"In bed she studied Hebrew grammar. The permutations of the triple-lettered root elated her - how was it possible that a whole language, hence a whole literature, a civilization even, should rest on the pure presence of three letters of the alphabet? The Hebrew verb, a stunning mechanism: three letters, whichever fated three, could command all possibility simply by a change in their pronunciation, or the addition of a wing-letter fore and aft. Every conceivable utterance blossomed from this trinity. It seemed to her not so much a language for expression as a code for the world's design, indissoluble, predetermined, translucent. The idea of the grammar of Hebrew turned her brain into a palace, a sort of Vatican; inside its corridors she walked from one resplendent triptych to another."
--Excerpt from the novel "The Puttermesser Papers" by Cynthia Ozick

"You read the Bible? There's a passage I got memorized, Ezekiel 25:17... 'The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children... And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you'... Now, I been sayin' that sh** for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass. I never really questioned what it meant. I thought it was just a cold-blooded thing to say to a mother-f***** 'fore you popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some sh** this mornin' made me think twice... Now, I'm thinkin', it could mean you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mister .45 here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or, it could be you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that. But that sh** ain't the truth. The truth is: you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd."
--Final speech of Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) in the original shooting script for Pulp Fiction, written by Quentin Tarantino

"...And I shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death... come to think of it, I shall run through the valley of the shadow of death, because, well, you get out of the valley quicker that way..."
--Woody Allen, in his 1975 comedy Love and Death

"In music, it was hopeless to think in terms of the old structure, to do things following old methods, to use the old materials... We started from scratch: sound, silence, time, activity... Begin again, assuming abundance, unemployment, a field situation, multiplicity, unpredictability, immediacy, the possibility of participation..."
--John Cage

"The fastest, meanest, baddest mother ever to hit the big screen. He's quick, he's black, and he's back. Get ready for the punchingest, kickingest, stompingest dude on earth! Right On! The movie that grabs you and never lets go!"
--Promo for the 1974 film Black Belt Jones

"A few years ago in Mud Butte, South Dakota, in the only eating place in town, there were three items on the handwritten menu -- 'hot beef, hot pork, hot hamb' -- that said rather much about the place. The characters in a story, like people in life, behave as their landscape makes them behave: what they eat and wear, the work they do, the thoughts they think, and the way they spell 'ham'. When I write, I try to make landscapes rise from the page, to appear in the camera lens of the reader's mind. The reader [may be] an absent presence, but one that's leaning a sharp and influential elbow on my shoulder."
--Annie Proulx, in her New Yorker essay "Big Skies, Empty Places"