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Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹 Murakami Haruki, born 12 January 1949) is a best-selling contemporary Japanese writer. His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered critical acclaim and numerous awards, both in Japan and internationally, including the World Fantasy Award (2006) and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award (2006), while his whole oeuvre garnered the Franz Kafka Prize (2006), the Jerusalem Prize (2009), and the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Prize (2016) among others.

 * See also: Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore, A Wild Sheep Chase, 1Q84

Quotes

 * I said this one day to the doctor in charge of my case, and he told me that, in a sense, what I was feeling was right, that we are in here not to correct the deformation but to accustom ourselves to it: that one of our problems was our inability to recognize and accept our own deformities. Just as each person has certain idiosyncrasies in the way he or she walks, people have idiosyncrasies in the way they think and feel and see things, … "
 * In a letter from Naoko, Norwegian Wood

 * Painful is the stress when one cannot reproduce or convey vividly to others, however hard he tries, what he's experienced so intensely. In my case, the stronger is the intention to "write about a particular subject in a particular way," the harder it becomes to start writing and to express myself. This stress somewhat resembles the irritation one feels when he cannot describe to another person what he experienced so vividly and realistically in his dreams. All words I use to narrate my feeling of the moment fail incessantly to describe what I wish to, and then they begin to betray me.
 * "A Long Way from The Stuffed Cabbage" (short story)

 * The world would be a pretty dull place if it were made up only of the first-rate, right?
 * "Man-Eating Cats"

 * Mediocrity is like a spot on your shirt, it never comes off.
 * Dance Dance Dance (1988)

 * "likewesaid, we'lldowhatwecan. Trytoreconnectyou, towhatyouwant," said the Sheep Man. "Butwecan'tdoit-alone. Yougottaworktoo. Sittingsnotgonnadoit, thinking'snotgonnadoit." "So what do I have to do?" "Dance," said the Sheep Man. "Yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougotta dance. Don'teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, you'restuck. Sodon'tpayanymind, nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou're tired, tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, ok? Justdon'tletyourfeetstop."
 * Dance Dance Dance

 * But I didn't understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.
 * South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992)

 * Even castles in the sky can do with a fresh coat of paint.
 * South of the Border, West of the Sun

 * You burn barns. I don't burn barns. There's this glaring difference, and to me, rather than say which of us is strange, first of all I'd like to clear up just what that difference is.
 * "Barn Burning"(short story) in The Elephant Vanishes (1993)

 * Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?
 * Sputnik Sweetheart (1999)

 * And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they're nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we'd be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing.
 * Sputnik Sweetheart

 * You are a beautiful person, Doctor. Clearheaded. Strong. But you seem always to be dragging your heart along the ground. From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value.
 * "Thailand", from After the Quake (1999)

 * People's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far the maintenance of life is concerned. They are all just fuel. Advertising filler in the news paper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills; when you feed them to fire, they are just paper. The fire isn't thinking 'oh This is Kant' or 'Oh This is Yomuri evening edition' or 'Nice tits', while it burns. To the fire, they are nothing but scraps of paper. It is the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories : there is no distinction — they are all just fuel
 * After Dark (2004)

 * Numbers aren’t the important thing … what matters is deciding in your heart to accept another person completely. When you do that, it is always the first time and the last.
 * "The Kidney-shaped Stone that Moves Every Day" (translated by Jay Rubin), from Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2005)

 * I don't care about the time I run. I can try all I want, but I doubt I'll ever be able to run the way I used to. I'm ready to accept that. It's not one of your happier realities, but that's what happens when you get older. Just as I have my own role to play, so does time. And time does its job much more faithfully, much more accurately, than I ever do. Ever since time began (when was that, I wonder?), it's been moving ever forward without a moment's rest. And one of the privileges given to those who've avoided dying young is the blessed right to grow old. The honour of physical decline is waiting, and you have to get used to that reality.
 * What I Talk about When I Talk about Running (2009)

 * Seeing a lot of water like that every day is probably an important thing for human beings. For human beings might be a bit of a generalization—but I do know it’s important for one person: me. If I go for a time without seeing water, I feel like something’s slowly draining out of me. It’s probably like the feeling a music lover has when, for whatever reason, he’s separated from music for a long time. The fact that I was raised near the sea might have something to do with it.
 * What I Talk about When I Talk about Running (2009)

 * If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg. Why? Because each of us is an egg, a unique soul enclosed in a fragile egg. Each of us is confronting a high wall. The high wall is the system which forces us to do the things we would not ordinarily see fit to do as individuals . . . We are all human beings, individuals, fragile eggs. We have no hope against the wall: it's too high, too dark, too cold. To fight the wall, we must join our souls together for warmth, strength. We must not let the system control us -- create who we are. It is we who created the system.
 * Jerusalem Prize acceptance speech, (2009)

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985)

 * The elevator continued its impossibly slow ascent. Or at least I imagined it was ascent. There was no telling for sure: it was so slow that all sense of direction simply vanished. It could have been going down for all I knew, or maybe it wasn’t moving at all. But let’s just assume it was going up. Merely a guess. Maybe I’d gong up twelve stories, then down three. Maybe I’d circled the globe. How would I know?
 * Opening paragraph, Chapter One

 * If your confusion leads you in the right direction, the results can be uncommonly rewarding.
 * Chapter One

 * I always say—a prejudice on my part, I'm sure—you can tell a lot about a person's character from his choice of sofa. Sofas constitute a realm inviolate unto themselves. This, however, is something that only those who have grown up sitting on good sofas will appreciate. It's like growing up reading good books or listening to good music. One good sofa breeds another good sofa; one bad sofa breeds another bad sofa. That's how it goes. There are people who drive luxury cars, but have only second- or third-rate sofas in their homes. I put little trust in such people. An expensive automobile may well be worth its price, but it's only an expensive automobile. If you have the money, you can buy it, anyone can buy it. Procuring a good sofa, on the other hand, requires style and experience and philosophy. It takes money, yes, but you also need a vision of the superior sofa. That sofa among sofas.
 * Chapter Five: Tabulations, Evolution, Sex Drive

 * Many are the women who can take their clothes off seductively, but women who can charm as they dress?
 * Chapter Nine: Appetite, Disappointment, Leningrad

 * Now for a good twelve-hour sleep, I told myself. Twelve solid hours. Let birds sing, let people go to work. Somewhere out there, a volcano might blow, Israeli commandos might decimate a Palestinian village. I couldn't stop it. I was going to sleep.
 * Chapter Thirteen: Frankfurt, Door, Independent Operants

 * I’ve read Rudin before, but that was fifteen years ago in university. Rereading it now, lying all bandaged up, sipping my whiskey in bed in the afternoon, I felt new sympathy for the protagonist Rudin. I almost never identify with anybody in Dostoyevsky, but the characters in Turgenev’s old-fashioned novels are such victims of circumstance, I jump right in. I have a thing about losers. Flaws in oneself open you up to others flaws. Not that Dostoyevsky’s characters don’t generate pathos, but they’re flawed in a way that don’t come across as faults.
 * Chapter Fifteen: Whiskey, Torture, Turgenoev

 * Kindness and a caring mind are two separate qualities. Kindness is manners. It is superficial custom, an acquired practice. Not so the mind. The mind is deeper, stronger, and, I believe, it is far more inconstant.
 * Chapter 16: The Coming of Winter

 * "You said that the mind is like the wind, but perhaps it is we who are like the wind. Knowing nothing, simply blowing through. Never aging, never dying"
 * Chapter 16: The Coming of Winter

 * Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in fight, searching the skies for dreams.
 * Chapter 18:

 * Once again, life had a lesson to teach me: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy. Sure, I'd gotten tired of this tiny space, but I'd had a good home here. In the time it takes to swill two cans of beer, all had had sublimed like morning mist. My job, my whiskey, my peace and quiet, my solitude, my Somerset Maugham, and John Ford collections-all of it trashed and worthless.
 * Chapter 19: Hamburgers,Skyline and Deadline

 * “That's wrong," she declared. "Everyone must have one thing that they can excel at. It's just a matter of drawing it out, isn't it? But school doesn't know how to draw it out. It crushes the gift. It's no wonder most people never get to be what they want to be. They just get ground down.”
 * Chapter 19: Hamburgers,Skyline and Deadline

 * "You got to know your limits. Once is enough, but you got to learn. A little caution never hurt anyone. A good woodsman has only one scar on him. No more, no less."
 * Chapter 24: Shadow Grounds

 * "You are not lost. It's just that your own thoughts are being kept from you, or hidden away. But the mind is strong. It survives even without thought. Even with everything taken away, it holds a seed-your self. You must believe in your powers."
 * Chapter 24: Shadow Grounds

 * First, about the mind. You tell me there is no fighting or hatred or desire in the Town. That this is a beautiful dream, and I do want your happiness. But the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.
 * Chapter 32, Shadow in the Throes of Death

 * Once, when I was younger, I thought I could be someone else. I'd move to Casablanca, open a bar, and I'd meet Ingrid Bergman. Or more realistically - whether actually more realistic or not - I'd tune in on a better life, something more suited to my true self. Toward that end, I had to undergo training. I read The Greening of America, and I saw Easy Rider three times. But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return.
 * Chapter 33, Rainy-Day Laundry, Car Rental, Bob Dylan

 * "I never trust people with no appetite. It's like they're always holding something back on you."
 * Chapter 35, Nail Clippers, Butter Sauce, Iron Vase

 * Losing you is most difficult for me, but the nature of my love for you is what matters. If it distorts into half-truth, then perhaps it is better not to love you. I must keep my mind but loose you.
 * Chapter 38, Escape

 * Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase. From snails to hardware stores to married life. Maybe no one finds it, or even misses it, but fairness is like love. What is given has nothing to do with what we seek.
 * Chapter 39, Popcorn, Lord Jim, Extinction

 * "You yourself created this Town. You made everything here. The Wall, the River, the Woods, the Library, the Gate, everything. Even this Pool. I've known all along." "Then why did you not tell me sooner?" "Because you'd only have left me here like this. Because your rightful world is there outside." My shadow sits down in the snow and shakes his head from side to side. "But you won't listen, will you?" "I have responsibilities," I say. "I cannot forsake the people and places and things I have created. I know I do you a terrible wrong. And yes, perhaps I wrong myself, too. But I must see out the consequences of my own doings. This is my world. The Wall is here to hold me in, the River flows through me, the smoke is me burning. I must know why."
 * Chapter 40, Birds

 * Genius or fool, you don't live in the world alone. You can hide underground or you can build a wall around yourself, but somebody's going to come along and screw up the works.

