First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung

I realize brothers are all the same. Their whole purpose for being is to pick on you and provoke you. 

They're not nice people. Look at their shoes. They wear sandals made from car tires...it shows that these people are destroyers of things. 

Entering the woods at night is a haunting experience, especially for someone with a vivid imagination. 

I do not care why or how the Angkor plans to restore Cambodia. All I know is the constant pain of hunger in my stomach. 

The chief told us the Angkor would take care of us and would provide us with everything we need. I guess the Angkor doesn't understand that we need to eat. 

It is the best thing in the world to have someone love you. 

I hope she won't be reincarnated here. 

We are starving to death. Many people are dying in the village. Yet the government trades our crops to buy guns to kill more people. 

His government has created a vengeful, bloodthirsty people. Pol Pot has turned me into someone who wants to kill.

Underneath the plastic sheet covered in fish, I enter Vietnam. 

Alexander (Books 1 - 3) By Valerio Massimo Mandredi

For him the monarchy is simply a form of government typical of certain communities rather than others...I think my son is interested in knowing the world for what it is rather than establishing a series of principles that the world should conform to. 

He was still too young to be able to understand just how big the world is. 

Macedonian excesses in drinking, eating, and lovemaking during their feasts, which reguarly deteriorated into orgies were similarily scorned. 

I wanted you to know that there is a price to be paid for everything. 

The throne belongs to whoever is able to defend it. 

i am not afraid of death, Mother. The power and the glory of a King can only be justified if he is ready to give his life, whenever the moment comes. 

His natural body temperture was higher than normal, which meant that his face was never marked with the sorts of skin problems typical of adolescence.

Now, when mankind freed itself from the darkness, attempts were made to organize life into communities and in essence three way of doing this developed: with one person only in command...with more than one but only a few in command...and then the system by which all citizens exercise power, known as democracy. And this is the greatest manifestation of what it means to be Greek.

In Eqypt, Persia, and Macedon too. There is only one free man - the King - the rest are slaves. 

Today's man is a political animal. 

In a society like this the shame lies not in being humble and poor, but rather in doing nothing to improve one's condition. 

No, just as their will never be a loom that weaves cloth on its own. When this is possible, then a world without slaves will be possible, but I don't believe that will ever happen. 

I am not afraid of fighting. But I prefer to do it when the chances of winning are higher. 

Regarding Cynics: nothing that is natural can be judged obscene. 

If he was afraid of anything, he was afraid of such hatred. 

Today, however, the Macedonians are the strongest of all the Greek peoples and it is only right that they should be leaders and enjoy hedgemony. 

To know ourselves is the most difficult of enterprises because it involves not reason alone, but our fears and our passions too. If we are capable of truly knowing ourselves then we will be able to understand others and the reality that surrounds us. 

If Aristotle were here he would say that prophecies can actually make the future come true rather than predict it. 

His actions originated in some murky affair of male love - the most dangerous of all loves. 

He felt as if he were lying with a goddess, and no mortal can ever ask anything of a goddess, he canonly ever be grateful for what he recieves from her. 

Regarding religion: The thing that matters is what the people want to believe. And the people need to believe and need to be able to dream. 

Moments like this are reserved for the gods alone, but we are gods, for as long as this night lasts. 

He always wondered why Greek art, so sublime, depicted so many scenes of violence against women. And he decided that it must simply have been fear, the same fear that made them keep their women segregated in the harems and meant that for social occasions they had to turn to the participation off companions. 

There will never be peace for as long as there are borders and barriers, different languages and customs, different gods and beliefs. You should join me. 

There is either a solution to the problem and therefore it is pointless to worry about it, or there is no solution and it is pointless to worry about it. 

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

A tall rangy man in his late twenties. He had a powerful intellect and a scornful manner and he lived in a permanent state of righteous indignation.

They are simple people, you have to do something to keep their attention.

When you are about to be turned down, go for a postponement.

Having faith in God did not mean sitting back and doing nothing. It meant believing that you would find success if you did your best honestly and energetically.

