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1 " Marriage, in what is evidently its most popular version, is now on the one hand an intimate 'relationship' involving (ideally) two successful careerists in the same bed, and on the other hand a sort of private political system in which rights and interests must be constantly asserted and defended. Marriage, in other words, has now taken the form of divorce: a prolonged and impassioned negotiation as to how things shall be divided. During their understandably temporary association, the 'married' couple will typically consume a large quantity of merchandise and a large portion of each other.The modern household is the place where the consumptive couple do their consuming. Nothing productive is done there. Such work as is done there is done at the expense of the resident couple or family, and to the profit of suppliers of energy and household technology. For entertainment, the inmates consume television or purchase other consumable diversion elsewhere.There are, however, still some married couples who understand themselves as belonging to their marriage, to each other, and to their children. What they have they have in common, and so, to them, helping each other does not seem merely to damage their ability to compete against each other. To them, 'mine' is not so powerful or necessary a pronoun as 'ours.'This sort of marriage usually has at its heart a household that is to some extent productive. The couple, that is, makes around itself a household economy that involves the work of both wife and husband, that gives them a measure of economic independence and self-employment, a measure of freedom, as well as a common ground and a common satisfaction. (From " Feminism, the Body, and the Machine" ) "
2 " Marriage, in what is evidently its most popular version, is now on the one hand an intimate “relationship” involving (ideally) two successful careerists in the same bed, and on the other hand a sort of private political system in which rights and interests must be constantly asserted and defended. Marriage, in other words, has now taken the form of divorce: a prolonged and impassioned negotiation as to how things shall be divided. During their understandably temporary association, the “married” couple will typically consume a large quantity of merchandise and a large portion of each other. "
― Wendell Berry , What Are People For?: Essays
3 " They told me exactly how it worked, the marketing of it. Our target market was always going to be young teenage girls, because boys are into sports, and they like buying jerseys and caps and so on, for baseball or football, things of that nature, whereas the girls are totally enthralled with the band. . . . They don’t have money, but they have access to a large supply of it: their aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, who would spend money on them for a concert or merchandise sooner than they would spend it on themselves. "
4 " You're never lost. You always know exactly where you are. You're right here. It's just that sometimes you've misplaced your destination.Brian W. Porter 2005Have you ever wondered how the computer you're using got to the store? How about your medicines, the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the furniture, the plants in the garden center? Do they have a railroad right there? Does merchandise magically appear? Only if you grow your own food, make your own clothes, make your own tools, cut your own wood, and make your own furniture, can you get away from trucking. Everything you see, even the nature outside in some places, has been on at least one truck. "
5 " You share the same destiny as everyone else, the same history, the same hardship, the same rot, the same Tram beer, the same dog kebabs, the same narrative as soon as you come into the world. You start out baby-chick or slim-jim or child-soldier. You graduate to endlessly striking student or desperado. If you've got a family on the trains, then you work on the trains; otherwise like a ship you wash up on the edge of hope - a suicidal, a carjacker, a digger with dirty teeth, a mechanic, a street sleeper, a commission agent, an errand boy employed by for-profit tourists, a hawker of secondhand coffins. Your fate is already sealed like that of the locomotives carrying spoiled merchandise and the dying. "
― Fiston Mwanza Mujila , Tram 83
6 " But here's the most incredible thing about it: the philosopher isn't proposing that as a concept; he's simply articulating what humans believe about themselves. That first they thing and therefore then they exist.What follows on from that is even worse: that since humans live that way, thinking that first they thing and then they exist, they also think that anything that doesn't think, also doesn't fully exist. Trees, the sea, the fish in the sea, the sun, the moon, a hill or a whole mountain range. None of that exists all the way; it exists on a second plane of existence, a lesser existence. Therefore, it deserves to be merchandise or food or background for humans and nothing more. "
― Sabina Berman , Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World
7 " Those baby blues slid over him, from his chest to his feet and back up, as if he were merchandise she hadn’t yet decided to buy. “I need a man.”Jackson bit back a miserable groan. The woman would be the death of him. "
― J.M. Stewart , Whatever It Takes (Morgan Family, #2)
8 " They put me and more 300 companions of misfortune and captivity in the strait and infected basement of a ship. Thirty days of cruel torments and utter lack of what is needed most to life we spent in this grave until we address the Brazilian beaches. To fit the human merchandise in the basement, were tied up and, for there was no fear of revolt, chained like beasts of our forests, which lead to potentates of Europe playground. "
― , Úrsula
9 " There is no greater torture than being forced to watch as your love, your reason for living, breathing, and existing, sinks into oblivion. Your heart stops no matter how you try to get to her, she just gets farther and farther away." ~Fane from 'Beyond the Vail'" Attention shoppers, just a brief announcement, crazy ass werewolf on isle three. Those with abundance of testosterone, don't touch their lady merchandise and you might walk out of here intact." ~Jen from 'Fate and Fury'." In the event of some sort of gathering, if one of the bossy, overbearing, possessive fur balls has not flipped his switch and attacked some poor young pup in some misguided attempt to protect his woman's virtue, then the night is not over. "
10 " And that was when I saw what Cassidy had done to herself: the gold and red ribbing on her sweater-vest, the matching stripes on her tie, the gray uniform skirt, and the navy blazer draped over her arm..." Is that a Gryffindor tie?" I asked." And an official Harry Potter Merchandise sweater-vest," she confirmed smugly. "
11 " Dana daydreamed of one day being able to set her agenda at B.Altman with the same courage and tenacity as the woman who was now driving the VW while speaking animatedly about her travel plans for the near future. She would be journeying to India in search of exotic merchandise for the store’s Indian extravaganza, a lavish event planned by Ira Neimark and Dawn Mello to compete with Bloomingdale’s Retailing as Theater movement. The movement was the brainchild of Bloomingdale’s Marvin Traub, who staged elaborate presentations such as China: Heralding the Dawn of a New Era. Typical extravaganzas featured fashion, clothing, food, and art from various regions of the world.“I’ll bring back enough items to make Bloomingdale’s blush!” Nina said confidently. “And I’m not just talking sweaters, hats, and walking sticks. I’ll stop first in the Himalayas and prowl the Landour Bazaar.”Lynn Steward ~ A Very Good Life "
― Lynn Steward , A Very Good Life (Dana McGarry Novel)
12 " Great designers seldom make great advertising men, because they get overcome by the beauty of the picture - and forget that merchandise must be sold. "
13 " The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal - that you can gather votes like box tops - is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process. "