod over the UN Charter with an illegal war to carve out an independent Kosovo from the ruins of Yugoslavia. The UN Charter clearly prohibits the threat or use of military force except in cases of self-defense or when the UN Security Council takes military action "to maintain or restore international peace and security." This was neither. When U.K. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told Albright his government was "having trouble with our lawyers" over NATO's illegal war plan, Albright crassly told him to "get new lawyers."
 * Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, Congress loots the Treasury for U.S. war machine — while bickering over Build Back Better, Salon, (December 7, 2021)

 * Twenty-two years later, Kosovo is the third-poorest country in Europe (after Moldova and post-coup Ukraine) and its independence is still not recognized by 96 countries. Hashim Thaçi, Albright's hand-picked main ally in Kosovo and later its president, is awaiting trial in an international court at the Hague, charged with murdering at least 300 civilians under cover of NATO bombing in 1999 to extract and sell their internal organs on the international transplant market. Clinton and Albright's gruesome and illegal war set the precedent for more illegal U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and elsewhere, with equally devastating and horrific results.
 * Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, Congress loots the Treasury for U.S. war machine — while bickering over Build Back Better, Salon, (December 7, 2021)

 * There was now a bipartisan consensus on war, and it extended into the next conflict, Iraq. Indeed the predicate for that war had been laid by the previous administration, which hyped the threats of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction program. “No one has done what Saddam Hussein has done, or is thinking of doing,” Clinton’s secretary of state Madeleine Albright told the audience at a town hall meeting at Ohio State University in 1998. “He is producing weapons of mass destruction, and he is qualitatively and quantitatively different from other dictators.” When some in the room expressed skepticism, Albright attacked their character. “I’m really surprised that people feel they need to defend the rights of Saddam Hussein,” she said. At least one person in the crowd wasn’t intimidated. “You’re not answering my question, Madame Albright,” he yelled. Albright’s response: “As a former university professor, I suggest, sir, that you study carefully what American foreign policy is. Every one of the violations has been pointed out on what is not right, and I would be happy to spend fifty minutes with you after the forum to explain it.” She never did. Nor did Albright explain how exactly Saddam was “qualitatively and quantitatively” different from other strongmen around the world. She didn’t need to. Everyone back in Washington already agreed with her.
 * Tucker Carlson, Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution (2018)
 * I really am tired of all the Clinton Democrats running around getting all-sanctimonious over Iraq. It was them who killed 1.5 to 2.2 million Iraqis through sanctions. Sanctions that Madeline Albright, their illustrious Secretary of State, when confronted with the fact of 500,000 dead Iraqi children, said it was a price she was willing to pay.
 * Scott Ritter Says Controversial Things About Clinton, Bush, Fox News, the Surge, etc., Interview with the Memphis Flyer, (8 May 2008)

 * About half a million Iraqi children have died as a result of the sanctions. Of them, Madeleine Albright, then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, famously said, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price-we think the price is worth it." "Moral equivalence" was the term that was used to denounce those who criticized the war on Afghanistan. Madeleine Albright cannot be accused of moral equivalence. What she said was just straightforward algebra.
 * Arundhati Roy War Talk (2003)

 * Maybe it wasn't such a great idea for Hillary Clinton to invite Madeleine Albright to campaign for her in New Hampshire. During a campaign event in Concord on Saturday, the former Secretary of State declared: "Young women have to support Hillary Clinton. The story is not over!...They’re going to want to push us back," she continued. "It’s not done and you have to help. Hillary Clinton will always be there for you. And just remember, there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other." And while it was not the first time Albright muttered that phrase, the backlash was swift and severe. Pointing to Albright's notorious defense of the 1990 sanctions on Iraq, during which she said that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children was "worth it," observers speculated about someone else who may end up in that "special place."
 * Rebuke Swift After Albright Declares: 'Special Place in Hell' for Women Who Don't Vote Clinton, by Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams, February 7, 2016

Disputed

 * Hugh, I know I shouldn't even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out Saddam is a precipitous event—something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough—and slow enough—so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?
 * See "The Evil of Madeleine Albright" by Gary Leupp

title: Madeleine Albright


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User:Jarsonic

4th Year Undergraduate at the University of Virginia, double majoring in Economics and Religious Studies.

 * My blog
 * UVa webspace

title: User:Jarsonic


text:
Skepticism

Skepticism is a method of intellectual caution, suspended judgment, and pursuing knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing.

Antiquity

 * Meno: How will you look for something when you don't in the least know what it is? How on earth are you going to set up something you don't know as the object of your search? ...
 * Socrates: We ought not then to be led astray by the contentious argument you quoted. It would make us lazy, and is music in the ears of weaklings. The other doctrine produces energetic seekers after knowledge.
 * Plato, Meno, 80d-81e, W. Guthrie, trans., Collected Dialogs (1961), pp. 363-364

 * I shouldn't like to take my oath on the whole story, but one thing I am ready to fight for as long I can, in word and in act—that is, that we shall be better, braver, and more active men if we believe it right to look for what we don't know than if we believe there is no point in looking because what we don't know we can never discover.
 * Plato, Socrates in Meno, 86b, W. Guthrie, trans., Collected Dialogs (1961), p. 371

 * We need to use every argument we can to fight against anyone who does away with knowledge, understanding and intelligence but at the same time asserts anything at all about anything.
 * Plato, Sophist, 249e, as translated by Nicholas P. White, in Plato: Complete Works (1997), p. 271

Seventeenth century

 * The doctrine of those who have denied that certainty could be attained at all, has some agreement with my way of proceeding at the first setting out; but they end in being infinitely separated and opposed. For the holders of that doctrine assert simply that nothing can be known; I also assert that not much can be known in nature by the way which is now in use. But then they go on to destroy the authority of the senses and understanding; whereas I proceed to devise helps for the same.
 * Francis Bacon, Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man, § 37