Norwegian Wood (1987)

 * If you're in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark.

 * If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

 * But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994-1995)

 * Money had no name of course. And if it did have a name, it would no longer be money. What gave money its true meaning was its dark-night namelessness, its breathtaking interchangeability.

 * But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at 4 o'clock in the morning.

 * He inherited from his mother's stories the fundamental style he used, unaltered, in his own stories: namely, the assumption that fact may not be truth, and truth may not be factual.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2013)

 * You can hide memories, but you can't erase the history that produced them.

First Person Singular (2021)

 * Page numbers from the hardcover first English edition, published by Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 978-0-593-31807-2

 * Loving someone is like having a mental illness that’s not covered by health insurance.
 * On a Stone Pillow (p. 37)

 * Each and every moment, our bodies are on a one-way journey to collapse and deterioration, unable to turn back the clock.
 * On a Stone Pillow (p. 47)

 * Whether you cut it off or someone else cuts it off if you put your neck on the stone pillow believe it—you will turn to dust.
 * On a Stone Pillow (p. 49)

 * I’ve heard it said that the happiest times in our lives is the period when pop songs really mean something to us, really get to us. It may be true. Or maybe not. Pop songs may, after all, be nothing but pop songs. And perhaps our lives are merely decorative, expendable items, a burst of fleeting color and nothing more.
 * With the Beatles (pp. 88-89)

 * In Hollywood in the fifties, a happy ending always involved marriage—the creation of an environment in which lovers could have sex legally.
 * With the Beatles (p. 90)

 * Once again, I was confused. It felt like bits of reality and unreality were randomly changing places.
 * Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey (p. 151)

 * No matter how vivid memories may be, they can’t win out against the power of time.
 * Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey (p. 154)

 * I know a few beautiful women, the kind that anyone would find lovely and charming. But to me those beautiful women, the majority of them at least, never seem able to truly, unconditionally, derive pleasure in being gorgeous. Kind of strange, I think. Women who are born beautiful are always the center of men’s attention. Other women are jealous of them and they get coddled no end. People give them expensive presents, and they have their pick of men. So why don’t they seem happier? Why do they sometimes even seem depressed? What I’ve observed is that most of the beautiful women I know are dissatisfied, and irritated by tiny, inconsequential flaws—the kind inevitably found somewhere in any person’s physical makeup. They obsess over these little details. Their toes are too big, or their nails are weirdly off center, or their nipples aren’t the same size. One gorgeous woman I know is convinced that her earlobes are too long, and always wears her hair long to hide them.
 * Carnaval (p. 167)

Quotes about Haruki Murakami

 * The novelist Haruki Murakami wrote in his Kafka on the Shore, "And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about." This is the experience of transformation that Terry Tempest Williams wrote about.
 * Roshi Joan Halifax in Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua (2023)

 * (Which other...writers do you appreciate?) V:...if you ask me for a list, it can go from Clarice Lispector to Haruki Murakami, with innumerable names on the way.
 * Luisa Valenzuela Interview (2018)

title: Haruki Murakami


text:
Talk:Lewis Black

just love Lewis Black. I'm part part of his generation, and can relate to almost everything he says. My 21 year old son and I listen to him a lot, and even exchanged CD's for Christmas this year. We quote him often.

Just removed: ''Me: "Hey, good luck on the show tonight." Lewis Black: "Oh thanks, man." - On a Kennedy Airport plane going to the 2005 "Just for Laughs" Festival in Montreal, CA'' for obvious reasons.

Sobreiro 02:24, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup tag
This page should be organized by the source of the quotes (where known), rather than by subject. Organizing them by subject is fine where the source is not known. While I know that other pages, such as Mitch Hedberg, are organized by subject, but in those cases, the sources are usually not listed. Since many of Lewis Black's quotes shown here also list the source, it should be organized according to the template (e.g. Sourced, Unsourced, etc.). The formatting of the sources listed also needs to be cleaned up. ~ UDScott 18:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC) - This cleanup tag should be removed now that the issue has been resolved.

Quote length and sources
-Some of the longer quotes need to be shortened. They should be 1-2 sentences if possible.

-Sources should include date of the original performance or when it was first broadcasted. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ghost stalker (talk • contribs) 04:54, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced quotes
The following quotes have been removed from the article and transferred here because of sourcing problems: 1) Unsourced; 2) Daily Show (to be sourced by episode); 3) Comedy Central Presents (to be sourced by episode). Quotes that were too long were deleted. If any of these quotes are put back in the article without sourcing, they will be removed again. - InvisibleSun 02:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced

 * The last person to get across that town in under three hours was yelling, 'The British are coming! The British are coming!'
 * On Boston Traffic

 * Turns out we've all been eating the wrong thing... since the dawn of civilization!
 * On The Atkins Diet

 * But those aren't the flavors. That'd make too much sense. Apple and pear, according to Dr. Phil, are body types the bars are made for. Hey, I've got some advice. If you look like an apple or a pear, eat an apple or a pear!
 * On Dr. Phil’s energy bars

 * Bill Gates: "The goal is to give every child the same education opportunities that I had" Lewis Black: "YOU DROPPED OUT OF SCHOOL!!"

Comedy Central Presents

 * I have no religion because I was born and raised Jewish. And on the first night of Hanukkah, my parents, when I was very young, gave me a top to play with. They called it a dreidel. I knew it was a top. And as I looked at that top, I said, 'You know. I don't think I'm gonna be Jewish for very long.'

 * It's ridiculous that we still have a hole in the ozone layer. We have men, we have rockets, we have Saran Wrap - FIX IT!! And don't come back until you do.

 * What is the difference between a Democrat and a Republican? A Democrat blows, a Republican sucks.

 * In my lifetime, we've gone from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. We've gone from John Kennedy to Albert Gore. Now if that is evolution, I believe that in about 12 years, we're gonna be voting for plants.

 * When Bill Clinton got into his mess, pretty much every American wanted Bill Clinton punished. They didn't want him impeached, but they wanted something like a spanking or something. So they turned to the Republicans and said, 'Come on! Get the little prick!' And the Republicans took out their guns, got him in their sights, turned the guns around (points gun at his head), and went 'BAM!'

 * I never thought that Bill Clinton should be the president. When he was running to be the president of the United States, he said on over a hundred occasions, he said the following: He said, 'One of the great accomplishments while I was the governor of Arkansas, was to take my state in education from 50th to 49th.' And I thought, ' you know, Bill, you should keep that a secret.'

 * If that's what education is and that's 47th, what is education if it's 50th? What could they possibly be teaching? I think what they do is, they take the kids to school in Arkansas; they feed 'em Coco Puffs for three hours, then they open the door to the school, and let the kids run, and run, and run, and who ever hits the most trees gets an A. Oh look, Johnny poked his eye out! Honor roll!

 * Jerry Falwell was crazy before, and if you didn't know that I'd like you to wear aluminum foil so we know who you are.

 * The new millennium sucks! What a disappointment! What's the difference between the old millennium and the new millennium? Nothing! It's the same load of crap with a '2' in the front. When I was a kid, I am old enough so that when I was a kid, I looked forward to the new millennium. When I was young, I said, 'I'm gonna live through a change! A massive change! Things are gonna be different! Things are gonna be great!' Screwed again! No flying cars! No flying cars!

 * I will tell you, that you Christians have created a holiday that has become a beast that cannot be fed. Every year, Christmas gets longer and longer and longer, and you don't care, do you? You just take more and more of the calendar for yourself. It's unbelievable. How long does it take you people to shop?! It's beyond belief. It's insane. When I was a kid, Halloween was Halloween, and Santa wasn't poking his ass into it!

 * Thanksgiving used to be Thanksgiving, and it was its own holiday, not Christmas: Part 1. When I was a kid, you ate, and you drank, and you passed out and nobody woke you up and said, 'Let's go shopping.'

 * When you compare Christmas to Hanukkah, there's no comparison. Christmas is great. Hanukkah sucks! First night you get socks. Second night, an eraser, a notebook. It's a Back-to-School holiday!

 * Some people have religion as a means of solace. But, I had a dreidel, so that was out.

 * N'Sync and Aerosmith are two bands that don't even belong in the same STATE as eachother!

 * I have N'Sync and Aerosmith and Britney Spears. I have a trifecta from hell.

 * The weather is out of control throughout the entire country. Where ever you go, it's 90, then it's 30, then it's 80, then it's 20, and my balls can't take it. They're big and then small. Big, small, big, small. Apparently, I can't have kids, cause my sperm are gagging. –

 * Normally, in February, in Boston and in most of the country, the weather is gray, rainy, gray, sleet, gray, rain, gray, sleet, snow, gray; every day it just gets grayer and grayer and grayer! You wake up one day, and you go, 'I'm not comin' into work today!' Your boss goes, 'Why not? You sick?' 'No! It's too gray!'

 * Then you wake up and it's the grayest day you've ever seen! And the next day, it's even grayer! And that's usually Valentine's Day, and that's the day you look at your wrists and go, 'Hey, maybe I should slit 'em to see color!'

