Social Commentary Quotes

“She was of course underpaid and overworked, but this condition was common among graduate students and no one cared much about it.”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“Technology, as he saw it, had finally succeeded in shrinking the globe, so much so that every news story felt dangerous and personal, every war a threat to his family, every firestorm, hurricane, and melting ice cap a local disaster, the seas boiling up around them, every cynical political and legal maneuver part of the same rotten fabric - and half the country somehow seeing it exactly the opposite way.”
― Jess Walter, So Far Gone

“The human animal craves truth’s stark naked echo, deaf to the prospect that the neutral silence between the white noise of our cognitive biases is the only liminal space where its pure resonance is truly audible.”
― Stewart Stafford

“There are universes within the same universe, and there is a universe where a few wake up to live, and another where a great many wake up to survive.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, These Words Burn Like Fire

“Dost thou see those "scholars" over there?' he asked me. 'They are like those sacred cows in India which, I am told, eat up all the printed paper they can find in the streets... Yes, they gobble up all the printed pages from books that have been written centuries ago, but they do not digest them. They no longer think for themselves; they read and repeat, read and repeat - and the students who listen to them learn only to read and repeat, generation after generation.”
― Muhammad Asad, The Road to Mecca

“If I carry out an action that unbeknown to me is counteractive to the program’s momentum, I can do nothing but hate myself for it. But since I have no way of knowing whether an action in any given instance is antiprogrammatic, how am I to know if I’m to hate myself or not? Should I hate myself anyway?”
― Olga Ravn, The Employees

“Vortex of Delusion(s) by Stewart Stafford

Canary in the coal mine,
Freedom's oxygen dwindles,
The zeitgeist is a poltergeist,
Truthers prosecution swindles.

False prophets on Preacher's Corner,
Backward backslide, upside down,
All bets are off for mere existence;
Wrong is right in New Salem town.

Google maps an accident blackspot,
An end times last laugh foretold,
Mind custard for sanity crumble,
Our fractured future, now foresold.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Observing my obvious admiration of his son, the amir said: "He, like every other Arab child, is growing up with but one thought in mind: freedom. We Arabs do not believe ourselves to be faultless or free from error; but we want to commit our errors ourselves and so learn how to avoid them - just as a tree learns how to grow right by growing, or as running water finds its proper course by flowing. We do not want to be guided to wisdom by people who have no wisdom themselves - who have only power, and guns, and money, and only know how to lose friends whom they could so easily keep as friends...”
― Muhammad Asad, The Road to Mecca

“What sort of society do we live in?! You'd think that we'd already managed to use our quirks to rebuild properly, but, it’s like the radiation from World War III is always used as a sorry excuse for inaction instead.”
― Nikki Navarro, At Least for Today

“Cycle of the Midnight Ape by Stewart Stafford

Janus creature of paradox,
Liquid hostage of conscience,
Swinging midnight's ape,
On cartwheel chandeliers.

This being's bender reveal —
Of the existential, maddening itch,
To sling aside life’s burdens,
And slake its raging thirst.

An anthropological anomaly,
Naked in its contradictions,
A déjà vu loop grinds on,
This peerless hellraiser royal.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“It's bitterly ironic that we place astronomical value on the increasing age of inanimate paintings, antiques, cars, wines and memorabilia while failing to appreciate and adequately compensate the priceless life experience and wisdom that comes with human maturity.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Monarchies, dynasties, fairytales ... there is a fine line between these, Harry. The public know our names, they know our faces ... they know our stories – but that is all they are. You see, the media tells its tales about love and patriotism and duty, and that is what the people see, obligingly and obediently.”
― Sid Ishun, Harry Windzor and the Stone of Scone: A Potter Parody and Prince Harry Satire

“Reimagine 2025 by Stewart Stafford

Imagine no Viagra,
Put yourself at ease,
Flags at half-mast, limp,
No one worthy to please.

Imagine no more Temu,
It’s costly if you try,
No tacky deals to tempt us,
Prices rocketing sky-high.

Imagine all the suckers,
Chasing Black Friday deals —
Whoa.

You don’t pay for illegal streaming,
First, it works and then it’s gone,
I hope someday Hollywood joins us,
And binge-watchers will live as one.

Imagine all your neighbours,
Squatters on your Wi-Fi?
Why?

Imagine no porch pirates,
I wonder if Jeff Bezos can?
No toilet paper gold rush,
A calmer state of Man.

You may say we're screen-addicted,
Babies swiping, having "fun",
Messiahs made of viral nonsense,
Pull the plug and we are done!

