Quotes About Responsibility

Do you think that your fathers are watching? That they weigh you in their ledger book? Against what? There is no book and your fathers are dead in the ground.

The wrath of God lies sleeping. It was hid a million years before men were and only men have power to wake it.

He said men believe death's elections to be a thing inscrutable yet every act invites the act which follows and to the extent that men put one foot before the other they are accomplices in their own deaths as in all such facts of destiny.

Then he just sat there holding the binoculars and watching the ashen daylight congeal over the land. He knew only that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.

Torbert nodded. You and the sheriff goin to come down and get me off of death row? If we cant get you out we'll get in there with you. You all dont be makin light of the dead thataway, Bell said. Wendell nodded. Yessir, he said. You're right. I might be one myself some day.

Young people anymore they seem to have a hard time growin up. I dont know why. Maybe it's just that you dont grow up any faster than what you have to.

I thought if I lived my life in the strictest way I knew how then I would not ever again have a thing that would eat on me thataway. I said that I was twenty-one years old and I was entitled to one mistake, particularly if I could learn from it and become the sort of man I had it in my mind to be.

Loretta told me that she had heard on the radio about some percentage of the children in this country bein raised by their grandparents. I forget what it was. Pretty high, I thought. Parents wouldnt raise em. We talked about that. What we thought was that when the next generation come along and they dont want to raise their children neither then who is goin to do it? Their own parents will be the only grandparents around and they wouldnt even raise them.

I have to watch you all the time, the boy said. I know. If you break little promises you'll break big ones.

The boy stood up and got his broom and put it over his shoulder. He looked at his father. What are our long term goals? he said. What? Our long term goals. Where did you hear that? I dont know. No, where did you? You said it. When? A long time ago. What was the answer? I dont know. Well. I dont either. Come on. It's getting dark.

Boyd aint goin nowhere. If I am he is. Boyd's a juvenile. They aint goin to turn him over to you. Hell. You're a juvenile yourself. I aint askin.

Bunu yapmayaca??na söz vermiÅŸtin, dedi oÄŸlan. Neyi? Biliyorsun iÅŸte, baba. S?cak suyu yeniden kaba boÅŸaltt?, kendininkine de biraz kakao koydu, sonra geri verdi. Gözümün hep üstünde olmas? gerekiyor, dedi oÄŸlan. Biliyorum. Küçük sözlerden dönersen büyük sözlerden de dönersin. Öyle demiÅŸtin. Biliyorum. DönmeyeceÄŸim ama.

What do you think the old man would of done? You know what he'd of done. Boyd took the stem from his teeth and threaded it through the buttonhole on the pocket of his ragged shirt and looped and tied it. Yeah. He aint here to say though, is he? I dont know. Someways I think he'll always have a say.

If you get committed you get certified but if you commit yourself you dont. They figure that you must be reasonably sane of you wouldnt have show up. On your own. ... If you're sane enough to know that you're crazy then you're not as crazy as if you thought you were sane.

El hombre que cree que los secretos del mundo están ocultos para siempre vive inmerso en el misterio y el miedo. La superstición acabará con él. La lluvia erosionará los actos de su vida. Pero el hombre que se impone la tarea de reconocer el hilo conductor del orden de entre el tapiz habrá asumido por esa sola decisión la responsabilidad del mundo y es solo mediante esa asunción que producirá el modo de dictar los términos de su propio destino.

Do you know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? That's right. Others come in to govern for them.

You have no right to represent people this way, he said. A man is all men. You have no right to your wretchedness.

Would it have done any good? No sir. But that dont make it right.

Ever dumb thing I ever done in my life there was a decision I made before that got me into it. It was never the dumb thing. It was always some choice I'd made before it. You understand what I'm sayin?

At some point we cannot escape naming responsibility. It's in our nature. Sometimes I think we are all like that myopic coiner at his press, taking the blind slugs one by one from the tray, all of us bent so jealously at our work, determined that not even chaos be outside of our own making.

Everything's important. A man lives his life, he has to make that important. Whether he's a small town county sheriff or the president. Or a busted out bum.

In my father's last letter he said that the world is run by those willing to take the responsibility for the running of it. If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.

Suttree stalked off to find the boy. I just come from there, the boy said. Well get your ass up cause you're going again. They aint no need to cuss about it, the boy said. It Sunday and all.

It's not so much that I don't believe in it. I don't subscribe to its nomination. If fate is the law then is fate also subject to that law? At some point we cannot escape naming responsibility.