 * During the nine subsequent years, I did nothing but roam from one place to another, desirous of being a spectator rather than an actor in the plays exhibited on the theatre of the world; and, as I made it my business in each matter to reflect particularly upon what might fairly be doubted and prove a source of error, I gradually rooted out from my mind all the errors which had hitherto crept into it. Not that in this I imitated the Sceptics who doubt only that they may doubt, and seek nothing beyond uncertainty itself.
 * Descartes, Discourse on Method (1637), J. Veitch, trans. (1899), part 3, p. 30

Eighteenth century

 * Scepticism is the first step towards truth.
 * Denis Diderot, Pensées Philosophiques (1746)

 * Through a vicious circle of pure reason skepsis itself becomes dogma.
 * Johann Georg Hamann, Briefwechsel, ed. Arthur Henkel (1955-1975), vol. V, p. 432

 * Even if my philosophy does not extend to discovering anything new, it does nevertheless possess the courage to regard as questionable what has long been thought true.
 * Georg Lichtenberg, The Waste Books (1799), R. J. Hollingdale trans. (2000), K12

 * Bei den meisten Menschen gründet sich der unglaube in einer Sache auf blinden Glauben in einer anderen.
 * With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.
 * Georg Lichtenberg, The Waste Books, L81

Nineteenth century

 * They know their profession, but they ignore anything unconnected with their profession. So, to protect their self-esteem, they call everything into question, criticize right and left; seem skeptical but are actually gullible, and drown their minds in interminable discussions. Almost all of them adopt convenient social, literary, or political prejudices so as to dispense with having to form an opinion of their own, just as they place their conscience in the shelter of common law, or of the commercial court. Having left home early in order to become remarkable men, they become mediocre, and crawl along the heights of society. Accordingly, their faces present us with this sour pallor; these false complexions, these dull, lined eyes, these talkative and sensual mouths where the observer recognizes the symptoms of the degeneration of thought and its turning round and round in the dull circle of specialization that kills the generative faculties of the brain, the gift of seeing the big picture, of generalizing and deducing.
 * Honoré de Balzac, The Girl with the Golden Eyes (1833)

 * If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it—the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.
 * William Kingdon Clifford, The Ethics of Belief (1877)

 * In liberated moments we know that a new picture of life and duty is already possible; the elements already exist in many minds around you of a doctrine of life that shall transcend any written record we have. The new statement will comprise the skepticism as well as the faiths of society, and out of unbeliefs a creed shall be formed. For skepticisms are not gratuitous or lawless, but are limitations of the affirmative statement, and the new philosophy must take them in and make affirmations out of them, just as much as it must include the oldest beliefs.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Experience," in Essays: Second Series (1844)

 * By the conversion of opinion held on authority into opinion held out of personal conviction, the content of what is held is not necessarily altered, and truth has not thereby taken the place of error. If we stick to a system of opinion and prejudice resting on the authority of others, or upon personal conviction, the one differs from the other merely in the conceit which animates the latter. Scepticism, directed to the whole compass of phenomenal consciousness, on the contrary, makes mind for the first time qualified to test what truth is; since it brings about a despair regarding what are called natural views, thoughts, and opinions, which it is matter of indifference to call personal or belonging to others, and with which the consciousness, that proceeds straight away to criticize and test, is still filled and hampered, thus being, as a matter of fact, incapable of what it wants to undertake.
 * Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), J. B. Baillie translation, § 78-79

 * This conceit which understands how to belittle every truth, in order to turn back into itself and gloat over its own understanding, which knows how to dissolve every thought and always find the same barren Ego instead of any content—this is a satisfaction which we must leave to itself.
 * Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), A. V. Miller translation (Oxford: 1977), § 80

 * All skepticism is a kind of idealism. Hence when the skeptic Zeno pursued the study of skepticism by endeavoring existentially to keep himself unaffected by whatever happened, so that when once he had gone out of his way to avoid a mad dog, he shamefacedly admitted that even a skeptical philosopher is also sometimes a man, I find nothing ridiculous in this. There is no contradiction, and the comical always lies in a contradiction.
 * Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (1846), p. 315, as translated by David F. Swenson and Walter Lowrie 1941 Fifth Printing Princeton University Press

 * If it were so, as conceited sagacity, proud of not being deceived, thinks, that we should believe nothing that we cannot see with our physical eyes, then we first and foremost ought to give up believing in love. ... We can be deceived by believing what is untrue, but we certainly are also deceived by not believing what is true. ... Which deception is more dangerous?
 * Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (1847), p. 5

 * I keep having the same experience and keep resisting it every time. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lack an intellectual conscience. Indeed, it has often seemed to me as if anyone calling for an intellectual conscience were as lonely in the most densely populated cities as if he were in a desert. Everybody looks at you with strange eyes and goes right on handling his scales, calling this good and that evil. Nobody even blushes when you intimate that their weights are underweight; nor do people feel outraged; they merely laugh at your doubts. I mean: the great majority of people does not consider it contemptible to believe this or that and to live accordingly, without first having given themselves an account of the final and most certain reasons pro and con, and without even troubling themselves about such reasons afterward: the most gifted men and the noblest women still belong to this "great majority." But what is goodheartedness, refinement, or genius to me, when the person who has these virtues tolerates slack feelings in his faith and judgments and when he does not account the desire for certainty as his inmost craving and deepest distress—as that which separates the higher human beings from the lower.
 * Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882), Section 2

Twentieth century

 * I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers.  I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.
 * Isaac Asimov (1997) The Roving Mind. Prometheus Books, p. 349

 * At the end of a life spent in the pursuit of knowledge Faust has to confess: "I now see that we can nothing know." That is the answer to a sum, it is the outcome of a long experience. But as Kierkegaard observed, it is quite a different thing when a freshman comes up to the university and uses the same sentiment to justify his indolence. As the answer to a sum it is perfectly true, but as the initial data it is a piece of self-deception.
 * Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Nachfolge (1937), translated as The Cost of Discipleship (1959), p. 51

 * History is replete with examples of what happens when any group of authorities do not have to answer to empirical evidence but are free to define truth as they see fit. None of the examples has a happy ending. Why should it be otherwise with therapy?
 * Robert Todd Carroll, The Skeptic's Dictionary, entry on "repressed memory therapy (RMT)"