 * They’re extraordinary, they’re like mystery stories! You don’t even know what they’re selling, until the very end. Three rabbits are on a log, and one of them goes home and hangs himself- buy a bike!
 * On Super bowl commercials

 * You know a religion has no sense of humor, when a guy can stand up and say, ‘you know, if you commit suicide for Allah, after you die you will be met in heaven by 70 virgins,' and nobody in the room just goes, 'AHAHAHA! Son of a bitch! That was great!'

 * They believe if they kill themselves that they will be met in Heaven by 70 some odd virgins. Imagine that kind of faith. To think that that would happen. When I haven't met one ON EARTH!

The Daily Show

 * A week ago today, the northeast experienced the biggest blackout in history. And since then, everyone's been sharing their stories of how they got through the blackout. And I'd just like to say to them: SHUT UP!

 * Wow, you survived a blackout. You're made of stronger stuff than ice cream.

 * Contrary to myth, there won't be a baby boom nine months from now. Population researchers say there's no proof that people have more sex when the power goes out. I know I didn't have any sex during the blackout. How could I? MY COMPUTER WASN'T WORKING!

 * Oh my God! Wal-Mart's about to MARCH ON POLAND!

 * Children's characters seeking acceptance means they're gay? That'll come as news to Ferdinand, Simba, the Ugly Duckling, Cinderella, and Rudolph.

 * Let's face it, Americans are fat all year round, but the holidays are when we really hit our stride. And you can bet the food we eat will be just as unhealthy as the families we're forced to visit.

 * This is Grand Theft Auto 3. The object of this game, WHO CARES? I'm too busy randomly hitting an old lady with a bat, carjacking a station wagon and running over people, or, my personal favorite, running over the person whose car I just stole, WITH THE CAR I JUST STOLE! Now, THIS is a video game! Rescuing the princess is for PUSSIES!

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

title: Talk:Lewis Black


text:
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

 is a 2004 film directed by, written by Robert Gordon and based on the series of books by Lemony Snicket (pen name of Daniel Handler). The movie stars Kara and Shelby Hoffman, Emily Browning, Liam Aiken, with Jim Carrey as Count Olaf, and narrated by Jude Law as Lemony Snicket.

Don't Say We Didn't Warn You.(taglines)

Lemony Snicket

 * [first lines] I'm sorry to say that, but this is not the movie you'll be watching. The movie you are about to see is extremely unpleasant. If you wish to see a film about a happy little elf, then I'm sure there is still plenty of seating in theatre #2. However, if you like stories about clever and reasonably attractive orphans, suspicious fires, carnivorous leeches, Italian food and secret organizations, then stay, as I retrace each and every one of the Baudelaire children's woeful steps. My name is Lemony Snicket, and it is my sad duty to document this tale.
 * If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels. If you haven't, you cannot possibly imagine it.
 * This should be an excellent opportunity to walk out of the theatre, living room, or airplane where this film is being shown. Still not too late to see a film about a happy little elf.
 * Oh, sorry. My ribbon had just jammed. Lemme just adjust it here. [fixes the ribbon] There we are. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. The attack of the Incredibly Deadly Viper.
 * And so, the Baudelaire children went to Peru and together had wonderful adventures with their loving and new guardian. The end. (Or is it?) These are the words I desperately wish I could type. Oh, I would give anything to say that the story ends here. But alas, my mission is not to weave happy endings where they do not occur, but to report the actual events in the lives of the unfortunate Baudelaire children. And as much as it pains me, I must confess that their troubles had only just begun. And it did so with two musical notes. [Stephano rings the doorbell]
 * It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. It's like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down through the air and there's a sickly moment of dark surprise. The children's grief was not only for their uncle, but for that tender hope that they might have found home again. A hope which, thanks to a villainous actor, was now slowly tumbling away.
 * I am thrilled to say that Count Olaf was captured for crimes too numerous to mention. And before serving his life sentence, it was the judge's decree that Olaf be made to suffer every hardship that he forced upon the children. The Baudelaires had triumphed, a word which here means "unmasking a cruel and talentless arsonist, and solving the mystery of the Baudelaire fire." If only justice were as kind. Count Olaf vanished after a jury of his peers overturned his sentence.
 * [last lines] Passing the torch is a right of passage that can take many forms. But prehaps the least known and most surprising is the passing of a spyglass. Dear reader, there are people in the world who know no misery and woe. And they take comfort in cheerful films about twittering birds and giggling elves. There are people who know that there's always a mystery to be solved. And they take comfort in researching and writing down any important evidence. But this story is not about such people. This story is about the Baudelaires. And they are the sort of people who know that there's always something. Something to invent, something to read, something to bite, and something to do, to make a sanctuary, no matter how small. And for this reason, I am happy to say, the Baudelaires were very fortunate indeed.

Count Olaf

 * [first words] Entrood!
 * Hello, hello, hello. I am your beloved Count Olaf.
 * I'm the monster? You're the monster! These children tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen. No one ever listens to children! You think you're innocent?! You're accomplices! This certificate says that I have the fortune now! And there's nothing you can do about it! [to Violet] What do you think? Too diabolical? Give me some feedback!
 * [last words] Oh, no.

Violet Baudelaire

 * [repeated phrase] There's always something.
 * It's the letter - The letter that never came. [reading aloud] "Dearest Children; Since we have been abroad we have missed you all so much. Certain events have compelled us to extend our travels. One day, where you're older, you will learn all about the people we've befriended and the dangers we have faced. At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe us when we say there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. And what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events, may, in fact, be the first steps of a journey. We hope to have you back in our arms soon, darlings; but in case this letter arrives before our return, know that we love you. It fills us with pride to know that, no matter what happens in this life, you three will take care of each other with kindness, and bravery and selflessness as you always have. And remember one thing my darlings and never forget it: that no matter where we are, know that as long as you have each other, you have your family and you are home. Your loving parents."

Klaus Baudelaire

 * Uh, Violet? Now would be a good time to tie up your hair...
 * These things don't just happen.

Judge Gallo

 * Custody granted.
 * Guilty!

Dialogue

 * Olaf: Ah! My dear... [looks at stick figures of the children with their names on his hands] Violet. Enchanté.
 * Violet: Um... how do you do?
 * Olaf: And this must be Klaus. [grabs at Klaus' face and looks at each side of it] Young Klaus. Your left side is the good one. [begins to mess with Klaus' bottom lip and then notices Sunny] And, uh...what is this?
 * Sunny: [in baby talk, subtitled] I'm Sunny.
 * Olaf: I'm sorry. I don't speak monkey! [mimicking a baby] Banana?
 * Sunny: [grunts, subtitled] I'm not a monkey!
 * Violet: Sunny's our little sister.
 * Olaf: I must say you are a gloomy looking bunch. Why so glum?
 * Klaus: Our parents just died.
 * Olaf: Ah, yes, of course. How very, very awful. Wait! Let's do that one more time! Bring me the line again! Quickly, while it's still fresh in my mind.
 * Klaus: [confused] Our parents just... died?
 * Olaf: [overacting gasp] Mr. Poe... I shall raise these orphans as if they were actually wanted.

 * Klaus: [putting cans on the kitchen bench] "Pasta puttanesca." That's Italian for "very few ingredients," you know.
 * Violet: [tying on an apron] That's great, uh... [takes a can and hands it to Sunny] Sunny, Little help?
 * Sunny: I’m on it!
 * Violet: Okay, we're gonna need a pot.
 * Klaus: No pot.
 * Violet: And a strainer.
 * Klaus: No strainer.
 * [Sunny gives Violet back the can, the top chewed off]
 * Violet: Thank you.
 * Sunny: My pleasure.
 * Violet: Uh... and a saucepan.

 * Klaus: Sunny... That’s not a pot. It’s a spittoon.
 * Violet: Spittoon? You mean like...? ''[Klaus nods. Beat;] We’ll wash it twice.

 * Olaf: Yes, roast beef. It's the Swedish term for beef that is roasted!
 * Violet: But you didn't tell us you wanted roast beef!
 * Olaf: You know, there's a big world out there, filled with desperate orphans who would gladly swim across an ocean of thumbtacks just to be eclipsed by the long shadow cast by my accomplishments. But I don't care about them. I chose to open my heart to you two luvverly children... and your hideous primate! All I ask in return is that you do each and every thing that pops into my head, while I enjoy the enormous fortune your parents left behind.

 * [after Count Olaf slaps Klaus]
 * Violet: Are you okay?
 * Klaus: No. [walks away]
 * Violet: Where are you going?
 * Klaus: Home.
 * Violet: This is our home now.
 * Klaus: This is not home. Home is where your parents put you to bed at night. Where they teach you to ride a bike, or when they get all choked up on your first day of school. This is not home! How could they do this to us?
 * Violet: They're just bad people.
 * Klaus: Not them. Mom and Dad.
 * Violet: Klaus!
 * Klaus: Well, you're thinking it too, Violet! How could they?
 * Violet: Do you remember when Mom and Dad went to Europe and we thought they'd abandoned us because they didn't even write? And then we found out they'd written a long letter and it had just gotten lost in the mail. Do you remember how guilty we felt for thinking bad thoughts about them? This is just like that.
 * Klaus: [sadly] No, it's not.
 * Violet: Why?
 * Klaus: Because they're not in Europe... and they're not coming back.

 * Lemony Snicket [narrating]: Sanctuary is a word which here means a small safe place in a troubling world. Like an oasis in a vast desert or an island in a stormy sea. The Baudelaire’s enjoyed their evening in the sanctuary they helped build together, but in their hearts they knew that the troubling world lay just outside. A world, which I’m sad to say, can be described in two dismal words.
 * Judge Gallo: Custody granted.

