Denis Kearney Quotes

“California must be all American or all Chinese. We are resolved that it shall be American, and are prepared to make it so. May we not rely upon your sympathy and assistance?”

“I have found that there are two ways of dealing with men. Either you treat them with respect, or you kill them. Anything in between merely breeds resentment and the desire for revenge.”

“Memories are important, like the bones of the mind. We build ourselves upon them, flesh and blood moulded around the pictures of what is past.”

“The best things in this world are meant to be fought for." -Kearney”

“A man of honor does swiftly that which must be done.”

“Narrative is an open-ended invitation to ethical and poetical responsiveness. Storytelling invites us to become not just agents of our own lives, but narrators and readers as well. It shows us that the untold life is not worth living. There will always be someone there to say, 'tell me a story', and someone there to respond. Were this not so, we would no longer be fully human.”

“If we possess narrative sympathy - enabling us to see the world from other's point of view - we cannot kill. If we do not, we cannot love.”

“While food makes us live, stories are what make our lives worth living.”

“That’s just the way it goes when you’re going to meet your destiny. Something comes over you and it keeps your heart so stirred that nothing seems impossible… Well, except for sleep, or taking your mind off of the future." -Kearney”

“I have seen worse things than ghosts, and if one were to appear to me, I should have so many questions to ask of it that it would have no time to groan and moan and shake its chains.”