 * We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern sceptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance.
 * G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908), p. 56

 * Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. … There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped. That is the ultimate evil against which all religious authority was aimed.
 * G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908), p. 58

 * In the act of destroying the idea of Divine authority we have largely destroyed the idea of that human authority by which we do a long-division sum. With a long and sustained tug we have attempted to pull the mitre off pontifical man; and his head has come off with it.
 * G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908), pp. 59-60

 * The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.
 * Clarence Darrow, "Why I Am An Agnostic" (1929)

 * There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made.
 * Richard Feynman, in a letter to Armando Garcia J, December 11, 1985

 * The function of the lawyer is to preserve a sceptical relativism in a society hell-bent for absolutes. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell there will be nothing but law and due process will be meticulously observed.
 * Grant Gilmore, The Ages of American Law (1977), p. 110

 * Rabid suspicion has nothing in it of skepticism. The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
 * Eric Hoffer, in The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955), Section 184

 * I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything — especially as I am now so much occupied with theology — but I don't see my way to your conclusion.
 * Thomas Henry Huxley, in a letter to Herbert Spencer (22 March 1886); this is often quoted with a variant spelling as: I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything.

 * There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.
 * Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity (1921), p. 4

 * Skepticism is part of reflection … In religion and ethics, in politics, you have to be skeptical of claims that people make. It applies to all parts of life. Your own beliefs and the beliefs of others, and your willingness to examine these, to see if they hold up under scrutiny.
 * Paul Kurtz in:

 * And I may add that it taught me something about the limitations of the small . . . orthodox scientist who won't recognize as knowledge, or as reality, any information that doesn't fit into the already existent science.
 * Abraham Maslow as quoted in New Pathways In Psychology (1972) by Colin Wilson

 * The skeptic will claim that if there is an external world, the things in it are observable because they exist, and not the other way around: that existence isn’t the same thing as observability. And although we get the idea of dreams and hallucinations from cases where we think we can observe the contrast between our experiences and reality, it certainly seems as if the same idea can be extended to cases where the reality is not observable. If that is right, it seems to follow that it is not meaningless to think that the world might consist of nothing but the inside of your mind, though neither you nor anyone else could find out that this was true. And if this is not meaningless, but is a possibility you must consider, there seems no way to prove that it is false, without arguing in a circle. So there may be no way out of the cage of your own mind. This is sometimes called the egocentric predicament. And yet, after all this has been said, I have to admit it is practically impossible to believe seriously that all the things in the world around you might not really exist. Our acceptance of the external world is instinctive and powerful: we cannot just get rid of it by philosophical arguments. Not only do we go on acting as if other people and things exist: we believe that they do, even after we’ve gone through the arguments which appear to show we have no grounds for this belief. (We may have grounds, within the overall system of our beliefs about the world, for more particular beliefs about the existence of particular things: like a mouse in the breadbox, for example. But that is different. It assumes the existence of the external world.)
 * Thomas Nagel, What Does It All Mean? (1987), Chap. 2 : How We Do Know Anything?

 * Plus, the only part of my character that I can say I'm really proud of is a skepticism about my own bullshit...
 * Josh Ozersky, ''Eat Like a Man (April 29, 2013)

 * To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient truths; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
 * Henri Poincaré in: Harold Chapman Brown (1914) "The Work of Henri Poincare" in: The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods. Vol 11. p. 9. p. 225-236

 * What really made me angry though twas finding myself agreeing with any of the journal's articles, and I did agree with several. the writers had a keen, if cold intelligence. They did a great deal of seeing through some of the nonsense concerned with the psychic field in general. Of course, they were almost vengefully gleeful when they could legitimately knock down some psychic performance, or show a psychic's predictions to be wrong. Only why couldn't they see their own scientific nonsense? And why couldn't their trained intellects perceive their own emotional vehemence? Because, I thought unhappily, they were scientific witch hunters.
 * Jane Roberts, in The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981), p. 141

 * Many people feel duty-bound to express skepticism as if it were an automatic badge of honor and intellectual superiority. I'd done the same thing in the past, so I could understand the attitude.
 * Jane Roberts, in Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness (1986), p. 1

 * When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.
 * Bertrand Russell, Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? (1947)

 * I do not think it possible to get anywhere if we start from scepticism. We must start from a broad acceptance of whatever seems to be knowledge and is not rejected for some specific reason.
 * Bertrand Russell, My Philosophical Development (1959), p. 200

 * It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish useful ideas from the worthless ones.
 * Carl Sagan, in "The Burden of Skepticism" (1987)

 * You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it.
 * Carl Sagan, in "The Burden of Skepticism" (1987) on pseudoskepticism.

 * The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them — the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, to hell with you. This is nonconstructive. It does not get our message across. It condemns us to permanent minority status.
 * Carl Sagan, in The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark (1996), p. 300

 * Profound skepticism is favorable to conventions, because it doubts that the criticism of conventions is any truer than they are.
 * George Santayana, in "On My Friendly Critics", in Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)

 * Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.
 * George Santayana, The Works of George Santayana, p. 65

 * Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.
 * George Santayana, as quoted in Quotations for Our Time (1977) edited by Laurence J. Peter

 * In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved. He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis — saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact — he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof.
 * Marcello Truzzi, "On Pseudo-Skepticism" in Zetetic Scholar 12/13 (1987), p. 3

 * Absolute relativism, which is neither more nor less than skepticism, in the most modern sense of the term, is the supreme triumph of the reasoning reason.
 * Miguel de Unamuno, in The Tragic Sense of Life (1913) as translated by J. E. Crawford Flitch (1921)

Twenty-first century

 * THE SKEPTIC'S HOROSCOPE for Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius (Jan 1, 2007 – Dec 31, 2007): The coming year is likely to present challenges; these trials are when your true character will show. Trusted friends can provide assistance in particularly pressing situations. Make use of the skills you have to compensate for ones you lack. Your reputation in the future depends on your honesty and integrity this year. Monetary investments will prove risky; inform yourself as much as possible. On the positive side, your chances of winning the lottery have never been greater!
 * Tim Harrod, in "Universal Horoscope" (5 January 2005)