 * Mr. Poe: I'm sorry, Count Olaf. Allowing a child of Sunny's age to drive a car is simply not good parenting.
 * Klaus: He tried to kill us!
 * Mr. Poe: Let us not exaggerate, Klaus. The vehicle was not even in gear.
 * Count Olaf: [to Mr. Poe] May I have a moment alone with the children? [Mr. Poe nods in agreement.] Goodbye, kids. It's been fun. [leans farther into car window and whispers angrily] I'm going to get you. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, I'll find you! Oh, you are so deceased! [turns from car, puts eye drops in eye and turns to Mr. Poe] Take them, Mr. Poe... before I lose it, big time!

 * Monty: Do you have any experience with children?
 * Stephano (Olaf): Ah, well, children are strange and foreign to me. I never really was one. I know that they are an important part of the ecosystem.

 * Captain Sham (Olaf): [to Violet] Are you jiggin,' me girl? [to Aunt Josephine] Why, perhaps it's just the ramblings of an expert fisherman, but grammar is the number one, most important thing in this here world to me.
 * Josephine: It is?
 * Sunny: [in baby talk] Is she desperate?
 * Capt. Sham: It's the whole ball of wax. The entire kit and caboodle. Why, without your good grammar, the whole darn shootin' match could go arse over tea kettle.
 * Jo: Well, you can certainly turn a phrase.
 * Sham: I can flip it up and rub it down, too. But of course, that'd be entirely up to you, ma'am. Captain Sham at your servie ma'am.

 * Klaus: We have to go to the authorities.
 * Violet: No.
 * Klaus: What?
 * Violet: They won't listen. They never listen.
 * Klaus: Violet!
 * Violet: It's Olaf. He'll never stop. We have to find her ourselves.

 * Olaf: Hello, hello, hello! I've missed you guys. Looks like you're in need of a little assistance.
 * Klaus: You're going to need assistance when you get back to town. Aunt Josephine is going to tell everyone what happened!
 * Olaf: And then I'll be arrested and sent to jail and you'll live happily ever after with a friendly guardian, spending your time inventing things and reading books and sharpening your little monkey teeth, and bravery and nobility will prevail at last, and this wicked world will slowly but surely become a place of cheerful harmony, and everybody will be singing and dancing and giggling like the Littlest Elf! A happy ending! Is that what you had in mind? Because I hardly think anyone is going to believe a dead woman.

 * Klaus: [desperately] There's always something... There's always something!
 * Violet: [sadly] Not this time.

Cast

 * Jim Carrey — Count Olaf
 * Liam Aiken — Klaus
 * Emily Browning — Violet
 * Timothy Spall — Mr. Poe
 * Catherine O'Hara — Justice Strauss
 * Billy Connolly — Dr. Montgomery "Monty" Montgomery
 * Cedric the Entertainer — The Constable
 * Luis Guzman — Bald Man
 * Jennifer Coolidge — White-Faced Woman #1
 * Craig Ferguson — The Person of Indeterminate Gender
 * Jamie Harris — Fernald
 * Jane Adams — White-Faced Woman #2
 * Meryl Streep — Josephine
 * Kara and Shelby Hoffman — Sunny
 * Jude Law — Voice of Lemony Snicket

Taglines

 * On December 17, Christmas cheer takes a holiday.
 * Don't say we didn't warn you.
 * This holiday, Christmas cheer takes a break.
 * At last a holiday movie without all that pesky hope and joy.
 * Mishaps. Mayhem. Misadventures. Oh joy.
 * Ruining Christmas December 17.
 * We're very concerned.
 * Darkening theaters December 17.


text:
Brainwashing

Brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwashing is said to reduce its subjects' ability to think critically or independently, to allow the introduction of new, unwanted thoughts and ideas into their minds, as well as to change their attitudes, values and beliefs.

 * CONTENT : A - F, G - L , M - R , S - Z , See also , External links

Quotes
(Arranged alphabetically by author)

A - F

 * Some Vietnam veterans have told me what they did over there when they were animals. They have been giving testimony about it to the public, to juries, to judges. Some of the juries cry, and so do some of the judges... It's a rotten thing to brainwash someone into doing the dirty part of killing while we stay at home. It's a rotten thing to pretend the war is coming to an end when it's only taken to the air. And in 1972 if you don't fight against a rotten thing you become a part of it.
 * Joan Baez. Text notes on Come From The Shadows (1972)

 * As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell him nothing, even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents and pictures. ...he will refuse to believe it... That's the tragedy of the situation of demoralization.
 * Yuri Bezmenov, 1983 interview, as quoted in 38 years ago, a KGB defector chillingly predicted modern America (18 July 2018), Big Think.

 * ... “brainwashing” [is] a word-for-word translation from xi-nao, the Mandarin words for wash (xi) and brain (nao)... The process was meant to “change a mind radically so that its owner becomes a living puppet—a human robot—without the atrocity being visible from the outside.”
 * Lorraine Boissoneault "The True Story of Brainwashing and How It Shaped America" Smithsonian Magazine (May 22, 2017)

 * The idea of mind control flourished in pop culture, with movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Manchurian Candidate showing people whose minds were wiped and controlled by outside forces...By 1980 even the American Psychiatric Association had given it credence, including brainwashing under “dissociative disorders” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III.
 * Lorraine Boissoneault "The True Story of Brainwashing and How It Shaped America" Smithsonian Magazine (May 22, 2017)

 * Had Chinese and Soviet Communists really uncovered a machine or method to rewrite men’s minds and supplant their free will? The short answer is no—but that didn’t stop the U.S. from pouring resources into combatting it.
 * Lorraine Boissoneault "The True Story of Brainwashing and How It Shaped America" Smithsonian Magazine (May 22, 2017)

 * Control of thought is more important for governments that are free and popular than for despotic and military states. The logic is straightforward: a despotic state can control its domestic enemies by force, but as the state loses this weapon, other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses from interfering with public affairs, which are none of their business.
 * Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy (1992), p. 357

 * There is perhaps a fifth category, which may belong under "insane" but which can be more sympathetically characterized by a word like tormented, bullied, or brainwashed. Sincere people who are not ignorant, not stupid, and not wicked can be cruelly torn, almost in two, between the massive evidence of science on the one hand, and their understanding of what their holy book tells them on the other.
 * Richard Dawkins "Ignorance Is No Crime", Free Inquiry 21 (3), Summer 2001, ISSN 0272-0701
 * Regarding his 1989 statement "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."

 * If you insert electrodes directly into the brains of cats and apes, they will behave like electronic toys. A whole series of motor functions can be triggered based on which button the experimenter pushes. This applies to all body parts: front and back paws, the tail, the hind parts, the head, and the ears.
 * José Delgado ; as quoted in Magnus Bärtås, Fredrik Ekman, and José Delgado (translated by Sina Najafi); “Psychocivilization and Its Discontents: An Interview with José Delgado”, Cabinet Magazine, (Spring 2001)

 * Stimulation of different points in the amygdala and hippocampus in the four patients produced a variety of effects, including pleasant sensations, elation, deep, thoughtful concentration, odd feelings, super relaxation, colored visions, and other responses.
 * Delgado, Jose M.; et al. "Intracerebral Radio Stimulation and recording in Completely Free Patients", Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Vol 147(4), 1968, 329-340.

 * The radio stimulated bulls underscore the classic symbolism of the bullfight, that is -- the triumph of intelligence over brute force, the supremacy of skill and grace over aggression and ferocity. The radio directed bulls also teach us that ancestral instincts of attack and destruction can be pacified by technology and human intelligence, giving a hope of peace that perhaps could benefit future humanity.
 * Delgado JMR. Toros Radiodirigidos, Una experiencia científica con el toro de lidida. In: de Cossío José María., editor. Los toros. tratado técnico e histórico (Vol 7 of 9) Tauromaquia. Espasa-Calpe, S.A; 1981; translated by Timothy C. Marzullo in “The Missing Manuscript of Dr. Jose Delgado’s Radio Controlled Bulls”, J Undergrad Neurosci Educ. 2017 Spring; 15(2): R29–R35.

 * We knew too little about the brain. It is much too complicated to be controlled. We never knew which parts of the brain we were stimulating with the stimoceiver. We didn’t even manage to prevent epileptic attacks, which we thought would be the simplest of things. We never found the area where epilepsy attacks originate.
 * Magnus Bärtås, Fredrik Ekman, and José Delgado (translated by Sina Najafi); “Psychocivilization and Its Discontents: An Interview with José Delgado”, Cabinet Magazine, (Spring 2001)

G - L

 * I had different views in the '70s. As a human being, I've learned… I have more culture now. I was dumb as a rock when I wrote 'Okie from Muskogee'... My views on marijuana have totally changed. I think we were brainwashed and I think anybody that doesn't know that needs to get up and read and look around, get their own information. It's a cooperative government project to make us think marijuana should be outlawed.
 * Merle Haggard in "Merle Haggard - Branded man", in No Depression magazine (31 October 2003)

 * ... the term was based on the Chinese phrase ‘hsi nao’, meaning ‘to cleanse the mind’, and that this was not an official Communist phrase (it does not appear in Chinese dictionaries or newspapers) but was nevertheless said, on record, by Hunter’s Chinese informants. As Hunter would explain, ‘hsi nao’ was a clever pun on a longstanding Confucian principle, ‘hsi hsin’, to wash the heart, a metaphor that meant to prepare oneself for a quiet retirement from world affairs.
 * Marcia Holmes "Edward Hunter and the origins of ‘brainwashing’" Hidden Persuaders (May 26, 2017)]

 * Brainwashing is a system of befogging the brain so a person can be seduced into acceptance of what otherwise would  be abhorrent to him. He loses touch with reality. Facts and fancy whirl round and change places … However, in order to prevent people from recognizing the inherent evils in brainwashing, the Reds  pretend that it is only another name for something already very  familiar and of unquestioned respect, such as education or reform.
 * Edward Hunter (1956) Brainwashing. New York: Pyramid Books. p. 185-186

