67
" As to the 'Left' I'll say briefly why this was the finish for me. Here is American society, attacked under open skies in broad daylight by the most reactionary and vicious force in the contemporary world, a force which treats Afghans and Algerians and Egyptians far worse than it has yet been able to treat us. The vaunted CIA and FBI are asleep, at best. The working-class heroes move, without orders and at risk to their lives, to fill the moral and political vacuum. The moral idiots, meanwhile, like Falwell and Robertson and Rabbi Lapin, announce that this clerical aggression is a punishment for our secularism. And the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, hitherto considered allies on our 'national security' calculus, prove to be the most friendly to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Here was a time for the Left to demand a top-to-bottom house-cleaning of the state and of our covert alliances, a full inquiry into the origins of the defeat, and a resolute declaration in favor of a fight to the end for secular and humanist values: a fight which would make friends of the democratic and secular forces in the Muslim world. And instead, the near-majority of 'Left' intellectuals started sounding like Falwell, and bleating that the main problem was Bush's legitimacy. So I don't even muster a hollow laugh when this pathetic faction says that I, and not they, are in bed with the forces of reaction. "
― Christopher Hitchens , Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
70
" I wished upon the moon one night, bewitched by how it shone so white. While staring up with some excite my eyes beheld a wondrous sight! The moon so lustrous and white transformed into an armored knight who caused me just a moments fright when he jumped down from such a height. No more a soft, celestial light, he was my lover, day and night.
This caused the world a serious plight. How harsh a sting and deep the bite inflicted on the world, alright, to lose their blackest-hour light.
And so I've come to set things right, to offer up without a fight my lover wished for one clear night. I hold him close. He hugs me tight, then climbs again to heaven's height to glow a bluer shade of bright. I stare at my beloved knight, not wanting to be impolite, and in my heart with all my might I wish a wish that isn't right.
Now and then the world still spites a shadowless and moonless night when we steal softly out of sight to hold each other 'til daylight and share in lovers true delight. "
― Richelle E. Goodrich , Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year
77
" In looking back now, I see how it began in my childhood, altho’ I was not conscious of the necessity until ’67 or ’68 when I broke down first, acutely, and had violent turns of hysteria. As I lay prostrate after the storm with my mind luminous and active and susceptible of the clearest, strongest impressions, I saw so distinctly that it was a fight simply between my body and my will, a battle in which the former was to be triumphant to the end....So, with the rest, you abandon the pit of your stomach, the palms of your hands, the soles of your feet, and refuse to keep them sane when you find in turn one moral impression after another producing despair in the one, terror in the others, anxiety in the third and so on until life becomes one long flight from remote suggestion and complicated eluding of the multifold traps set for your undoing. "
― Alice James , The Diary of Alice James