 * If skepticism means anything it means skepticism about the things you WANT to be true. It's easy to be a skeptic about others' views.
 * Angus Johnston, twitter (20 May 2017)

 * Be curious. A skeptic is a wanderer. If you’re using skepticism as a reason not to read something, not to think about something, not to learn something new, you’re not a good skeptic.
 * Timothy Burke, "Helpful Hints for Skeptics" (May 21, 2017)

 * Those who say that all historical accounts are ideological constructs (which is one version of the idea that there is really no historical truth) rely on some story which must itself claim historical truth. They show that supposedly "objective" historians have tendentiously told their stories from some particular perspective; they describe, for example, the biasses that have gone into constructing various histories of the United States. Such an account, as a particular piece of history, may very well be true, but truth is a virtue that is embarrassingly unhelpful to a critic who wants not just to unmask past historians of America but to tell us that at the end of the line there is no historical truth. It is remarkable how complacent some "deconstructive" histories are about the status of the history that they deploy themselves.
 * Bernard Williams, Truth and Truthfulness (2002)

 * A further turn is to be found in some "unmasking" accounts of natural science, which aim to show that its pretensions to deliver the truth are unfounded, because of social forces that control its activities. Unlike the case of history, these do not use truths of the same kind; they do not apply science to the criticism of science. They apply the social sciences, and typically depend on the remarkable assumption that the sociology of knowledge is in a better position to deliver truth about science than science is to deliver truth about the world.
 * Bernard Williams, Truth and Truthfulness (2002)

title: Skepticism


text:
Love Actually

Love Actually is a 2003 film that follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely and interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London, England.
 * Written and directed by Richard Curtis.

Coming soon actually. Taglines

David, the Prime Minister

 * [first lines, playing over a montage of reunions at Heathrow Airport] Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that [the following words appear on screen] love actually is all around. [the screen turns black, showing the words "love actually"]
 * We may be a small country, but we are a great one. A country of Shakespeare, Churchill, The Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter, David Beckham's right foot, David Beckham's left foot come to that...

Billy Mack

 * Oh. Hiya kids. Here is an important message from your Uncle Bill. Don't buy drugs..... Become a pop star, and they give you them for free!
 * Thank you, Ant or Dec.
 * [after fluffing up recording his song "Christmas is All Around" for the second time] Oh, fuck, wank, bugger, shitting, arse, head and hole!

Other

 * Judy: [to Jack] All I want for Christmas is you.

Dialogue

 * Daniel: So what's the problem, Sammy-o? Is it just Mum or is it something else? Maybe... school – are you being bullied? Or is it something worse? Can you give me any clues at all?
 * Sam: You really want to know?
 * Daniel: I really want to know.
 * Sam: Even though you won't be able to do anything to help?
 * Daniel: Even if that's the case, yeah.
 * Sam: OK. The truth is actually... I'm in love.
 * Daniel: Sorry?
 * Sam: I know I should be thinking about Mum all the time, and I am. But the truth is I'm in love and I was before she died, and there's nothing I can do about it.
 * Daniel: Aren't you a bit young to be in love?
 * Sam: No.
 * Daniel: Oh, OK, right. Well, I'm a little relieved.
 * Sam: Why?
 * Daniel: Well, you know – I thought it might be something worse.
 * Sam: [incredulous] Worse than the total agony of being in love?
 * Daniel: Oh. No, you're right. Yeah, total agony.

 * Daniel: Option One: ask her out.
 * Sam: Impossible.
 * Daniel: Fair enough. Option Two: become her friend.
 * Sam: She's the most popular girl in school and she hates boys.
 * Daniel: Okay. Option Three: kidnap her and keep her tied up in your room until she agrees to marry you.
 * Sam: It's a route I've considered.
 * Daniel: And quite rightly rejected on the grounds of...
 * Sam: Hygiene.

 * Daniel: You know, Sammy, I'm sure she's unique and extraordinary, but... the general wisdom is that, in the end, there isn't just one person for each of us.
 * Sam: [referring to the Titanic film] There was for Kate and Leo. There was for you. There is for me. [holds up one finger] She's "the one".
 * Daniel: Fair enough.

 * Harry: Sarah, turn off your phone and tell me exactly how long you've been working for us.
 * Sarah: Two years, seven months, three days and what, about two hours.
 * Harry: And how long have you been in love with Karl, our enigmatic chief designer?
 * [pause]
 * Sarah: Two years, seven months, three days and I'd say about an hour and thirty minutes.
 * Harry: I thought as much.
 * Sarah: Do you think everybody knows?
 * Harry: Yes.
 * Sarah: Does Karl know?
 * Harry: Yes.

 * Colin: I've just worked out why I can't find true love.
 * Tony: Why is that?
 * Colin: English girls. They're stuck up, you see. And I am primarily attractive to girls, you know, who are cooler, game for a laugh. Like American girls. So I should just go to America! I'd get a girlfriend there instantly. What do you think?
 * Tony: I think it's...crap, Colin.
 * Colin: That's where you're wrong. American girls would dig me with my cute British accent.
 * Tony: You don't have a cute British accent.
 * Colin: Yes, I do! I'm going to America.
 * Tony: Colin, you're a lonely, ugly arsehole. Accept it.
 * Colin: Never. I am Colin, God of Sex. I'm just on the wrong continent, that's all.

 * Colin: Exciting news!
 * Tony: What?
 * Colin: I bought a ticket to the States. I'm off in three weeks!
 * Tony: No!
 * Colin: Yes! To a fantastic little place called Wisconsin!
 * Tony: No!
 * Colin: Yes! Wisconsin babes, here comes Sir Colin!
 * Tony: No, Col! There are a few babes in America, I grant you, but they're going out with rich, attractive guys.
 * Colin: Nah, Tone, you're just jealous. You know perfectly well that any bar anywhere in America contains ten girls more beautiful and more likely to have sex with me than the whole of the United Kingdom.
 * Tony: That is total bollocks. You’ve actually gone mad.
 * Colin: No, I'm wise. Stateside I am Prince William without the weird family.
 * Tony: No, Col. No.
 * Colin: Yes!
 * Tony: Nyet!
 * Colin: Da!
 * Tony: Nein!
 * Colin: Ja, darling!