 * The American Psychological Association had rejected the brainwashing/mind control theories in 1987 insofar as they applied to religious movements, on the basis that they were not scientific is, therefore, perfectly accurate. It is, in fact, almost identical to [Margaret] Singer’s own statement that the rejection of the DIMPAC report was “described by the APA as a rejection of the scientific validity of the theory of coercive persuasion.
 * Massimo Introvigne (1998) “Liar, Liar”: Brainwashing, CESNUR and APA (online)

 * Social scientists need not alter their definition of brainwashing, but should simply acknowledge that at least one contemporary ideological organization utilizes brainwashing in an attempt to retain its members. While this study cannot answer crucial questions about the long term implications for people who have been through this particular brainwashing program (compare Schein, 1961: 284), no doubt exists that Scientology's founder gave considerable thought to brainwashing techniques and imposed them on those of his followers whom he believed were harbouring thoughts or performing actions against him or the organization. The "brainwashing" term, therefore, has validity within some social science discourse.
 * (1997) Brainwashing in. Scientology's. Rehabilitation Project Force. p. 21 (online)

 * If someone took control of your mind and you were not able to think as yourself any longer, you would no longer be yourself. You'd be something in his command. You as an individual would be dead. That's Anti-Life. In other words, if you gave yourself to some cause, and gave up everything as an individual and you were at the beck and call of some leader, you would be dead as an individual. And that's what Darkseid wants. He wants control of everybody. If it was snowing outside and you weren't wearing any shoes and it was 38 degrees below zero and this guy says, "Go out and get me a bologna sandwich," you have to go through all that; you obey him automatically, you obey him meekly. You walk out without a coat and you freeze to death. He doesn't care. You do it anyway despite the fact that you don't want to do it. You're dead as an individual. You have no choice. You can't object and you have no stature as a person. You're dead. A slave is a dead man.
 * Jack Kirby, "Jack Kirby interview", Train of Thought #5, (1971).

 * Behind this web of semantic.(and more than semantic) confusion [regarding the definition of thought reform] lies an image of "brainwashing" as an all-powerful, irresistible, unfathomable, and magical method of achieving total control over the human mind. It is of course none of these things, and this loose usage makes the word a rallying point for fear, resentment, urges toward submission, justification for failure, irresponsible accusation, and for a wide gamut of emotional extremism.
 * (1961) Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China. New York City: Norton, p. 4 ([Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism online])

M - R

 * Here, then, is the brief history of brainwashing. The concept began as an [O]rientalist propaganda fiction created by the CIA to mobilize domestic support for a massive military build-up.
 * Timothy Melley "Brain Warfare: The Covert Sphere, Terrorism, and the Legacy of the Cold War Grey Room No. 45, On Brainwashing: Mind Control, Media, and Warfare'' (Fall 2011)

 * Definition of brainwashing1: a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas2: persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship
 * Mirriam-Webster Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Corporation 2022

 * If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened — that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death? And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'.  The past, he reflected, had not merely been altered, it had been actually destroyed. For how could you establish even the most obvious fact when there existed no record outside your own memory?
 * George Orwell, 1984

 * The only chance for victory over the brainwash is the right of every man to have his ideas judged one at a time. You never get clarity as long as you have these packaged words, as long as a word is used by twenty-five people in twenty-five different ways. That seems to me to be the first fight, if there is going to be any intellect left.
 * Ezra Pound, in Quotes about Intelligence and Intellectuals, p. 12.

 * Brainwashing: (a.k.a. thought control, mind control, coercive persuasion). A non-violent method that uses mind control techniques to convince a person to abandon some of their basic beliefs and adopt the beliefs of the indoctrinator.
 * B.A. Robinson (1996) "Glossary of religious and spiritual terms" on religioustolerance.org (online)

 * Brainwashing is defined as an observable set of transactions between a charismatically-structured collectivity and an isolated agent of the collectivity with the goal of transforming the agent into a deployable agent. Brainwashing is thus a process of ideological resocialization carried out within a structure of charismatic authority.
 * Thomas Robbins, Benjamin David Zablocki (2001) Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field. p. 183

 * Given the problematic nature of scientific support for brainwashing based theories as they are applied to participants in new religions, it is reasonable to ask why such evidence was ever admitted [into court testimony], and why it is sometimes still admitted. The most plausible answer has to do with the operation of biases, prejudices, and misinformation in these cases that involve controversial parties and issues or, as Kassin and Wrightsman (1988) say: cases involving emotional topics over which public opinion is polarized.
 * and Gerald Ginsburg; partly cited in Helen Reece (1998) Law and Science, Volume 1. p. 287

S - Z

 * Thought reform contains elements which are evident in Chinese culture (emphasis on interpersonal sensitivity, learning by rote and self-cultivation); in methods of extracting confessions well known in the Papal Inquisition (13th century) and elaborated through the centuries, especially by the Russian secret police; in methods of organizing corrective prisons, mental hospitals and other institutions for producing value change; in methods used by religious sects, fraternal orders, political elites or primitive societies for converting or initiating new members. Thought reform techniques are consistent with psychological principles but were not explicitly derived from such principles.
 * (1963). "Brainwashing". in: Encyclopædia Britannica 4 (14th (revised) ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. p. 91.
 * The capture of American GIs in the Korean War heightened the alarm. Stories coming out of Korea suggested that the Chinese and Korean communists had developed techniques of indoctrination which nobody could resist. US soldiers and airmen had allegedly been turned into fervent communists. This process became known as brainwashing. Panic gripped the popular press. Perhaps such POWs, when liberated, might return home as clandestine subversives. It was years before brainwashing was shown to be a fantasy. When captives, brutalised by torture and malnutrition, professed adherence to Marxism-Leninism they were usually calculating that a pretence of ideological conversion would stop their torment.
 * Robert Service, Comrades: A History of World Communism (2009)

 * An estimated 5,000 economic, political, and religious groups operate in the United States alone at any given time, with 2.5 million members. Over the last ten years, cults have used tactics of coercive mind control to negatively impact an estimated 20 million victims in the last ten years. Worldwide figures are even greater.
 * Margaret Singer (1997) ; cited in Jeff Spanke (2008) Second Hand Out. p. 251

 * Human beings have been trying to change each others' minds since they first discovered they had them. Brainwashing is more ambitious, and more coercive, than simple persuasion, and unlike older cognates such as indoctrination, it has become closely associated with modern, mechanistic technology. It is a systematic processing of non-compliant human beings which, if successful, refashions their very identities.
 * Kathleen Taylor Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control Oxford University Press 2004

 * Brainwashing threatens cherished notions of free will. It seems to suggest that we may not be safe anywhere, not even inside our own skulls. Since Korea it has been invoked whenever people do something especially incomprehensible.
 * Kathleen Taylor "Thought crime" The Guardian October 7, 2005

 * Say the word "brainwashing", and chances are we think of the Manchurian Candidate, of some mysterious process that installs malevolent new beliefs in people's minds - as if ideologies were just like versions of Windows...But brains are not computers, and there is no Button X that Osama and his ilk can press to turn a man from good to evil. Giving a name to the pathway from "normal" to "killer" may make us feel better, but it doesn't help us prevent any future bombings.
 * Kathleen Taylor "Thought crime" The Guardian October 7, 2005

 * One striking fact about brainwashing is its consistency. Whether the context is a prisoner-of-war camp, a cult's headquarters or a radical mosque, five core techniques keep cropping up: isolation, control, uncertainty, repetition and emotional manipulation.
 * Kathleen Taylor "Thought crime" The Guardian October 7, 2005

 * The persuasive techniques used by totalist cults to bind and exploit the members, while not magical or infallible, are sufficiently powerful and effective to assure the recruitment of a significant percentage of those approached, and the retention of a significant percentage of those enlisted.
 * "Persuasive Techniques in Religious Cults," in: Marc Galanter (1989) Cults and New Religious Movements. p. 4

 * Mind control is the process by which individual or collective freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify or distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition and/or behavioral outcomes. It is neither magical nor mystical, but a process that involves a set of basic social psychological principles. … It seems to me that at the very heart of the controversy over the existence of mind control is a bias toward believing in the power of people to resist the power of situational forces, a belief in individual will power and faith to overcome all evil adversity. It is Jesus modeling resistance against the temptations of Satan, and not the vulnerability of Adam and Eve to deception. More recently, examples abound that challenge this person-power misattribution.
 * Benjamin Zablocki (2002); As cited in: Herbert W Simons, PH.D., Jean Jones (2011) Persuasion and Contemporary Culture. p. 343

 * A western citizen is being brainwashed much more than a soviet citizen ever was during the era of communist propaganda. In ideology, the main thing is not the ideas, but rather the mechanisms of their distribution. The might of the Western media, for example, is incomparably greater than that of the propaganda mechanisms of the Vatican when it was at the zenith of its power. And it is not only the cinema, literature, philosophy – all the levers of influence and mechanisms used in the promulgation of culture, in its broadest sense, work in this direction. At the slightest impulse all who work in this area respond with such consistency that it is hard not to think that all orders come from a single source of power.
 * Aleksandr Zinovyev, as quoted in Alexander Zinoviev on Stalin and the dissolution of the USSR, October 27, 2016

title: Brainwashing


text:
Kurt Gödel

Kurt Gödel (28 April 1906 – 14 January 1978) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics.

Quotes

 * To every ω-consistent recursive class κ of formulae there correspond recursive class signs r, such that neither v Gen r nor Neg (v Gen r) belongs to Flg (κ) (where v is the free variable of r).
 * Proposition VI, On Formally Undecidable Propositions in Principia Mathematica and Related Systems I (1931); Informally, recursive systems of axioms cannot be complete.

