Quotes by Journalists - Page 133

Life in this form is one-time chance, death is the inevitable consequence for anyone who is born. The record of one’s death is the primary respect one could render to the lost one. Tears of all relatives of missing people are indeed flowing due to this invaluable action by the authority.
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
But I was beginning to intuit that full-blown maturity was not so very different from childhood. Both states in their extreme were all about following the rules.
Lionel Shriver
One of humankind's most enduring misconceptions is that of nature's bounty... the belief that nature is such a powerful force that it is indestructible.
Mark Kurlansky
Pray v: to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
Ambrose Bierce
When Frey asked students to draw the creation, the other kids drew animals and Adam and Eve. Caroline covered her paper in black crayon, then held it up to reveal she had punched out holes for the stars and the moon. 'And then there was light', she said…
Christopher Andersen
Faith is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other animals. It's our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. ... Out of all the virtues, all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated
Christopher Hitchens
But something he'd come to realize on the roof, leaning out, thinking about what would happen if he leaned too far, was that a boy's life could still matter to himself.
Katherine Boo
When it's your time you will walk right into your blessing.
Germany Kent
Guilt isn't in cat vocabulary. They never suffer remorse for eating too much, sleeping too long or hogging the warmest cushion in the house. They welcome every pleasurable moment as it unravels and savour it to the full until a butterfly or falling leaf diverts their attention. They don't waste energy counting the number of calories they've consumed or the hours they've frittered away sunbathing.Cats don't beat themselves up about not working hard enough. They don't get up and go, they sit down and stay. For them, lethargy is an art form. From their vantage points on top of fences and window ledges, they see the treadmills of human obligations for what they are - a meaningless waste of nap time.
Helen Brown
I got hold of a copy of the video that showed how Saddam Hussein had actually confirmed himself in power. This snuff-movie opens with a plenary session of the Ba'ath Party central committee: perhaps a hundred men. Suddenly the doors are locked and Saddam, in the chair, announces a special session. Into the room is dragged an obviously broken man, who begins to emit a robotic confession of treason and subversion, that he sobs has been instigated by Syrian and other agents. As the (literally) extorted confession unfolds, names begin to be named. Once a fellow-conspirator is identified, guards come to his seat and haul him from the room. The reclining Saddam, meanwhile, lights a large cigar and contentedly scans his dossiers. The sickness of fear in the room is such that men begin to crack up and weep, rising to their feet to shout hysterical praise, even love, for the leader. Inexorably, though, the cull continues, and faces and bodies go slack as their owners are pinioned and led away. When it is over, about half the committee members are left, moaning with relief and heaving with ardent love for the boss. (In an accompanying sequel, which I have not seen, they were apparently required to go into the yard outside and shoot the other half, thus sealing the pact with Saddam. I am not sure that even Beria or Himmler would have had the nerve and ingenuity and cruelty to come up with that.)
Christopher Hitchens
We are looking to brands for poetry and for spirituality, because we're not getting those things from our communities or from each other. When Nike says, just do it, that's a message of empowerment. Why aren't the rest of us speaking to young people in a voice of inspiration?
Naomi Klein
The usual fiction – that the war would involve precision targeting and the careful avoidance of civilian deaths – was stated by Tony Blair at the beginning of the war. After similar bombing campaigns against Yugoslavia and Iraq, Blair was by now acting as virtual White House spokesperson, providing the pretence of an 'international coalition' in what was clearly a US war. This role was more important than Britain's military contribution, which in the early days of the bombing campaign was token and probably of no military value. The British army did later prove useful, however, when it was...
Mark Curtis
The hours were long, but the days were short, and as much as I willed it to never come, the end of summer arrived anyway.
Chelsey Philpot
Young women today feel vulnerable to judgment; if a harsh sentence is passed (or even suspected or projected), it is not her reputation that suffers so much as the stability of her moral universe. They did not have long to explore the sexual revolution and make it their own. Before the old chains had grown cold, while young women were still rubbing the circulation back into their ankles and taking tentative steps forward, the beauty industries levied a heavy toll on further investigations, and beauty pornography offered them designer bondage.
Naomi Wolf
Before the Apocalypse, the closest I'd gotten to death was buying steaks at the supermarket.
Manel Loureiro
There is a common tendency to turn off one's imagination at certain points and refuse to contemplate the possibility of having to do certain things and cope with the attendant moral problems. The things simply get done by the social machine, and one can keep one's clear conscience and one's moral indignation unsullied.
John Fraser
History looks queer when you're standing close to it, watching where it is coming from and how it's being made.
Janet Flanner
You got to face your evil, Hoodoo," Zeke said. "If people don't face the danger that's seeking them, evil will find them first.
Ronald L. Smith
You see, you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too--even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.