 * Harry: Right, the Christmas party, not my favourite night of the year and your unhappy job to organise.
 * Mia: Tell me.
 * Harry: It's basic, really. Find a venue, over-order on the drinks, bulk buy the guacamole and advise the girls to avoid Kevin if they want their breasts unfondled.

 * [The new Prime Minister has just arrived in Number Ten Downing Street]
 * Annie: Would you like to meet your household staff?
 * Prime Minister: Yes, I would like that very much indeed. Anything to put off actually running the country.

 * Annie: And this is Natalie. She's new as well.
 * Natalie: Hello David. I mean, Sir. Shit, I can't believe I've just said that. And now I've gone and said 'shit'. Twice. Oh, I'm so sorry Sir.
 * Prime Minister: That's alright. You could have said 'fuck' and then we'd all be in trouble.
 * Natalie: Thank you, Sir. I did have a terrible premonition I was going to fuck up on my first day. Oh piss it!

 * Press Conference Reporter: Mr. President, has it been a good visit?
 * The President of the U.S.: Very satisfactory indeed. We got what we came for and our special relationship is still very special.
 * Press Conference Reporter: Prime Minister?
 * Prime Minister: I love that word "relationship". Covers all manner of sins, doesn't it? I fear that this has become a bad relationship. A relationship based on the President taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all those things that really matter to, erm... Britain. We may be a small country but we're a great one, too. The country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter. David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot, come to that. And a friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the President should be prepared for that.

 * Natalie: [talking about her ex-boyfriend] He says no one's going to fancy a girl with thighs the size of big tree trunks. Not a nice guy, actually, in the end.
 * Prime Minister: Right. Goodness. Well, well. You know, being Prime Minister, I could just have him murdered.
 * Natalie: Thank you, sir. I'll think about it.
 * Prime Minister: Do. The SAS are absolutely charming. Ruthless trained killers are just a phone call away.

 * Mikey, DJ interviewer: Well. Thanks for that, Bill.
 * Billy Mack: For what?
 * Mikey, DJ interviewer: Well, for actually giving a real answer to a question. Doesn't often happen here on "Radio Watford" I can tell you.
 * Billy Mack: Ask me anything you like, I'll tell you the truth.
 * Mikey, DJ interviewer: Uh... best shag you've ever had?
 * Billy Mack: Britney Spears.
 * Mikey, DJ interviewer: Wow!
 * Billy Mack: No, only kidding. She was rubbish.

 * Billy Mack: I realized that Christmas is the time to be with the people you love.
 * Joe: Right.
 * Billy Mack: And I realized that as dire chance and fateful cockup would have it, here I am, mid 50s, and without knowing it I've gone and spent most of my adult life with a chubby employee. And much as it grieves me to say it, it might be that the people I love is, in fact... you.
 * [pause]
 * Joe: Well, this is a surprise.
 * Billy Mack: Yeah...
 * Joe: Ten minutes at Elton John's and you're as gay as a maypole.
 * Billy Mack: I left Elton's, where there were a hefty number of half-naked chicks with their mouths open, in order to hang out with you, at Christmas.
 * Joe: Well, Bill...
 * Billy Mack: It's a terrible, terrible mistake, Chubs, but you turn out to be the fucking love of my life. And to be honest, despite all my complaining, we have had a wonderful life.

 * Karen: Tell me, what would you do in my position?
 * Harry: What position is that?
 * Karen: Imagine your husband bought a gold necklace and come Christmas gave it to somebody else...
 * Harry: Oh, Karen...
 * Karen: Would you wait around to find out if it's just a necklace, or if it's sex and a necklace, or if worst of all it's a necklace and love? Would you stay, knowing life would always be a little bit worse? Or would you cut and run?
 * Harry: Oh, God. I am so in the wrong. The classic fool.
 * Karen: [voice breaking] Yes, but you've also made a fool out of me, and you've made the life I lead foolish too.

 * Daisy: We've been given our parts in the nativity play! And I'm the lobster!
 * Karen: The Lobster?
 * Daisy: Yeah!
 * Karen: [confused] In the nativity play?
 * Daisy: Yeah! First Lobster!
 * Karen: [still confused] There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?
 * Daisy: Duh!

 * Rufus, the Clerk: Looking for anything in particular, sir?
 * Harry: Ah, yeah. That necklace there, how much is it?
 * Rufus: It's £270, sir.
 * Harry: Oh, alright, I'll have it, thanks.
 * Clerk: Lovely. Would you like it gift-wrapped?
 * Harry: Oh. Yeah, why not.
 * Clerk: Lovely. Just pop that in there. (puts in in a box, measures out ribbon)
 * Harry: Can we be quite quick?
 * Clerk: Certainly, sir. Ready in the flashiest of flashes. (ties ribbon) There.
 * Harry: That's great!
 * Clerk: Not...quite. (gets a small bag)
 * Harry: I don't need a bag, I'll just put it in my pocket.
 * Clerk: Oh this isn't a bag, sir.
 * Harry: No?
 * Clerk: This is so much more than a bag. (puts box in bag and sets it upright)
 * Harry: Can we be quite quick?
 * Clerk: Prontissimo! (fills the bag with flowers petals and lavender. Brings out something else)
 * Harry: What's that?!
 * Clerk: It's a cinnamon stick, sir.
 * Harry: Can we get a move on?
 * Clerk: You won't regret it.
 * Harry: Wanna bet?
 * Clerk: There. Almost finished.
 * Harry: "Almost finished"?! What else are you gonna do, you gonna dip it in yoghurt? Cover it in chocolate buttons?
 * Clerk: No, sir. Just pop it in the Christmas box.
 * Harry: But I don't want a Christmas box!
 * Clerk: You said you wanted it gift-wrapped sir.
 * Harry: I did, but-
 * Clerk: This is the final flourish, sir.
 * Harry: Can I just pay?!
 * Clerk: All we need now...
 * Harry: Oh God!
 * Clerk: Is a sprig of holly.
 * Harry: No! No! No bloody holly!

