Quotes About Power

Katya laughed and shrugged. She was a hired girl; she said such things on order. Much of her life was this sort of semiskilled playing to other people, usually older people, with the hope of making them like her; making them feel that she was valuable to them; wresting some of their power from them, if but fleetingly. It was like provoking a boy or a man to want you. That could be risky, as Katya well knew.

The place where you came from ain't there any more, and where you had in mind to go is cancelled out. This place you are now—inside your daddy's house—is nothing but a cardboard box I can knock down any time. You know that and always did know it. You hear me?

It was not yet known how the Revolution would develop. But Upton supposed that the arguments of the philosophical anarchists were most convincing: society would fragmentise into independent, self-governing communities of mutually congenial individuals, requiring no police, no army, no guardians of morality, and no government. The old Deity being dead and dethroned, Humankind would come at last into power.

I could wish that I had recourse to the Prince of Darkness & his quick ways of revenge;

No one would be able to name what had happened or would wish to name it. Rape was a word that came not be spoken at High Point Farm.

There's something about other people isn't there?--you'd like to know who they are?--you'd like to be them, maybe? People you never saw before and--my voice lifting in excitement, it's so strange how they're different from you, isn't it?--or like if somebody had the power, say somebody said to you, 'would you change places with the next person you see, a stranger just turning a corner,' I'd say, 'Hell yes.

Marx had famously denounced religion as the opiate of the people, now it was Fame that was the opiate of the people;

A bully is one who forces you to laugh at his jokes, even if they are not jokes. That is how you know he is a bully. A

He told Neal he was in poor condition these days but he swam better than Neal, who'd gained ten or fifteen pounds since his marriage, and Enid, falling behind the men, wondered how it felt to have inhabited your body, your very flesh, as a weapon – If you ever got over it, were able to forget. The quick swing of the arms, the power of the fists to hurt – did you ever forget? She wondered did her uncle see other people in opposition to him, as opponents. Or just the men.

Willy was more forceful, as Annabel seemed to glide;

The power of a parent to wound, to kill. The power of a parent is terrible.

Yet: what could be proven against Zachary Lundt, with no witness except Marianne? Her words against his? Zachary's friends would rally around him, she knew. She was not bitter, but she knew. It was clear to her, logical as a chess game in which you see your opponent's devastating moves to come, but are helpless to prevent them.

Aún resuena en su interior, en lo más hondo de su matriz, el oscuro placer de la penetración. Como un lamento.

Si hubiera podido, habría echado a Warren a patadas y se habría quedado con Norma Jeane. Pero, naturalmente, no podía hacerlo. Vivimos en un mundo de hombres y una mujer debe traicionar a sus congéneres para sobrevivir.

The politics of the day infuriated him: even when power lay with the politicians he supported, and the opposition appeared to be failing, so much in the political sphere seemed to him vile, vulgar, meretricious, inane—he threatened that he wouldn't be voting at all. The

she'd studied herself in mirrors half her life in despair and hope knowing it's power you need, oh, Jesus, power; if you're beautiful you'll have it over other people, over men, you'll be loved, desired, never have to die.

She realizes: the man's power is to intimidate, to make you ashamed. But your power over him is the power of laughter.

always, you want to impress them: men of authority)

The fetus wished to live. Stubbornly, sometimes astonishingly-the fetus struggled to live. But the power of its life-or its death-had to reside with the mother. No other alternative was possible.

For that was mom's trump card: she was the mother, and so possessed a mysterious and unquestioned authority. Dad was the boss, but Mom was the power.

Momma was terrified of being really poor, dirt-poor, and men would know, always men can sniff out the degree of your desperation Momma believed, and force you to do things you don't want to do or don't exactly want to do at that time or in that place or in that way. When you have your own money, Momma said, you have power. But you can lose it Goddamned fast.

It had given him a charge of entitlement and invincibility he would draw upon through life, like a limitless bank account.)

No ha sucedido nada que tú no quisieras y pidieras. »Así que cierra el pico. ¿Entendido?» La había zarandeado, con fuerza. Para que dejara de llorar, de sollozar. De atragantarse y vomitar. El hedor que impregnaba su coche le puso furioso.

Politics, the negotiating of power. Eros, the negotiating of power.