Home > Author > Andrew Shaffer
81 " The White House’s daily self-inflicted crisis du jour left little room for stories not originating from Twitter tantrums. "
― Andrew Shaffer , Hope Never Dies (Obama Biden Mysteries, #1)
82 " it wouldn’t last forever. Nothing does. Not even grief. The first year after you’ve lost someone is the most painful, but the second year is excruciating in its own way. The grief fades, and it’s only on birthdays, and anniversaries, and holidays that you realize you’ve become accustomed to their absence. That you don’t think about them every day. "
83 " Getting your hands dirty—really dirty—has a way of rubbing off on you. It’s tough to get them clean again afterward, no matter how hard you scrub. Lady Macbeth knew it. You can wash the blood off, but it’s never really gone. "
― Andrew Shaffer , Hope Rides Again (Obama Biden Mysteries, #2)
84 " The moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, but sometimes the universe needs a little help. It "
85 " Even the most expensive luxury-hotel mattress in the world was no match for one in your home. The one with your bedside table. The one with your reading light. The one with your wife. "
86 " Joe,” Barack said, “if I hear one more story about your weird 1930s all-boys prep school, I’m going to lose it. We’re going to have quiet time. Whoever can stay silent the longest gets two scoops of chocolate-chip ice cream.” “And a waffle cone?” “And a waffle cone,” he said. “We start now.” “If you think I can’t shut up for five minutes, then—” “You’re still talking. "
87 " This whole “going from one bar to another” made no sense to me. Didn’t they serve the same beer at every bar? What were they chasing? "
88 " If the reports of cave bear attacks are proven true, however, our collective fear of bears will have been justified many times over. And one man will be there to say, in a voice saturated with snark, “I told you so.” That man’s name is Stephen Colbert. “Bears are mindless killing machines. They smell our fear. They feed on our weakness. They are public enemy number one,” Colbert has said on his nightly talk show, The Colbert Report. “I believe all God’s creatures have a soul—except bears. Bears are actually Satan’s children. "
― Andrew Shaffer , How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters: Fight Back When Monsters and Mother Nature Attack
89 " There were thick steel bars on the lower-level windows of every residence. It seemed like a nightmare way to live your life, always peering out from behind bars like you were a prisoner in your own home. The houses couldn’t have been cheap, but each one was a prison. A multimillion-dollar prison. "
90 " The truth I could see with my own eyes was the only truth I trusted these days. “Truth” had somehow become subjective. "
91 " Is this heaven?” “No,” Barack said. “It’s Iowa. "
92 " The Prohibition era was interesting. Many parallels to today, if you think about it. We’re fighting some of the same fights—the growing divide between urban and rural Americans, the rising anti-immigrant fervor. The Moral Majority. We’re repeating the past. "
93 " You can't control your thoughts. You can only control your actions. "
94 " A hundred years ago, the Irish had been the immigrant boogeymen. The popular image of the leprechaun began life as a xenophobic political cartoon. Once, nobody thought a Catholic could be president. Then Kennedy came along. From time to time, we liked to pat ourselves on the back and think we were done with hate. Recent history had shown us it didn’t take much to awaken it, though. "
95 " Things have been easy so far. They’re not going to stay that way. The path to victory isn’t a straight one. There are going to be ups and downs, twists and turns. There will be times when we all wonder what the hell we were thinking. That’s doubt. You know what the opposite of doubt is? It’s not certainty, because nothing in this life is certain. The opposite of doubt is hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism; I’m not talking about wishful idealism. I’m talking about that stubborn thing inside each and every one of us that insists something better awaits us as long as we have the courage to keep fighting."As long as you have hope," he said, repeating his words from that day, "you're still in the game.""And when you lose it?" I asked, echoing a field organizer's question."You can't lose it. Hope never dies. "
96 " America had been built with trains. That was a long time ago. The steam train was a relic. Passenger light rail was the future. Or at least it should have been. Every year, fewer and fewer people were on board with the dream. High-speed trains worked in Europe and Japan, but America was a different beast. Without government funding, passenger trains were money-losers. What Americans didn’t realize was that without government funding, so were highways and any other form of transportation, public or private. "
97 " Can a man claim more than one hometown? "
98 " Saying goodbye to the living was hard enough; saying goodbye to the dead was an impossible task. "
99 " It was drive-it-like-you-stole-it time. I'd never stolen anything in my life, but I had a lead foot heavier than Barack's summer reading list. "
100 " You ever drive one of these things?” Barack asked, staring at the controls like Sarah Palin at a teleprompter. "