 * Colin: [at the Departures gate, saying goodbye to Tony] Farewell, failure. America, watch out! Here comes Colin Frissell. (singing tenor) And he's got a big knoooob!

<hr width=50%/>
 * [the curtain goes up at the finale of the student concert, revealing Natalie and the Prime Minister passionately snogging]
 * Prime Minister: Right. So not quite as secret as we'd hoped.
 * Natalie: What do we do now?
 * Prime Minister: Smile. Little bow. And a wave. [all of which they do, awkwardly]

Taglines

 * Coming soon actually.
 * The ultimate romantic comedy.
 * Very romantic. Very comedy.
 * All You Need Is Love
 * It's All About Love... Actually.

Cast

 * Hugh Grant – The Prime Minister
 * Martine McCutcheon – Natalie
 * Bill Nighy – Billy Mack
 * Gregor Fisher – Joe
 * Colin Firth – Jamie Bennett
 * Lúcia Moniz – Aurelia
 * Liam Neeson – Daniel
 * Thomas Sangster – Sam
 * Emma Thompson – Karen
 * Alan Rickman – Harry
 * Heike Makatsch – Mia
 * Chiwetel Ejiofor – Peter
 * Andrew Lincoln – Mark
 * Keira Knightley – Juliet
 * Nina Sosanya – Annie
 * Laura Linney – Sarah
 * Rodrigo Santoro – Karl
 * Kris Marshall – Colin Frissell
 * Martin Freeman – John
 * Joanna Page – Just Judy
 * Sienna Guillory – Jamie's Girlfriend
 * Billy Bob Thornton – The US President
 * Ivana Milicevic – Stacey, American Dreamgirl
 * January Jones – Jeannie, American Angel
 * Elisha Cuthbert – Carol-Anne, American Goddess
 * Shannon Elizabeth – Harriet, the sexy one
 * Denise Richards – Carla, the real friendly one
 * Rowan Atkinson – Rufus, jewellery salesman
 * Julia Davis – Nancy the caterer

title: Love Actually


text:
Down Periscope

Down Periscope is a 1996 comedy film starring Kelsey Grammer as the captain of a rust-bucket submarine (called the USS Stingray) who is fighting for his career. Rob Schneider provides comic support as the uptight executive officer, and Lauren Holly as the Navy's first female submarine officer.
 * Directed by David S. Ward. Written by Hugh Wilson, Andrew Kurtzman, and Eliot Wald.

A rusty sub. A rebel commander. A renegade crew. When destiny called, they should have hung up.

Lieutenant Commander Tom Dodge

 * [Hitting a golf ball off a submarine's deck] Oh get up there, you miserable little puke!
 * [Meeting the Stingray's crew for the first time] Nice pants. Lose the cigar. Oh, you better burn that shirt, sailor. [Under his breath] It's the crew from Hell.
 * [After the Stingray's overhaul] Well done, guys. She may not be the youngest girl at the ball... but she'll turn a head or two. If she drives as well as she looks, we may even survive!
 * Alright, gentlemen. Let's kick this pig!
 * [repeated line] God, I love this job!

Rear Admiral Yancy Graham

 * [Objecting at a meeting of flag officers regarding Dodge's command] There is physical evidence that, as an ensign, he did become so physically intoxicated that he not only allowed himself to be tattooed, but tattooed on his genitalia. Now, call me a prude if you want, but I don't think it's good policy for the Navy to hand over a billion-dollar piece of equipment to a man who has "Welcome Aboard" tattooed on his penis!
 * [About to finally catch Dodge in the wargame] I've got you now, Popeye.

Others

 * CDR Carl Knox: [Catching Dodge hitting golf balls off the submarine deck] Oh, what the heck! Why don't we pull in so you can putt out!
 * EM "Mike" Nitro: [testing wires] 1B, cold. 1C...[wire sparks a big flash] ...Hot!
 * EM "Mike" Nitro: Radio's working like a Swiss...car.
 * CPO Howard: Okay, boys. Down we go...ah, ha-ha-ha.
 * CPO Howard: [Tapes a string tight across the engine room as the Stingray does a deep dive] Now, keep an eye on that string. 'Cause the water pressure's gonna squeeze the hull of this boat like an empty beer can. [cackles]
 * ST2C E.T. "Sonar" Lovacelli: Approaching the bottom, sir. I can hear a couple of lobsters duking it out.
 * LT Emily Lake: Balls to the walls, boys!

Dialogue

 * [aboard a launch at Naval Station Norfolk]
 * RADM Yancy Graham: It's good to see you again, Dodge. Been about four years.
 * LCDR Tom Dodge: Something like that, sir; not since we were both at Kings Bay.
 * Graham: Well, you're about to join the elite of the submarine service. The best the U.S. Navy has to offer.
 * Dodge: Damn good feeling, sir.
 * Graham: As a matter of fact, there she is right now: your new boat. [Dodge turns to look; a rusty old submarine is tied up at the pier.] USS Stingray, SS-161.
 * Dodge: [Horrified] That! This can't be my boat, sir.
 * Graham: Well, it most certainly is. Balao-class, refitted 1958.
 * Dodge: Balao-class?! But that's a diesel sub! This is a joke, right? The Navy doesn't even use diesels anymore!
 * Graham: They do now; she's been recommissioned.
 * Dodge: Well, no disrespect to the USS Rust-Oleum here, but I'd be better off in the Merrimac! I was trained to command a nuclear boat!
 * Graham: Are you refusing to take command?
 * Dodge: ...No, sir.
 * Graham: Good. You'll meet your crew here tomorrow morning, at 0700.
 * Dodge: [Sarcastic] They also left over from World War II, sir?
 * Graham: No, Captain. They've been hand-picked. By me.