I never taught him to keep regular hours.

Building Kingsbridge was the most profoundly satisfying work he had ever done.

Perhaps greed will always outweigh wisdom in the councils of the mighty. Perhaps fear will always overcome compassion in the mind of a man with a sword in his hand.

With my body, I worship you.

Could the King do as he pleased or was he constrained? The power of the King was no absolute after all; he could be constrained by the will of the people.

The small boys came early to the hanging.

Philip stepped forward to whip the King. He was glad he had lived to see this. After today, he thought, the world will never be quite the same.

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Bean

This is a memoir about a Sierra Leone boy who, at the age of 13, joined the army to fight against the RUF. Unfortunately, the army turned out to be as crazy and horrific as the RUF squads. He was removed by Unicef and rehabilitated. He made it to the US by representing his country in the Children UN. He was adopted by an American woman he met through that organization. An amazing chronicle of the inhuman events he lived. Similar to the genocidal accounts told in "Last King Of Scotland" and "Hotel Rwanda." I still find it inconceivable that the world lets this happen.

The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason

Income, that is the thing, I wish an income that will keep flowing into my purse whether I sit upon the wall or travel to far lands.

In those things which we exerted our best energies, we succeeded.

A part of all you earn is yours to keep. Never less than ten percent.

Advice is one thing that is freely given away but watch that you take only what is worth having.

1. Living upon less than what you earn.
2. Ask advice from those experienced.
3. Make gold work for you.

Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those that are unprepared.

When I start a task for myself, I complete it. Therefore I am careful not to start difficult and impractical tasks, because I love leisure.

That what each of us calls our necessary expenses will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to to the contrary.

Let thy motto be one hundred percent of appreciated value demanded for each coin spend.

1. Save ten percent of income.
2. Budget expenses not to exceed the other ninty percent.
3. Get your savings to work for you and multiply.
4. Invest safely. Get good advice.
5. Own your home. Make it a profitable investment.
6. Plan for retirement.
7. Continually make yourself wiser.

We must first secure small amounts and learn to protect them before the Gods entrust us with larger.

Preceeding accomplishment must be desire. Thy desires must be strong and definate. For a man to desire 5 pieces of gold is a tangible desire which he can press to fulfullment.

Good luck waits to come to that man who accepts opportunity. Good luck fled from procrastination.

Men of action are favored by the goddess of good luck.

However, there is no chain of disasters that won't come to an end.

I like not idle gold even less than I like too much risk.

Does not a great king fight his enemies in every way he can and with every force he has? Thy debts are thy enemies.

To get out of debt:
1. Pay yourself ten percent
2. Pay your debts twenty percent
3. Live on less than seventy percent

Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer

The European traveler is accustomed to seeing Asia from above. By that I mean that...the European is generally a good deal better off than the people through whose territory he is passing. So the foreigner tends to ride the high horse of privilege and view the backwoods and their denizens from above. It was otherwise with Herr Harrer.

During the period he rose - from the confidence he inspired rather than because he angled for preferment - from being a destitute and alien vagabond to a well rewarded post as tutor and confidant of the young Dalai Lama.

One of the best characteristics of the Tibetan people is their tolerance of other creeds.

Their monastic theocracy has never sought the conversion of infidels.

It is not lack of work or dire necessity that makes people beggars; not, in most cases bodily infirmity. It is pure laziness.

[The Dalai Lama's] greatest worry was whether his knowledge equaled that of a western school boy of the same age, or whether he would in Europe be classed as a backward Tibetan. Tibetans are anything but dull witted; they are confusing education with intelligence.

[The 13th Dalai Lama] wished to enact new laws but met with bitter opposition from his conservative entourage, who quoted the utterances of the 5th Dalai Lama on the same context. To which the 13th Dalai Lama replied "and who was the 5th former body?" The monks, thereon, prostrated themselves before him for his answer had left them speechless. As an incarnation he was all other Dalai Lama's as well. It entered my mind when I heard this story how lucky Tibet has been never to have a ruler like Nero or Ivan the Terrible. But to a Tibetan such a thought could never occur, for how could an incarnation of the God of Grace by other than good?

