Forced to choose between one irascible, unpredictable tyrant and another

Laura, on the other hand, had taken to religion in a serious way during Mr. Erskine's tenure: she was still frightened of God, bur forced to choose between one irascible, unpredictable tyrant and another, she'd chosen the one that was bigger, and also farther away.

M. Atwood, The Blind Assassin (2000), 202

God must have heard this sort of thing before

Then the school chaplain offered a prayer, lecturing God on the many unprecedented challenges that face today's young people. God must have heard this sort of thing before, he's probably as bored with it as the rest of us.

M. Atwood, The Blind Assassin (2000), 47

If you leave something on the floor when you go out, you know that it will still be there when you get back

As my mother said soon afterwards, ‘the really bloody thing about being poor is that if you leave something on the floor when you go out, you know that it will still be there when you get back’

D. Athill, Instead of a letter (1963), Kindle ed. loc. 450

Exports oil, girls, and future Nobel Prize laureates

Russia [has become] a country that exports oil, girls, and future Nobel Prize laureates

Andrei Klepach, quoted in T.Gustafsen, 'Putin's petroleum problem' Foreign Affairs 91.6 (2012), 91

He loves black people with a fuck of a lot of money

I would like to say yeah, he [Kanye West*] was right but he wasn't ... I'm sure George Bush has a lot of black friends. He loves black people with a fuck of a lot of money. He doesn't care about people that don't have money. It just so happens that those people are black.

William James Adams [will.i.am], quoted in D. Lynskey, 33 Revolutions per minute: a history of protest songs (2010), 676


* This was Kanye West saying on live television, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 'George Bush doesn't care about black people'

On the other hand, we were on acid

You can't approach the White Panther party without a sense of humour .. I mean, on the one hand we were serious political revolutionaries who wanted to overthrow the government. On the other hand, we were on acid.

John Sinclair, quoted in D. Lynskey, 33 Revolutions per minute: a history of protest songs (2010), 209

In break-up terms, the equivalent of piling his ex-lover's belongings in a heap and setting fire to them

[Dylan] returned at Yarrow's urging for an acoustic encore of 'Mr Tambourine Man' and, telling, 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue'. Unsettled and irate, he then went off and wrote the scornful 'Positively 4th Street' - in break-up terms, the equivalent of piling his ex-lover's belongings in a heap and setting fire to them.

D. Lynskey, 33 Revolutions per minute: a history of protest songs (2010), 86