 * [Dodge visits Winslow after being given command of the Stingray]
 * LCDR Tom Dodge: Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Admiral Winslow.
 * VADM Dean Winslow: Certainly, Captain. Take a seat. [Both sit] So, how do you like your boat?
 * Dodge: It's a complete piece of...[pauses at Winslow's stern look] antiquated equipment, sir. Sir, I have dedicated the better part of my life to getting my own boat. I was wondering why the Navy chose to embarrass me in this way.
 * Winslow: No embarrassment intended, Captain; you've been chosen for a specific mission.
 * Dodge: To turn her into a museum, sir? "The Wonderful World of Corrosion"?
 * Winslow: Hardly. [Hands Dodge a 'Classified' folder, with reconnaissance photos inside.] Here are some recent satellite photos of the Russian Naval bases at Petropavlovsk and Vladivostok. That's where the Russians have got their diesel sub fleet. They're docked there. But each week, there are fewer, cause they're sellin' 'em off like hotcakes; to countries like Iran, Iraq and Libya, to name a few.
 * Dodge: With all due respect, sir, one American nuclear attack sub could defeat several diesels.
 * Winslow: In a conventional battle, certainly, that's true. But what if you had one renegade diesel captain, decided to hit us - bam - suddenly, without cause or warning, like a terrorist intent on getting a nuclear warhead into one of our harbors. You think we could catch and kill a bogey like that in time?
 * Dodge: Absolutely, sir.
 * Winslow: Well, the Department of Defense and most of the Admiralty, they would agree with you. But me, personally? I'd like to know for sure. And that's why you're gonna clean up the Stingray and take her out, off the Atlantic coast, for a series of wargames. One rebel diesel against the U.S. nuclear Navy. Come on. [Shows Dodge a map] First, you're going to attempt to invade Charleston harbor. And if you're good enough to evade further pursuit, you'll attempt to sink shipping right here at the naval base in Norfolk. Simulated, of course. What do you think, Mr. Dodge?
 * Dodge: I think I'm gonna get my ass kicked, sir.
 * Winslow: [irritated at Dodge's pessimism] Aw, don't think like that! Damn it to hell, don't go by the book! Think like a pirate! I want a man with a tattoo on his dick! Have I got the right man?
 * Dodge: By a strange coincidence, you do, sir. However, the task I have been handed here is close to impossible. If I pull this off - that is, get both ports - I would like command of my own nuclear sub.
 * Winslow: Setting terms, now?
 * Dodge: No, sir. But without a command, once this exercise is over, I'm headed for a desk job, which means I'm out of the Navy.
 * Winslow: I can't make you any guarantees, Dodge. But this is what I'll do. I'll give you two live torpedoes, set a dummy ship in Norfolk harbor. If I see that baby go up, then we'll talk about your boat.
 * Dodge: Thank you, sir.

 * [During the Stingray crew's roll call...]
 * LT Martin Pascal: Engineman First Class Brad Stepanek!
 * EN1 Brad Stepanek: [looks at Dodge, unimpressed] Sit on it and rotate, sir.
 * Pascal: WHAT?! What did you say, sailor?! You can't say that! [to Dodge] He can't say that!
 * Dodge: Pascal, down! Down! Heel!
 * Stepanek: By the Uniform Code of Military Justice, that constitutes gross insubordination, punishable by one month in the brig. [holds out his arms, as if for handcuffs] I'm ready to go, sir.
 * Dodge: Board the boat. I like a challenge.
 * Stepanek: You'll throw me off within a week. I'm a dedicated pain in the butt, sir.
 * [Dodge steps closer and speaks quietly]
 * Dodge: Stepanek...
 * Stepanek: What?
 * Dodge: If I throw you off, it'll be in the middle of the Atlantic. [beat] Board the damn boat.
 * Stepanek: Aw, man... [shoulders his kit bag and goes aboard] What's our mission, rescue Gilligan?
 * Pascal: YOU'RE MINE, MAGGOT!
 * Dodge: Ha! I love this job! And who's our next contestant?

 * [The crew of the Stingray are cleaning, repairing, and overhauling her. On deck, as the rest of the crew is working, Dodge sees Stepanek on a lawn chair, sunning himself]
 * Dodge: Stepanek, what are you doing?
 * Stepanek: As little as possible, sir. I'm a detriment to the entire operation; total morale-crusher.
 * Dodge: You know, of course, that the submarine service is entirely volunteer. All you have to do is quit.
 * Stepanek: My old man won't let me. [mockingly] He's an admiral! Thinks sub duty will shape me up. Hah!
 * Dodge: Well, then, I'm afraid you leave me no choice, son, but to relocate you.
 * Stepanek: Really?
 * Dodge: Really. Buckman!
 * Buckman: Yes, sir! [Turns at attention, hitting Stepanek with an armful of mops he's carrying, knocking Stepanek off his lawn chair and into a trough of oil waste]
 * Dodge: Thank you, Buckman. That'll be all.

 * [Pascal inspects the Stingray and arrives in the galley]
 * Pascal: BUCKMAN! [Buckman turns around with a start] What the hell are you doing?!
 * Seaman Buckman: Stocking the pantry, sir!
 * Pascal: You forgot like an idiot, Buckman, because you're stocking the pantry like an idiot! [grabs two cans from the shelves] What are in these cans, Buckman?!
 * Buckman: That one's coffee. That one looks like cooking lard, sir.
 * Pascal: And which one do you think we're gonna be using more often, sailor? The coffee, or the lard?! You think we're all gonna jump out of bed in the morning and have a big, hot, steaming cup of pig fat?!
 * Buckman: Well, it depends. If it's a cold morning, sir, you might go either way --
 * Pascal: [turning to hurl cans from the pantry] The lard... is in... your head, Buckman! [grabs Buckman by the ear, as Dodge enters behind him] Now you take a look at that galley chart, 'cause I want that cabinet repacked, regulation style, by eleven hundred! Do you know what time eleven hundred is?!
 * Buckman: That would be after ten hundred, sir!
 * Dodge: Marty.
 * Pascal: WHAT?! [turns and sees it's Dodge, becomes much quieter] Sir?
 * Dodge: Can we speak? My cabin.
 * Pascal: [To Buckman, after a big inhale] Carry on.
 * [Pascal leaves and goes into Dodge's cabin]
 * Dodge: Marty, I'm a little worried about your health. Not exactly a people person, are you? I'm afraid you're headed straight for an ulcer if you can't ease up a little bit.
 * Pascal: I'm-I'm not happy with this boat, sir. Requesting...permission...for a transfer.
 * Dodge: What?
 * Pascal: Commander, this-this boat... it's a rustbucket! It's a shitbox! And this crew is the most incompetent bunch of retards and assholes in naval history! I mean, I know why you're here, but- I don't know why I was even considered for such an assignment-
 * Dodge: 'Scuse me, 'scuse me. Why am I here?
 * Pascal: You know...your thing!
 * Dodge: What "thing"?
 * Pascal: ...The weenie tattoo.
 * Dodge: [laughs] Wow. Look, Pascal, I hate to disappoint you, but I may have had some other things going for me.
 * Pascal: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I believe you, sir. Now, about my transfer. This post could seriously jeopardize my chances for advancement. I mean, I am this close to Command, sir-
 * Dodge: Forget it.
 * Pascal: Sir?
 * Dodge: You think you're the only one embarrassed to be here, you think this is the command I dreamed about? Well, we're all in this mess together, mister. And you and your career are in the hands of those very assholes! Including this one. That answer your question?
 * Pascal: ...Yes, sir.
 * Dodge: Dismissed.