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Imagine a world where no one rests… Society becomes a machine, grinding itself into exhaustion until it collapses.”
― Ken Breniman, Subversive Acts of Humanity: A Survival Guide for Choosing Evolution over Self-Destruction

“People tended to hastily judge others based on their elocution, mocking or rejecting those who appeared or sounded different.”
― Elle Jauffret, Threads of Deception: A Suddenly French Mystery

“Greed was indeed the single most powerful evil motivator, which was destroying the lives of millions of people daily. It was the root of most crimes.”
― Elle Jauffret, Threads of Deception: A Suddenly French Mystery

“The Dopamine Paradigm by Stewart Stafford

Never so connected,
Yet, never further apart,
A crowded room's isolation,
An aspic suitors' false start.

Fear and hatred everywhere,
When toxic ideologies stink,
Lab rats of our own making,
Reward hits go over the brink.

Throwing away tomorrow,
For a dopamine buzz today,
Home fort, don't multiply,
A eunuch future staggers away.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Bizzaro Time by Stewart Stafford

I took dawn selfies on a bridge,
Geneva worms conferred in slime,
A woman's dog slithered serpentine,
It snapped and hissed in bizarro time.

A businessman's briefcase in flight,
Went public in a philanthropist sky,
Umbrellas blossomed into trees,
Peacenik pigeon medal caught the eye.

Coffee shops served liquid light,
Brewed up pagan code of yore,
Pedestrians' morphed molten form,
Glass-blown in tangerine pour.

We shared loop shrugs, muted pleas,
Sober intoxication's escapist twist,
A uniquely-marketed Tuesday morn,
Dreamt up to commodify every tryst.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Foolish Boogie by Stewart Stafford

Court jester in cowboy boots,
Meditates on a Formica counter,
An over-caffeinated ventriloquist,
A kitchenette thrown-voice encounter.

Diary check on a chaise lounge,
Booked-up until the end of time,
Not even a day off to perish slowly,
The meek are bequeathed a dime.

A giant with shrunken hubris,
Colossus with an Achilles heel,
Sore points prodded with sticks,
Karmic kamikaze at the wheel.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Richard Burton by Stewart Stafford

Jester’s coxcomb to a fool’s translator?
A brothel-creeper in a neon-puked alley,
A bean-counter totalling rice grains;
Surreptitious, scrumptious attic grub.

Stand back, witness me Manspread!
Lease me your lobes while I Mansplain!
Overcome, I expire in an orchestra pit
From the fumes of acute "Toxic Masculinity."

Hear my epitaph: "Women aren't funny...
so put on the Earl Grey, love!" Coup de grâce!
Many have said where I should stick my opinion,
But I leave the worst to the collective imagination.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“The chief thing,” commenced Ali the Jackal, "is this. We, who sit here in Fez and watch the Christians walk down our streets with great confidence, knocking lesser persons out of their path — we, who say 'yes’ when they demand money, and tremble when they draw us into their Bureaus for questioning, do not realize that there are poor folk in their own land, humble people, many who cannot read and write, who plough their fields as do we, and are content with their own cattle and grain. These people do not lift their chins when they look at us, but treat us with respect, like our own kind. In his own country the Christian is a bull without horns, but when he comes to live among us he grows long hair about his shoulders and takes on the stature of a wild ox.”
― Carleton S. Coon, The Riffian

“If a gun embodies everything that's wrong with humanity, the internet is a festering mirror that shows us what happens when humanity has been completely lost.”
― Gabino Iglesias, The Devil Takes You Home

“The Tentacled Maws by Stewart Stafford

Unhook the mind,
Put honesty in dispute,
From chosen blood,
Comes officious brute.

Tentacled things taking,
Malicious, maladroit maws,
In a hubris blizzard blind,
Behind lupine power doors.

Irradiated golden pockets,
Ragged wretches starving,
Dynasties sprouting weeds,
Names on plaques for carving.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“The gleam of plastic blinds human essence, coating everyone with a varnish of superficiality.”
― Paulo Ricardo Zargolin

“Diplomacy is the smile on the face of the person holding you back as they force you to watch their conquest of those they look down on, in silence.”
― Lawrence Nault - The Mountain Hermit

“The soul of this country lives in the gap-toothed smiles of gas station cashiers, the matted fur of small-town dogs, the buzzing of neon signs in small dives where a layer of dust covers every surface, the shattered spirit of drive-through employees in nowhere towns, the weird smells and carpet stains in cheap motels where the windows look out at empty parking lots.”
― Gabino Iglesias, The Devil Takes You Home

“Ignorance is dangerous, but knowing takes time and effort, and that's something many of us don't have.”
― Gabino Iglesias, The Devil Takes You Home

“She harbored a disdain for the mainstream without disdaining the people who took part in it.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“I see people. But I don’t see humanity.”
― Phoenix Moon, Emotional Roller Coaster: Confessions of a soul reborn from the ashes

“There are no rights etched into the fabric of the universe—only permissions carved from the will of the few in power. What we call ‘human rights’ are often fleeting moments made fragile by the weight of a stronger, more potent force. This is the brutal calculus of the world: freedom exists only where strength allows it, and truth is often the wall we have to face, it’s often the one that ultimately divides us.”
― Jason Daniel Chaplin