Quotes by Michael Perry

“I leave today with a better feeling and understanding of the courts,”

“Because it [the CAA] is a new world, what would you call it, a Columbus complex? Its going to be interesting. We dont know a lot about that league ...”

“I believe well be one of the top teams in the league. Some people have us seventh or eighth. One picked us last. I dont think that guy knew what he was talking about. The Atlantic Sun is a much tougher league than other people realize.”

“[But even the smartest IT security staff is no match for user ignorance.] User education is paramount, ... They need to learn to look at the Internet as a city. You can move into the wrong neighborhood and it can ruin your life. You need to learn where to park or walk and where not to park or walk.”

“Nobody wants to press charges because they dont want to admit they were attacked, ... The question now is: When does the crime become egregious enough that the need to stop it outweighs the need to cover up the embarrassment of being hit?”

“[Perry sees a future in which the Internet itself is remade for securitys sake.] There will be a new Internet with a new TCP/IP , ... All of it will have to be rewritten with security in mind.”

“You kind of feel youre at the far end of the spectrum.”

“We thought we would see a smaller team, a faster team. The game plan probably changed for both teams when [Smith] saw the production that he had.”

“I dont think we ought to be swayed by an emotional appeal that there are thousands of people dying in pain and this drug will solve that.”

“The 10-0 run put the game away for us. We got some transition opportunities and converted on them. It really ignited our play in the game.”

Mom is a compulsive reader. She reads for pleasure, she reads to edify herself, but more often than not, she reads because she cant help it. I understand. The minute I find myself sitting still, I start rummaging around for printed material.p 97

We talk about how he and Leanne are doing knowing full well there is no sufficient answer.p 294

The tough times start, he said, the day the last casserole dish is returned.

It is the blessing of dumb work done close to the earth-one gritty minute at a time, we move forward.

I stand beside Toms barn and ponder the benign heedlessness of the people in the speeding cars, and here I am in the speeding car. In my heart I wish the bypass had never been built; in my car I never take the old way.

Imagine the wizened quality of a life blanched of contradiction and double standard.p 44

[Fire] is lightfooted and shamanic, dancing between the visible and invisible, undoing matter one collapsed molecule at a time, wreaking utter destruction with a touch softer than breath. Its poor cousins, wind and water, are one-dimensional rubes by comparison. Wind is all push, push, push. Water is suffocating, but passively so. And even when water gets it together to be a torrent or a tsunami, it is but wet wind. Fire is at once elemental and otherworldly. Fire dances on the grave of all it destroys. Fire is serious voodoo.

But the sky...cumulonimbus clouds are stacked and banked to the stratosphere, and the lowering sun has bronzed and brassed and blushed them. these are clouds to make you long for wings. These are clouds that leave you not knowing what to believe. - - - Population 485 - Meeting your Neighbors One Siren at a Time

Over the years, I have developed a visceral reaction to families and victims expressing surprise at tragedy. Why are we surprised? Why do we forget we are mortal? Bad, bad things happen everywhere, every day. Humans, for better or worse, harbor this feeling that we - individually - are special. A patch of ice or a pea-sized blood clot makes a mockery of that illusion in a heartbeat. We are not special at all.