 * Pascal: Buckman! There was a fingernail in my food, you fat-ass moron! Yesterday, it was a band-aid!
 * Buckman: Sorry, sir. Band-aid was holdin' the fingernail on.
 * Pascal: What else do you put in your sauces, Buckman?!
 * Buckman: It's an old family recipe, sir. It's a secret.
 * Pascal: [inspects the galley, while Buckman greases the floor and the ladder] Oh, my God! There's cockroaches in the flour! Your cigar ash is in the spaghetti! Jesus, Buckman! This stuff's been on the Stingray since Korea! This can expired in 1966!
 * Buckman: [pokes finger into can and tastes sample] What's the matter, sir? It still tastes like creamed corn.
 * Pascal: Except- it's deviled ham!
 * Buckman: Now that would be a problem.
 * Pascal: The Captain's gonna hear about this! [turns to leave, and slips and falls on his back on the slippery floor; then rises] Nobody saw that.
 * Buckman: [smugly] You should be more careful, sir. Remember: when you rush, that's when accidents happen.
 * Pascal: Shut up, Buckman! [moves to go up the ladder, only to bang his head on every rung before collapsing to the floor]

 * Dodge: Alright, gentlemen, it's time to kick this pig! Leave Graham squealin' from the feelin'!
 * Jackson: Squeakin' from the freakin'!
 * Buckman: Oinkin' from the boinkin'!

 * [Graham, on the Orlando, radios the Stingray]
 * Graham: Submarine Stingray, this is Submarine Orlando. It's been confirmed: you are targeted.
 * Dodge: Submarine Orlando, this is Submarine Stingray, Stingray One speaking. We acknowledge the kill, and congratulate the Orlando and all the fine men on that boat.
 * Graham: [delighted] Well, thank you, Captain.
 * Dodge: However, at the moment of your transmission, I've already fired two torpedoes.
 * Graham: ...WHAT?
 * Dodge: You can probably hear them in the water, and though we are "dead", our fish are still running towards the naval station dummy ship. If they hit, we still win. [pirate voice] Har, har.

 * [During the Stingray's homecoming]
 * Graham: Sir, this entire exercise is invalid. [gestures with his fingers] Dodge left the containment area -
 * Winslow: [gestures with hands pressed as if compressing something] ...after you narrowed it without proper authorization.
 * Graham: He ignored a direct order!
 * Winslow: Stow it, Yancy. He had higher orders... and you can forget about that third star. [Smiles and walks away]

 * [VADM Winslow receives LCDR Dodge and the Stingray crew]
 * Winslow: Welcome back, Captain. You certainly pushed my order to the breaking point.
 * Dodge: Thank you, sir. I mean, if that's a compliment.
 * Winslow: However, under the circumstances, I will not be able to give you your own Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine.
 * [a beat, as Dodge swallows his disappointment]
 * Dodge: Yes, sir.
 * Winslow: Instead, you will be given a new Seawolf-class nuclear submarine and will attend its launching on Friday! And this time, you'll be given a proper crew, one commensurate with your tactical and leadership abilities.
 * Dodge: Thank you, sir, but I'd have to decline.
 * Winslow: Decline?
 * Dodge: I would not be in line for such a promotion without the help of my present crew. I could not in good conscience accept another command without them.
 * Winslow: Still setting terms, huh, Dodge?
 * Dodge: Just respectfully requesting, sir.
 * Winslow: Well, at least you got my son to face forward. [Stepanek looks embarassed; Engineer Howard snickers]
 * Dodge: Your son? Stepanek, sir?
 * Winslow: Yes. It's his mother's name. His salute still leaves something to be desired.
 * Dodge: We'll work on that, sir.
 * Winslow: You do that, Commander. [Salutes Dodge, then sees Stepanek give a proper salute, which Winslow proudly returns]

Cast

 * Kelsey Grammer — Lt. Cmdr. Thomas "Tom" Dodge
 * Lauren Holly — Lt. Emily Lake, Diving Officer
 * Rob Schneider — Executive Officer (XO) Lt. Martin T. "Marty" Pascoe
 * Harry Dean Stanton — CPO Howard, Chief Engineer
 * Bruce Dern — Rear Adm. Yancy Graham
 * William H. Macy — Orlando Cmdr. Carl Knox
 * Ken Hudson Campbell — Seaman Buckman
 * Toby Huss — Electrician's Mate "Mike" Nitro
 * Duane Martin — Planesman 1st Class Jefferson "R.J." Jackson
 * Jonathan Penner — Seaman Stanley "Spots" Sylvesterson
 * Bradford Tatum — Engineman 1st Class Brad Stepanak
 * Harland Williams — Sonar Technician 2nd Class E.T. "Sonar" Lovacelli
 * Rip Torn — Vice Adm. Dean Winslow

title: Down Periscope