 * The completeness theorem, mathematically, is indeed an almost trivial consequence of Skolem 1923a. However, the fact is that, at that time, nobody (including Skolem himself) drew this conclusion (neither from Skolem 1923a nor, as I did, from similar considerations of his own).
 * as quoted, from a 1967 letter to Hao Wang, by Hao Wang in From Mathematics to Philosophy, 1974, p. 8

 * But every error is due to extraneous factors (such as emotion and education); reason itself does not err.
 * Attributed as a remark of 29th November 1972, in Incompleteness (2005) by Rebecca Goldstein

 * Either mathematics is too big for the human mind, or the human mind is more than a machine.
 * As quoted in Topoi : The Categorial Analysis of Logic (1979) by Robert Goldblatt, p. 13

 * The formation in geological time of the human body by the laws of physics (or any other laws of similar nature), starting from a random distribution of elementary particles and the field is as unlikely as the separation of the atmosphere into its components. The complexity of the living things has to be present within the material [from which they are derived] or in the laws [governing their formation].
 * As quoted in "On 'computabilism’ and physicalism: Some Problems" by Hao Wang, in Nature’s Imagination (1995), edited by J. Cornwall, p. 161-189

 * I like Islam, it is a consistent idea of religion and open-minded.
 * As quoted in A Logical Journey: From Gödel to Philosophy (1996) by Hao Wang, p. 148

 * There are other worlds and rational beings of a different and higher kind. The world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived.
 * As quoted in A Logical Journey: From Gödel to Philosophy (1996) by Hao Wang, p. 316

 * Religions are, for the most part, bad-but religion is not.
 * As quoted in A Logical Journey: From Gödel to Philosophy (1996) by Hao Wang, p. 316

 * Ninety percent of [contemporary philosophers] see their principal task as that of beating religion out of men's heads. … We are far from being able to provide scientific basis for the theological world view.
 * As quoted in Logical Dilemmas : The Life and Work of Kurt Gödel (1997) by John W. Dawson Jr.

 * The meaning of the world is the separation of wish and fact. Wish is a force as applied to thinking beings, to realize something. A fulfilled wish is a union of wish and fact. The meaning of the whole world is the separation and the union of fact and wish.
 * As quoted in The Outer Limits of Reason: What Science, Mathematics, and Logic Cannot Tell Us (MIT Press) 2013 by Yanofsky, Noson S

 * Secondly, even disregarding the intrinsic necessity of some new axiom, and even in case it has no intrinsic necessity at all, a probable decision about its truth is possible also in another way, namely, inductively by studying its "success." Success here means fruitfulness in consequences, in particular in "veriﬁable" consequences, i.e. consequences veriﬁable without the new axiom, whose proofs with the help of the new axiom, however, are considerably simpler and easier to discover, and make it possible to contract into one proof many different proofs. The axioms for the system of real numbers, rejected by the intuitionists, have in this sense been veriﬁed to some extent, owing to the fact that analytic number theory frequently allows one to prove number-theoretical theorems which, in a more cumbersome way, can subsequently be veriﬁed by elementary methods. A much higher degree of veriﬁcation than that, however, is conceivable. There might exists axioms so abundant in their veriﬁable consequences, shedding so much light upon a whole ﬁeld, and yielding such powerful methods for solving problems, (and even solving them constructively, as far as that is possible) that, no matter whether or not they are intrinsically necessary, they would have to be accepted at least in the same sense as any well-established physical theory.
 * Kurt Godel Collected Works: Volume II: Publications 1938-1974, S. Feferman et al., editors (1990)

 * The more I think about language, the more it amazes me that people ever understand each other at all.
 * Reflections on Kurt Gödel, MIT Press, Hao Wang 1987, page 95, according to Karl Menger

Quotes about Gödel

 * If a 'religion' is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one.
 * John D. Barrow, The Artful Universe (1995)

 * Fifty years ago Kurt Gödel... proved that the world of pure mathematics is inexhaustible. No finite set of axioms and rules of inference can ever encompass the whole of mathematics. Given any finite set of axioms, we can find meaningful mathematical questions which the axioms leave unanswered. This discovery... came at first as an unwelcome shock to many mathematicians. It destroyed... the hope that they could solve the problem of deciding by a systematic procedure the truth or falsehood of any mathematical statement. ...Gödel's theorem, in denying ...the possibility of a universal algorithm to settle all questions, gave... instead, a guarantee that mathematics can never die. ...there will always be, thanks to Gödel, fresh questions to ask and fresh ideas to discover.
 * Freeman Dyson, Infinite in All Directions (1988)

 * Gödel published comparatively little, but almost always to maximum effect; his papers are models of precision and incisive presentation.
 * Solomon Feferman, in "Gödel's Life and Work", Kurt Gödel: Collected Works, Volume I : Publications 1929-1936 (1986), p. 1

 * In the end we search out the beginnings. Established, beyond comparison, as the most important logician of our times by his remarkable results of the 1930s, Kurt Gödel was also most unusual in the ways of his life and mind. Deeply private and reserved, he had a superb all embracing rationality, which could descend into a maddening attention to detail in matters of everyday life.
 * Solomon Feferman, in "Gödel's Life and Work", Kurt Gödel: Collected Works, Volume I : Publications 1929-1936 (1986), p. 2

Gödel demonstrated that every logical scheme, including mathematics, is dependent upon axioms that it cannot prove and that cannot be reduced to the scheme itself.''' In an elegant mathematical proof, introduced to the world by the great mathematician and computer scientist John von Neumann in September 1930, Gödel demonstrated that mathematics was intrinsically incomplete. Gödel was reportedly concerned that he might have inadvertently proved the existence of God, a faux pas in his Viennese and Princeton circle. It was one of the famously paranoid Gödel's more reasonable fears.
 * '''The progenitor of information theory, and perhaps the pivotal figure in the recent history of human thought, was Kurt Gödel, the eccentric Austriac genius and intimate of Einstein who drove determinism from its strongest and most indispensable redoubt; the coherence, consistency, and self-sufficiency of mathematics.
 * George Gilder, in Knowledge and Power : The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World (2013), Ch. 10: Romer's Recipes and Their Limits

 * After Einstein's death, Gödel's sense of exile must have deepened enormously. When Einstein had been ordered by his doctor to take a rest cure, there had been nobody, as Gödel complained to his mother, for him to speak to. Now there would permanently be nobody.
 * Rebecca Goldstein in

 * Not even mathematics can be considered as a closed and complete system of axioms and theorems. The mathematical world is inexhaustible, no finite set of postulates and deductions will ever be able to give us the answer to all questions. Gödel's theorem, whose statement dates back to about half a century ago, brutally put an end to all attempts to condense mathematics into a list of axioms from which the truth or falsity of each of its assertions should follow. If the same mathematical language that physics uses to describe the world remains intrinsically incomplete, it is not reasonable to expect that the universe can be describable starting from a finite set of natural laws. The incompleteness of mathematics and consequently that of physics is repugnant to many, but it must be said that for the exact sciences, Gödel's theorem is by no means a defeat: on the contrary, it provides us with an intellectual push towards ever broader and more fruitful developments.
 * Tullio Regge, Infinito Viaggio ai limiti dell'universo, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milano, 1995. ISBN 88-04-35976-5., Ch. 2, p. 18.

 * ... according to what Veblen told me, the association between Einstein and Gödel arose in the following way. Veblen felt that he had to look out for Gödel, and spent quite a lot of time talking with him. And then, he thought that he might perhaps get Einstein to take over part of this responsibility. And that seemed to go so extremely well that Veblen removed himself, essentially, from the picture. Einstein and Gödel remained very close. They tended to come to the Institute together, and leave the Institute together, very often. Of course, Gödel's interest in the theory of relativity theory undoubtedly goes back to this association with Einstein. ... I don't think he had any interest in physics before that. I know he had some philosophical interests, but I think the specific interest in the theory of relativity, in which he did write some papers and create some results of significance, that goes back to that association.
 * Atle Selberg, as quoted by, (quote from pp. 19–20)

 * Toward the end of his life, Gödel feared that he was being poisoned, and he starved himself to death. His theorem is one of the most extraordinary results in mathematics, or in any intellectual field in this century. If ever potential mental instability is detectable by genetic analysis, an embryo of someone with Kurt Gödel's gifts might be aborted.
 * Brian L. Silver, in The Ascent of Science (1998)

 * The one man who was, during the last years, certainly by far Einstein's best friend, and in some ways strangely resembled him most, was Kurt Gödel, The great logician. They were very different in almost every personal way — Einstein gregarious, happy, full of laughter and common sense, and Gödel extremely solemn, very serious, quite solitary, and distrustful of common sense as a means of arriving at the truth. But they shared a fundamental quality: both went directly and wholeheartedly to the questions at the very center of things.
 * Ernst G. Strauss, in reminiscences of 1982, as quoted in "Gödel's Life and Work", by Solomon Feferman, in Kurt Gödel: Collected Works, Volume I : Publications 1929-1936 (1986), p. 2

title: Kurt Gödel


text:
Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken (born March 31, 1943) is an American film and theater actor. Walken is a prolific actor who has spent more than 50 years on stage and screen. He has appeared in over 100 movie and television roles, including A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New York, Batman Returns and Pulp Fiction, as well as music videos by recording artists such as Madonna. He received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1978 film The Deer Hunter.

Quotes

 * I have this theory about words: There’s a thousand ways to say "Pass the salt." It could mean, you know, "Can I have some salt?" or it could mean, "I love you." It could mean "I’m very annoyed with you" – really, the list could go on and on. Words are little bombs, and they have a lot of energy inside them.
 * Shout Magazine, in the issue from August, in the article "Cookin' with Christopher Walken" (2001)

 * "Get these tubes away from me!"
 * from Joe Dirt (2001)

 * I have the easiest job in Hollywood, because I get paid to be me. What's the role? A milkman? 'Hey, I'm a milkman. Here's your milk.' 'Cut. Print.'
 * The Henry Rollins Show (July 20, 2007), Season 2, Episode 15.