Inventing Herself by Elaine Showalter

Women who become feminist icons and leaders tended to define themselves in opposition of their mothers. The ones who really nailed patriarchy weren't one the whole ones with authoritative fathers but the ones with troubled, contradictory mothers.

You aim your feminism less at men than at the picture of the women you don't want to be, the enemy within. 

In their relationships with men, the consciously sought male doubles, or twins, with whom they could form an intellectual, political, or professional partnership. 

What has been forbidden to women is the open admission of the desire for power and control over one's life. 

[Mary Wollstonecraft] was also a good manager and forceful organizer, the sort of person who takes control of people's lives while they offer feeble, passive resistance. In her twenties she tried out many roles in an effort to find a use for her restless intelligence and a outlet for her stifled sexuality and passion. 

I think her preoccupation with herself makes her so compelling, so curiously modern. 

Trapped in the emotions impasse of the exceptional woman who believes she can love only an even more exceptional man. 

The greater her achievements as an emancipated woman the more exacting were her standards and fewer the men who came up to them; and fewer still those who were willing to try. 

Like many women born after her, Wollstonecraft decided that travel would be a good remedy for unrequited love. 

Childbirth, despite medical advances, is a confrontation with mortality for women as war is for men. 

I knew I should never find a being who could keep the key of my character, that there would be none on whom I could always lean, from whom I could always learn, that I should be a pilgrim and sojourner on earth. - Margaret Fuller

Three things seem to me to have taken the place of the old powers that moved society. Science has taken the place of Theology, the Press has taken the place of the Ruler, and Fiction has taken the place which painting and drama occupied in other ages. There are the three living powers of our age whose rule is just beginning. - Olive Schreiner

Monogamy...such an ideal, almost never attainable today needs at least four things: love, respect, intellectual likeness, and command of the necessities of life." - Eleanor Marx

Of course Oscar Wilde's career ended abruptly and tragically as that of the most puritanical or depressed New Women. But he was never, as they were, the prisoner of principle. 

Regarding Charlotte Perkins Gilman: For her, being a transition woman did not mean choosing between love and work, but setting priorities. She survived, no, more, she soared in a world that conspired to deny her flight. She ultimately accomplished what she set out to do: create a loving and sustained intimate relationship with a partner and leave behind a legacy of a lifetime of valuable work. 

Feminist expected to serve their society but they also expected to be having a better time than any women in the world ever had before. They defined their aims as turning away from the intellectualism of life to the life itself. 

Perhaps this makeshift time filler of a job is our life work afterall. - Ruth Benedict

Go! Live the life you covet for your child. 

Margaret Mead had frequently expressed her conviction that one could sustain more than one deeply loving intimacy at a time. 

Growing up was defined as a loss of faith in movements and ideologies and a greater reliance on individual solutions and individual success. 

The woman who wishes to be famous should not marry rather she should attach herself to one more women who will fetch and carry for her in the immemorial style of wives. 

Feminism, for Vera Brittain, meant not a sense of identification with other women but rather a desire to enter the world of men. 

Live, work, act. Don't sit here, and brood and grope among insoluble enigmas. 

You must learn to live without love if you want to live with it. - Mary McCarthy

I think what matters most to me is to live in an age where there is conscious change going on and where I as a woman can play a part in it. I don't need to be a leader. I don't need to be a martyr. I just need to have some chance to go from my space, whatever that meant, into a wider world. - Margaret Fuller

The first exercise of the free woman is to design her own mode of revolt, a mode which will reflect her own independence and originality. 

Men would rather be ruined by one of their own sex than saved by a woman. - Rebecca West

Amelia Earhart was to me an image of everything a woman should be...she is a woman alone. Not a woman handholding in a group or whining about men, a woman alone. - Camille Paglia

Sex is a far darker power than feminism has admitted.