You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a...
My good friend the Governor said I could settle down at Port Stanley and take things quietly for a few weeks. The street of that port is about a mile and a half long. It has the slaughterhouse at one end and the graveyard at the other. The chief dist...
We think of communication as words. But a screaming child is trying to say something. A tantrum carries a message. Hitting is communication. Sleep patterns carry a message. Even the sulky belligerence of a teen is an attempt to convey a message. Ever...
I grew up in a rural area. I grew up in deep southern middle Tennessee, probably about thirty miles from the Alabama border. There's nothing there, really. And the TV was my link to the outside world. It's what kept me from going into factory employm...
I swam with my first shark in the 1980s. I was 20 miles off the coast of Rhode Island, working with a group of marine scientists. Late in the day, a 5-foot long blue shark swam into our chum slick. For the next hour, I marveled at the animal's stunni...
I don't know anybody else who lives 1,000 miles away from their job and gets to commute back and forth. The owner said, 'You can live in your beloved Swifton, but don't you dare miss a game.' I had a few close calls, but I didn't miss any.
They were heading out to the middle of the bay - the Gulf - that's another thing that became kind of standard practice, we didn't hurry the destroyers around the beach any more, when it got dark, we'd take 'em out thirty or forty miles out in the mid...
The one thing I remember about Christmas was that my father used to take me out in a boat about ten miles offshore on Christmas Day, and I used to have to swim back. Extraordinary. It was a ritual. Mind you, that wasn't the hard part. The difficult b...
I'm looking for a way out of here. I can't have it physically, so I'm going to have it intellectually. It was a beautiful thing to ride Seabiscuit in my imagination. And it's just fantastic to be there alongside Louie as he's breaking the NCAA mile r...
In running, I know that I can train as much as I want and I'm never going to break the world record for the five miles. It's partly genetics; I'm just not built for it. But if I worked really hard, I might be able to cut my time by half. Could I do t...
Matt Buckner: What are you talkin' about, baseball is a girl's game? The Red Sox has a guy that pitches the ball over 90 miles per hour! Pete Dunham: Who cares? All that means is that he can have a wank faster than you.
Paul Edgecomb: John, do you know where we're taking you? John Coffey: Help a lady? Brutus "Brutal" Howell: That's right. But how do you know? John Coffey: Don't know. To tell the truth, Boss, I don't know much'o anything.
William 'Wild Bill' Wharton: [Wild Bill grabs Coffey's arm] Where y'all think you're goin'? John Coffey: You a bad man. William 'Wild Bill' Wharton: That's right, nigger. Bad as you'd want. John Coffey: HEY! You keep a civil tongue on my block!
Paul Edgecomb: We'll be doing this for real tomorrow night and I don't want nobody to remember some stupid joke like that and get it going again. You ever try to not to laugh in church when something funny gets stuck in your head? Same goddamn thing.
Paul Edgecomb: John, do you know where we're taking you? John Coffey: Help a lady? Brutus "Brutal" Howell: That's right. But how do you know? John Coffey: Don't know. To tell the truth, Boss, I don't know much o' anything.
Major General Colt: [to a room full of officers in reference to Kelly's outfit being behind enemy lines] You're the guys who are supposed to be fighting this battle, and you don't even know where in the hell it is! Well I'll *tell* you where it is! I...
Prince Feisal: But you know, Lieutenant, in the Arab city of Cordoba were two miles of public lighting in the streets when London was a village? T.E. Lawrence: Yes, you were great. Prince Feisal: Nine centuries ago. T.E. Lawrence: Time to be great ag...
Curmudgeon: Ya have to come, sonny. This is where we're going. [Unfolds a multi-panel scenic postcard] Curmudgeon: Paradise! Two thousand miles from here. Fresh water. Plenty of sunshine. Nothing to do but breed! [Gives Max a knowing wink]
Mr. Allen, Master: In all my years I've never seen the like. It has to be more than 100 sea miles and he brings us up on his tail. That's seamanship, Mr. Pullings. My God, that's seamanship.
Miles Raymond: [while tasting wine] It tastes like the back of a fucking L.A. school bus. Now they probably didn't de-stem, hoping for some semblance of concentration, crushed it up with leaves and mice, and then wound up with this rancid tar and tur...
Maya: So is it kind of about death and mortality, or...? Miles Raymond: Mrnmm, yeah... but not really. It shifts around a lot. Like you also start to see everything from the point of view of the father. And some other stuff happens, some parallel nar...