 * I play a lot of those parts, and it's a chicken-and-egg thing. I don't know whether you get scary because you play those parts or did you get those parts because you were scary? But I do believe that there's a very close connection to what's scary and what's funny. So I think if you have the ability to do one, you might have the ability to do the other.
 * The Toronto Star staff (July 20, 2007) "How Walken makes us laugh in fear", The Toronto Star, p. E01.

 * Well, I don't play heroes obviously. I never played the guy who gets the girl. It might be interesting to do a part where I was a father in a functional family.
 * Hap Erstein (October 29, 2004) "Walken Doesn't Mind Playing Creepy Type - As Long As He's Cast", The Palm Beach Post, p. 9.
 * “I’m Christopher Walken here!”
 * (The mean streets of New Jersey, 2014)
 * I won't retire. When you're an actor, you're forced to retire every few months. John Gielgud was 96 when he died, and he was working. It's good to work, whatever it is that keeps you interested. I would like to do that, I would like to keep going. I don't have kids, and I don't have hobbies. I don't particularly like to travel. If you're an actor, you have to travel anyway.
 * Dixie Reid (October 24, 2004) "'Bend' it like Walken - Actor has more to say about food and hair than acting", The Sacramento Bee, p. TK31.

 * I look for good possibilities in movies. I don't look for perfection.
 * Glenn Lovell: Knight Ridder Newspapers (October 18, 2004) "A mellow, reflective Christopher Walken", The Seattle Times, p. E8.

 * I'm not a big fan of other people's punctuation. When I read a script I've got a sort of automatic eraser. I don't see punctuation or capitals or instructions. I want to decide when the sentence is over. Who's to say when a sentence ends and the other one begins? Sometimes it begins in the middle of the next sentence.
 * Jason Walsh (October 17, 2004) "Walken on the edge", Marin Independent Journal, Section: Lifestyles.

 * I believe in saving money. I believe in having a house. I believe in keeping things clean. I believe in exercising. Slow and steady is a very good thing for me. It works for me.
 * Douglas J. Rowe: The Associated Press (June 14, 2004) "Film bad guy Walken: 'Slow and steady is a very good thing for me'", The Grand Rapids Press, p. D5.

 * Careers are not often as chosen as people think they are. People talk to me about my choices. I don't make choices, hardly. Things happen, and you say yes or no - usually 'yes', because it's always better to do something. What's the choice? Somebody will say, 'Don't do that part, you don't need to do that part.' And I'll say, 'Why not? What am I going to do? Sit around the house? I'd much rather go to work, and see actors, and have fun.
 * William Leith (January 25, 2003) "Dancing in the Dark: He was a baby when he got his first showbiz break in the 1940s, and then firmly schooled in the song-and-dance tradition. So how did Christopher Walken end up as a master of evil?", The Guardian.

 * I think it's sort of a compliment. Jay Mohr does it in front of me all the time. I've got another friend who does me on his answering machine. When I call him, I hear myself.
 * On individuals' impressions of Walken, interview in Randy Cordova (December 22, 2002) "Workaholic Walken Is Marvelous 'Catch'", The Arizona Republic, p. E3.

 * I have a theory, that there is a terrific link between what is funny and what is scary. I think there is a very close connection between what frightens people and what makes them laugh. Laughter is a kind of nervousness. Animals don't laugh. Smiling is, anthropologists agree, directly linked to the baring of the teeth.
 * Jan Moir (March 11, 2002) "'You're not scared of me, are you?': Christopher Walken has cornered the market in movie menace. But, as Jan Moir discovers, he is just as unsettling in real life", The Daily Telegraph, p. 18.

 * I think that my strength as a villain is that the people watching me know that Chris knows that he's in a movie. He's playing. He's having fun. He's going bang, bang. You know, "What's that?"
 * Associated Press (December 16, 1999) "Christopher Walken Prefers His Ozzie Nelson Side", The Press of Atlantic City, p. B3.

 * It's a natural aspect of the marketplace. It's always been that way in storytelling. The guy who was good at playing the lover plays the lover, the funny guy gets the comic role. Movies are so expensive, when they put them together they want to have a couple of solid blocks in what they're building. I accept that. In theater, though, I tend to look for other things, I think I tend to be best in comedy.
 * Terry Lawson: Knight-Ridder Newspapers (February 18, 1996) "Weird, As In Walken - No, He's Not Really Nuts … Maybe", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p. 3D.

 * I'm a better actor now than I ever was, I wish I could have hurried that up, but there's no way. Anyway, I always wanted to be around for a long time. Like a European actor, I hope I live a long time and that I'm acting until I finish.
 * Associated Press (February 4, 1993) "Christopher Walken shows charming side", The Toronto Star, p. F7.

 * I'm very nervous when I work in a film and very relaxed before a live audience. I like theater because it's more of an actor's medium. You can control your performance. In film you depend on the director to watch out for your ass, but in the theater you can take care of yourself.
 * Michael Blowen (August 17, 1980) "Walken's Success Spells Old Lifestyle, But Better Wines", The Boston Globe.

About

 * Walken is fascinating because he has a complex and fearless process -- each take is wildly different and he does that until he finds the one that is true perfection.
 * Josh Lucas, discussing acting with Walken in film Around the Bend, interview in Kathy Cano Murillo (October 21, 2004) "Lucas Cranks It Up A Notch In 'Bend'", The Arizona Republic, p. 9.

 * Everybody always wants to work with Christopher Walken. I think he's the most interesting actor working today. His choices are always dangerous, which makes for interesting work. You can watch him eat a bowl of cereal and you'd be riveted because he's just unpredictable.
 * Mars Callahan, interview in Bob Strauss (February 24, 2003) "Still racking them up - Christopher Walken, Oscar nominee and star of 'Poolhall Junkies,' has no intention of slowing his prolific career", The Whittier Daily News.

title: Christopher Walken


text:
Invasion America

Invasion America (1998) was America's first animated, prime-time sci-fi mini-series. It was originally 13 half hour episodes, but was condensed to six longer ones. The story follows David Carter, the half-human son of an alien king, as he tries to stop the Dragit's plots to conquer Earth.

The Legend [1.1, 1.2]

 * [David is speeding on Jim's motorcycle]
 * Jim Bailey: Uh…how about bringing it down to Mach 1, okay? Personal favor?

 * [Upon learning and disapproving of the Dragit's plans]
 * Rafe: Treason!
 * Dragit: Revolution.

 * Rita Carter: I'm Rita. Oh, uh- you put your hand in mine, and then up, and down. It's this little custom we have on Earth.
 * Cale Oosha: Yosh. I have read of this.
 * Rita: You really are from out there!

 * Rafe: Let's go while there's time.
 * Rita: Go where? You can't go back to your spaceship; do you have a back-up plan? …Any plan?

 * [Cale hands Rita orb]
 * Cale: Keep this. It is your path to me.
 * Rita: How?
 * Cale: You'll know when the time comes.

 * ''[telling Rafe to stay behind]
 * Cale: They need you. Serve them as you served me. Protect them as you protected me. And, Rafe...teach him, as you taught me. He is our future.

 * Gen. Konrad: Your lab work is outstanding Major Stark. Think of it- a species not of this Earth- and the tabloids got it right for a change.

 * ''[looking at a museum exhibit]
 * Jim: Mmm…I love these things.
 * David Carter: Didn't think you liked history.
 * Jim: Oh, I don't. Ask me how I feel about topless native women.

 * David: In one day my world has been taken from me- my home, my mom- my life. Why? Why is this happening to me?

Assault [1.3, 1.4]

 * David: Where did my father go?
 * Rafe: To lead the fight against the Dragit.
 * David: Who’s Dragit?
 * Rafe: A warlord who plans to invade Earth.
 * David: Invade Earth? Why?
 * Rafe: He claims he’s saving Tyrus. The Ooshati- those who follow your father- disagree.

 * Rafe: We call it the Exotar- the symbol of sovereignty, eight hundred of your ancestors have worn it. We called your father Cale-Oosha, our lawful ruler. As you will be someday. Put it on.
 * [Exotar glows, molds to David’s hand]
 * David: Did you see it? It changed to fit me!
 * Rafe: When its sensors identified your genetic code, it adjusted to you. If you were not the son of Cale, it would have crushed your hand.

 * ''[about an attacking Tyrusian soldier]
 * David: He looks American.
 * Rafe: So do I.

 * ''[David grabs Rafe's second gun]
 * Rafe: Do you know how to use that?
 * David: I go to the movies.

 * Major Phil Stark: I do not like being shot at.

 * ''[while planning attack on underground base]
 * Suta: What if they release the manglers?
 * Rafe: Then…they win.

 * [watching Rafe]
 * David: What is it, Halloween?
 * Rafe: Tyrusian war paint. Black represents the darkness within, grey the spirit of the warrior. [applies green]
 * David: What’s that represent?
 * Rafe: Nothing. I like the color.

 * Konrad: How much longer to arm the destruct sequence?
 * Tyrusian 1: A minute, sir, maybe less.
 * Konrad: Seal off the core, release the manglers.
 * Tyrusian 1: But sir, our men are in there.
 * Konrad: Do it.
 * Tyrusian 1: No, sir, we can’t.
 * [Konrad shoots Tyrusian 1]
 * Konrad: [pointing gun at Tyrusian 2] You do it.

 * Pilot: You can’t fly this thing!
 * David: Watch me.

 * [targetting an enemy ship]
 * David: Just like a video game…

 * Konrad: [pointing gun] What? No heroics? No super acts of courage? I’m disappointed in you, Rafe. But I’ll get over it.

 * David: I’m half human, half alien, and altogether alone. But I will never stop fighting.

Renewal [1.5, 1.6]

 * Stark: I’d like to speak to the general.
 * Gen. Gordon: So would we. [2 men carrying a covered stretcher pass in foreground] But it’s gonna take a real high clearance.

 * [While wandering, lost, in the Utah desert]
 * David: I didn’t know…how long, how far I wandered. Hours, miles…it didn’t matter. The sun was always right on top of me. I had to contact the Ooshati, the freedom fighters loyal to my father. But the only transmitter was back on Maple Island, and that meant finding my way out of a million square miles of kitty litter.

