Toothless Quotes

“A cowardly warrior is like a toothless lion.”

“A toothless wolf is less dangerous than a fanged insect.”

“I guess we put ourselves out there hoping for the best, hoping that the person you say your vows to will be an even better person when you are both old and grey. We hope that they will still be there, sitting in a rocking chair with you on the porch, sipping on coffee with your toothless gums”

“Hand-to-hand combat with three hundred pounds of screaming monkey menace is not my idea of a fair fight. My idea of a fair fight is one unarmed, toothless, nearsighted old monkey versus me with a Blackhawk attack helicopter.”

“She would not tell him the truth for some weeks, but she would eventually confess that she had left with him because the fear had gone out of her daily leaps. Her hours were filled with confident, minor feats and toothless dangers. She would not call it such, but Adam would later name it for her: it was boredom that had driven her from her mother’s side and a secure home.”

“Do you know, Mother, that Haj Salem was buried alive in his home? Does he tell you stories in heaven now? I wish I had had a chance to meet him. To see his toothless grin and touch his leathery skin. To beg him, as you did in your youth, for a story from our Palestine. He was over one hundred years old, Mother. To have lived so long, only to be crushed to death by a bulldozer. Is this what it means to be Palestinian?”

“Thirty years later, his regime had accomplished its historical task. Economic development had transformed Spanish society, radical mass politics had been extinguished, and democracy was no longer hazardous for capital. So completely had the dictatorship done its work that a toothless Bourbon socialism was incapable even of restoring the republic it had overthrown. In this Spanish laboratory could be found a parabola of the future, which the Latin American dictators of the 1970s – Pinochet is the exemplary case – would repeat, architects of a political order in which electors, grateful for civic liberties finally restored, could be trusted henceforward not to tamper with the social order. Today the Spanish template has become the general formula of freedom: no longer making the world safe for democracy, but democracy safe for this world.”

“If desire causes suffering, it may be because we do not desire wisely, or that we are inexpert at obtaining what we desire. Instead of hiding our heads in a prayer cloth and building walls against temptation, why not get better at fulfilling desire? Salvation is for the feeble, that's what I think. I don't want salvation, I want life, all of life, the miserable as well as the superb. If the gods would tax ecstasy, then I shall pay; however, I shall protest their taxes at each opportunity, and if Woden or Shiva or Buddha or that Christian fellow--what's his name?--cannot respect that, then I'll accept their wrath. At least I will have tasted the banquet that they have spread before me on this rich, round planet, rather than recoiling from it like a toothless bunny. I cannot believe that the most delicious things were placed here merely to test us, to tempt us, to make it the more difficult for us to capture the grand prize: the safety of the void. To fashion of life such a petty game is unworthy of both men and gods.”

“Seed Leaves Homage to R. F. Here something stubborn comes,Dislodging the earth crumbsAnd making crusty rubble.it comes up bending double,And looks like a green staple.It could be seedling maple,Or artichoke, or bean.That remains to be seen.Forced to make choice of ends,The stalk in time unbends,Shakes off the seed-case, heavesAloft, and spreads two leavesWhich still display no sureAnd special signature.Toothless and fat, they keepThe oval form of sleep.This plant would like to growAnd yet be embryo;In crease, and yet escapeThe doom of taking shape;Be vaguely vast, and climbTo the tip end of timeWith all of space to fill,Like boundless IgdrasilThat has the stars for fruit.But something at the rootMore urgent that the urgeBids two true leaves emerge;And now the plant, resignedTo being self-definedBefore it can commerceWith the great universe,Takes aim at all the skyAnd starts to ramify.”