the channels QUOTES

1 " I understood that as much as I had resisted the outside, as much as I had constricted my life, as much as I had closed and narrowed the channels into me, there were still many takers for the quiet heart. "

― Steve Martin , The Pleasure of My Company

2 " What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua...that's the only name I can think of for it...like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks. In this Chautauqua I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply dig deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale and platitudes too often repeated. " What's new?" is an interesting and broadening eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow. I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question " What is best?," a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly, a question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream. There are eras of human history in which the channels of thought have been too deeply cut and no change was possible, and nothing new ever happened, and " best" was a matter of dogma, but that is not the situation now. Now the stream of our common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, losing its central direction and purpose, flooding the lowlands, disconnecting and isolating the highlands and to no particular purpose other than the wasteful fulfillment of its own internal momentum. Some channel deepening seems called for. "

3 " Unstrained, I sit and gaze,
glare,
survey,
stare
through barred windows encased in embroidered steel. Pearly frosted dust obstructs the channels of light, leaving only small pillars of fire, arranged in disordered fragments. The antiquated sallow walls are stained with crimson braids that wreathe and scuttle about the rimes and rifts. "

― Craig Froman , An owl on the moon: A journal from the edge of darkness

4 " In the track of fear we have so many conditions, expectations, and obligations that we create a lot of rules just to protect ourselves against emotional pain, when the truth is that there shouldn't be any rules. These rules affect the quality of the channels of communication between us, because when we are afraid, we lie. If you have the expectation that I have to be a certain way, then I feel the obligation to be that way.The truth is I am bot what you want me to be. When I am honest and I am what I am, you are already hurt, you are mad. Then I lie to you, because I'm afraid of your judgment. I am afraid you are going to blame me, find me guilty, and punish me. "

― Miguel Ruiz , The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship --Toltec Wisdom Book

5 " The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned.

The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.

With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power. "

― Henry A. Wallace

6 " You have the right to set ground rules. This means deciding if, when, and how you want to see the people in your family. Many survivors feel that if they open up the channels at all, they have to open them up all the way. When you were a child you had two options—to trust or not to trust. Your options are broader now. "

― Ellen Bass , The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

7 " Sacraments are like hoses. They are the channels of the living water of God's grace. Our faith is like opening the faucet. We can open it a lot, a little, or not at all. "

― Peter Kreeft , Jesus-Shock

8 " I understood then why people were so often defeated by this world. Perhaps the web of support that they required just did not come into alignment when it had to. Or perhaps our culture lacked the channels by which to offer this support. "

― Guy Mankowski , An Honest Deceit

9 " She found Diana’s room. Diana was sitting in her bed using a remote control to idly flip through the channels on the wall-mounted TV.
“You,” Diana said by way of greeting.
“Me,” Astrid said.
“Can’t believe it,” Diana said. “All this time. And there’s still nothing on.”
Astrid laughed and lowered herself slowly into a chair. “You know how they say hospital food is so awful? Somehow I’m not having that reaction.”
“Tapioca beats rat,” Diana said.
“I never minded rat as much as that dog jerky we were getting for a while. The stuff Albert had them flavor with celery salt? That was the culinary low point for me.”
“Yeah, well, I had a lower low point,” Diana said, sounding angry. Or maybe not angry, maybe hurt.
Astrid put a hand on Diana’s arm, and Diana did not shake it off. "

― Michael Grant , Light (Gone, #6)

10 " On Loving a Stranger:Perhaps trying, despite it seeming too idealistic - to apply a speck of your imagination and generate 10 background stories a day about the people you meet - is what could help to see that it might be in fact one of the important things in life to care for. I am fully aware of how unnatural the task and believing in it could seem but my own experience has brought me to a point where i could defend this idea (and not merely an idea but also a posture in practise) tirelessly. having experienced the exuberance and richness that can be ones personal gain from looking behind facades, showing love where it's hardest to do (and yes, it can be incredibly difficult), has taught me that the task could be an incipient of ones own integral transfiguration in addition to a gentle move towards another. Remembering how undeserving we ourselves often are of this kind of gentleness (yet very much in need of, no matter what we think of ourselves or the world) makes it easier to sacrifice the time and patience to think in a considerate manner of another, even a stranger. I see this as one of the channels into the more unfathomable depths of life: every human being (i like to think that even a fragment of them) is a new story with thousands of nuances told by life itself. To see, behind hideous apperances, another human that is not too much different from ourselves may open us up to a closer understanding of other people, ourselves, situations and then help as obtain resilience useful in debilitating times. Love itself, this way, can turn into an inner resource, a little sun somewhere between your ribs, and if needed into a form of true fruitful rebellion. "

11 " The United States has experienced more than two centuries of political stability. When viewed against the background of world history, this is remarkable. The First Amendment has played a singularly important role. When citizens can openly criticize their government, changes come about through orderly political processes. When grievances exist, they must be aired, if not through the channels of public debate, then by riots in the streets. The First Amendment functions as a safety valve through which the pressures and frustrations of a heterogeneous society can be ventilated and defused. "

― , Constitutional Law for Criminal Justice

12 " Curiosity evokes ‘concern’; it evokes the care one takes for what exists and could exist; a readiness to find strange and singular what surrounds us; a certain relentlessness to break up our familiarities and to regard otherwise the same things; a fervor to grasp what is happening and what passes; a casualness in regard to the traditional hierarchies of the important and the essential. I dream of a new age of curiosity. We have the technical means for it; the desire is there; the things to be known are infinite; the people who can employ themselves at this task exist. Why do we suffer? From too little: from the channels that are too narrow, skimpy, quasi-monopolistic, insufficient. There is no point in adopting a protectionist attitude, to prevent ‘bad’ information from invading and suffocating the ‘good.’ Rather, we must multiply the paths and the possibility of comings and goings. "

― Michel Foucault

13 " A kind of joyous hysteria moved into the room, everything flying before the wind, vehicles outside getting dented to hell, the crowd sweaty and the smells of aftershave, manure, clothes dried on the line, your money’s worth of perfume, smoke, booze; the music subdued by the shout and babble through the bass hammer could be felt through the soles of the feet, shooting up the channels of legs to the body fork, center of everything. It is the kind of Saturday night that torches your life for a few hours, makes it seem like something is happening. "

― Annie Proulx , Close Range: Wyoming Stories

14 " In all sorts of markets—music, film, art, and politics—the future of popularity will be harder to predict as the broadcast power of radio and television democratizes and the channels of exposure grow.... The gatekeepers had their day. Now there are simply too many gates to keep. "

― , Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction

15 " Smiles form the channels of a future tear. "