 * [hallucinating from heat exhaustion]
 * David: The visions lasted for hours. I saw Mom [tries to hug Rita but she vanishes]…Rafe…[Rafe mirage morphs into Cale] …and my father. I’d never known how to imagine him before. In my dreams he was never a face…just a deep voice I could never understand, or a strong arm around my shoulders. I tried to tell myself he was there to help me, to give me the strength and courage to survive. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past forty-eight hours [Cale mirage crouches] is that things are never what they seem. [Cale turns into mangler] This vision was real.

 * [after being rescued from mangler]
 * David: [panting] Thanks, I owe you one.
 * Doc: Huh. You owe me a freezer full of good meat.

 * Sergeant Angie Romar: Something’s not right.
 * Stark: You getting spirit messages now?
 * Romar: My gypsy heritage.

 * [being pursued by a sheriff]
 * David: He’s gaining on us.
 * Doc:Well, what do you want me to do, kid? Fly? Turn invisible? This heap didn’t even come with air conditioning!

 * [Doc is hauling a motorcycle out of hiding]
 * Doc: Figured I might need something faster than that truck someday. It’s yours if you want it. I put a few gimmicks on it might come in handy. It can do most anything you ask it to…dern near fly.
 * David: I can’t take this from you.
 * Doc: Take it. Like I said, I’m no hero…but maybe you are.

 * David: There were two obstacles: police everywhere looking for me…and I was starving. I never thought I’d risk my life for a cheeseburger.

 * David: What’s going on?
 * Man 1: One of them meteors!
 * Man 2: It’s…coming straight at us!

Capture [1.7, 1.8]

 * Jim: Okay. Let me get this straight. You’ve just driven 72 hours straight on a motorcycle that hovers so that you can use a glove that glows to stop evil Tyrusians from destroying Earth by launching meteors at it from the dark side of the moon. Right?
 * David: [sighs] When you put it that way it does sounds kind of wild.
 * Jim: Wild? What have you been smoking?

Final Mission [1.11, 1.12, 1.13]

 * Doc: I couldn't stop the meteor launch, so I reversed it.
 * David: You what?
 * Doc: It seemed like a good idea at the time.

title: Invasion America


text:
Gates of Heaven

Gates of Heaven is a 1978 American documentary film about the pet cemetery business. It is American film-maker Errol Morris' first film.

Floyd McClure

 * And this is the part of the inspiration of getting our little tits... into a cemetery. Something that we could be proud of, of saying, 'My little pet did his chore here - that God has sent him to us to do a chore - love and be loved and serve his master.' And, boy, these little pets that did that... Like I said before - death is for the living and not for the dead.

Florence Rasmussen

 * I'm raised on a farm, we had chickens and pigs and cows and sheep and everything. But down here I've been lost. Now they've taken them all away from here up to that - What's the name of that place? Up above here a little ways? That town? Commences with a 'B.' Blue. It's - Blue Hill Cemetery, I think the name of it is. Not too far, I guess, about maybe twenty miles from here. A little town there, a little place. You know where it's at. But I was really surprised when I heard they were getting rid of the cemetery over here. Gonna put in buildings or something over there. Ah well, I know people been very good to me, you know. Well, they see my condition, I guess, must of felt sorry for me. But it's real, my condition is. It's not put on. That's for sure! Boy, if I could only walk. If I could only get out. Drive my car. I'd get another car. Ya... and my son, if he was only better to me. After I bought him that car. He's got a nice car. I bought it myself just a short time ago. I don't know. These kids - the more you do for them... He' s my grandson, but I raised him from two years old... I don't see him very often. And he just got the car. I didn't pay for all of it. I gave him four hundred dollars. Pretty good! His boss knows it. Well, he's not working for that outfit now. He's changed. He's gone back on his old job - hauling sand. No, not hauling sand; he's working in the office. That's right. He took over the office job. His boss told me that on the phone. But, you know, he should help me more. He's all I got. He's the one who brought me up here. And then put me here by myself among strangers. It's terrible, you stop and think of it. I've been without so much, when I first come up here. Ya. It's what half of my trouble is from - him not being home with me. Didn't cost him nothing to stay here. Every time he need money, he'd always come, 'Mom, can I have this? Can I have that?' But he never pays back. Too good, too easy - that's what everybody tells me. I quit now. I quit. Now he's got the office job, I'm going after him. I'm going after him good, too - if I have to go in... in a different way. He's going to pay that money. He's got the office job now. And he makes good money anyway. And he has no kids. He has not married. Never get married, he says. He was married once - they're divorced. Well, she tried to take him for the kid, but she didn't. They went to court. It was somebody else's kid. She was nothing but a tramp in the first place. I told him that. He wouldn't listen to me. I says, 'I know what she is.' I said, 'Richard, please, listen to me.' He wouldn't listen. He knew all, he knew everything. Big shot! But he soon found out. Now that's all over with. I've been through so much I don't know how I'm staying alive. Really, for my age... if you're young, it's different. But I've always said I'm never going to grow old. I've always had that, and the people that I tell how old I am, they don't believe me, because people my age as a rule don't get around like I do.

Phil Harbert

 * I have to say to myself: What does it mean to me? What does this mean to me? What is it going to mean to me? I recognize this and - A couple of things when I was instructing motivation back in Salt Lake City is that if we don't stop and ask ourselves a question once in a while to probe our subconscious or to probe our conscious... I used to teach it. It's a plain, simple formula. We reduced everything to a formula, memorized it, and therefore we were able to repeat it constantly. I used to call it the R2-A2 formula: Recognize, Relate, Assimilate, and put into Action! Like, I could be driving down the freeway and see a 450 SL. I could say, 'Hey, I like that. What does that mean to me? What would I have to do to get it? How can I do it?' And then go to work for it. And strive for it. It kind of makes life easy. I think that's why a lot of people don't - They get frustrated. They have emotional problems, it's that they don't know how to cope with their - mind. There are three things that I've got to do and that if anybody wants to do to be successful, to have the desire, the want-to. Why do you go to work in the morning? Gee, why am I here? Because you want to. But that's obvious. And then the next very important ingredient is something that a lot of people and a lot of businesses fail to delge into. It's the activity knowledge. It would be the equation to a mathematical problem. It would be equal to the chemist's ability to emulsify chemicals - you know, properly, the valences. But the knowledge of it, the whole scope. Everything in detail. And then the third element would be, of course, the know-how or the experience. I have the inspiration to action. I don't have the activity knowledge, but I'm getting the know-how before I'm getting the activity knowledge. As a matter of fact, I'm getting more know-how than I'm getting activity knowledge. But they can be correlated together. They can be overlapped.

Quotes about Gates of Heaven

 * [Gates of Heaven is] a film about hope - hope held by the loneliest people who have ever been on film.
 * Roger Ebert
 * Source: Predilections by Mark Singer, 1989

 * Every time I show this, it plays differently. Some people think it's about animals. Some people think it's about life and death. I've shown it to a group of bankers, who believe it raises all kinds of questions about success, about starting a small business. People think it's funny or sad or deadpan or satirical. They think that Errol Morris loved the people in the film, or that he was being very cruel to them. I've never yet had a person tell me that it's a bad film or a film that doesn't interest them."
 * Roger Ebert
 * Source: Predilections by Mark Singer, 1989

 * From the beginning, I would always object when people would say, 'It's the pet-cemetery movie.' No, no, no, no! It's not about pet cemeteries. And the next question is always,'If it's not about pet cemeteries, what is it about?' Well, that's tricky! In essence, it embodies many of the ideas that are in every single film I've made. The obsession with language. Eye contact. An interest in accounts of subjective experience rather than objective reporting. The fundamental belief that if you scratch the surface of any person, you will find a world of the insane, very close to that surface.
 * Errol Morris
 * Source: The Onion A.V. Club, 2005

 * The first film I made, Gates of Heaven, was very much in reaction to a prevailing idea about how documentaries should be made. Namely, the idea of cinema verite, truth cinema. There was this idea that if you follow certain rules, if you shoot things in a certain way, then out pops the truth. The rules, themselves, are fairly straightforward. Shoot with a hand-held camera. Shoot with available light, become a fly-on-the-wall, observing but not observed in turn. And of course, try to be as unobtrusive as possible. It's one of those meat-grinder ideas. You put in the appropriate ingredients, and magically, truth results. To me, it's utter nonsense. Who could have ever made such a claim? On the basis of what? Does the font you use to print a sentence guarantee its truth or falsity? I think not. All of us get comfort - I can't speak for all of us, but my guess is the preponderant number of people in this room get a certain comfort from reading The New York Times. It's that familiar set of fonts that we're used to seeing every day, fonts which give us a certain level of comfort, a belief that what we're reading is true. I would submit that style doesn't guarantee truth. How could it possibly ever do such a thing? We may feel that the fonts are truth-telling fonts, but it's our uncritical reliance on a whole constellation of beliefs.
 * Errol Morris
 * Source: The Anti-Post-Modern Post-Modernist, 2005

 * You don't know where the US is standing after a State of the Union Address, but after seeing that film you will know. It's a film on a family behind all that [the pet cemetaries], with all their failures and all their dreams and all their dramas involved.  And it's the only authentic film on love and emotion and late capitalism and maybe it's the only authentic film on loss of emotions and distortion of feelings and degeneration of feelings.  It's a very, very sad film.
 * Werner Herzog
 * Source: Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, 1980 (a film)

 * I didn't make Gates of Heaven so that Werner Herzog would have to eat his shoe. It's not as if I decided to realize my potential as a human being in order to get somebody to ingest something distasteful. I specifically asked Werner not to eat his shoe.
 * Errol Morris
 * Source: Predilections by Mark Singer, 1989

title: Gates of Heaven