Mitch Albom
The 7 Steps to Transformation:1. Dream it.2. Envision it.3. Think it.4. Grow it.5. Become it.6. Live it.7. OWN it.
Germany Kent
And - just as with winning the lottery, or becoming famous - there is no manual for becoming a woman, even though the stakes are so high. God knows, when I was 13, I tried to find one. You can read about other people's experience on the matter - by way of trying to crib, in advance, for an exam - but I found that this is, in itself, problematic. For throughout history, you can read stories of women who - against all odds - got being a woman right, but ended up being compromised, unhappy, hobbled or ruined, because all around them, society was still wrong. Show a girl a pioneering hero - Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra, Boudicca, Joan of Arc - and you also, more often than not, show a girl a woman who was eventually crushed. Your hard-won triumphs can be wholly negated if you live in a climate where your victories are seen as threatening, incorrect, distasteful, or - most crucially of all, for a teenage girl - simply uncool. Few girls would choose to be right - right, down into their clever, brilliant bones - but lonely.
Caitlin Moran
Crucial decisions are made, today as thousands of years ago, in terms of the intuitive guesses and preferences of a few men in positions of authority...[it is] quite likely that the fate of entire societies may be sealed by a series of avoidable mistakes committed by their leaders.
Michael Lewis
Silence is one of worst, most vocal enemies, yet people go through many bouts of depression not sharing what is happening. People don’t understand that, but as someone who suffers from it, I can tell you that it’s difficult to be objective about the gray. I described depression to my therapist as a misty fog that surrounds me, heavy on my shoulders, pervading everything and nothing at all. I liken depression to a bird stealing into the depths of your soul, pecking at your disposition until nothing is left. And that is when you break into pieces.
Rachel Thompson
Here the contention is not just that the new Darwinian paradigm can help us realize whichever moral values we happen to choose. The claim is that the new paradigm can actually influence — legitimately — our choice of basic values in the first place. Some Darwinians insist that such influence can never be legitimate. What they have in mind is the naturalistic fallacy, whose past violation has so tainted their line of work. But what we're doing here doesn't violate the naturalistic fallacy. Quite the opposite. By studying nature — by seeing the origins of the retributive impulse — we see how we have been conned into committing the naturalistic fallacy without knowing it; we discover that the aura of divine truth surrounding retribution is nothing more than a tool with which nature — natural selection — gets us to uncritically accept its "values." Once this revelation hits norm, we are less likely to obey this aura, and thus less likely to commit the fallacy.
Robert Wright
A cliffhanger is when ...
Buffy Andrews
I believe that Marrakech ought to be earned as a destination. The journey is the preparation for the experience. Reaching it too fast derides it, makes it a little less easy to understand.
Tahir Shah
Women have become trained to be lone soldiers online, knowing that to send up a signal flare for help is more likely to attract enemies than allies.
Violet Blue
I understood that to live is to be free ... that to have friends is necessary ... that to fight is to stay alive ... that to be happy you just need to want ... I learned that time heals ... that the grudge disappears ... that disappointment does not kill ... that today is a reflection of yesterday. I understood that we can cry without shedding tears ... that true friends remain ... what a pain strengthens ... what to win magnifies... I learned that dreaming is not fantasize ... that to smile you have to make someone smile ... that beauty is not what we see, but what we feel ... that the value is in the strength of achievement ... I realized that words have power ... that to accomplish is better than to talk ... that the look does not lie ... that living is learning from mistakes ... I learned that everything depends on the will ... that the best is to be ourselves ... that the SECRET of life is LIVE! ""And one of the things I learned is that one should live though. Although, one must eat. Although, we must love. Although, it must die. Even it is often the very although that pushes us forward. It was the despite of that gave me an anguish that unsatisfied was breeder my own life.
Pedro Bial
Becoming me was the greatest creative project of my life.
Lev Grossman
We’re all free agents in this noncoercive class system, and Brooks eventually concludes that worrying about the problems faced by workers is yet another deluded affectation of the blue-state rich.
Thomas Frank
A critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote.
Mignon McLaughlin
The ideal social state is not that in which each gets an equal amount of wealth but in which each gets in proportion to his contribution to the general stock.
Henry George
Advice to my younger self:1 Start where you are with what you have2 Try not to hurt other people3 Take more chances4 If you fail, keep trying
Germany Kent
George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America's peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the 'lesser evil.' This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, 'lesser evil' is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today's Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President Clinton's bombing of Sudan to Madeleine Albright's veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism—the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it—is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than 'cowboy' language.
Christopher Hitchens
Crying was an acceptable outlet, even if it made you feel raw and empty inside, it was still better than that build up of resentment that grew from not letting your emotions out.- My Bestfriend's Girl -
Dorothy Koomson
They sit beside each other on one of the sofas, Warwick leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, Joanne resting back with her arms behind her head. Never known as advocates of establishmentarianism, they have been applauded, ridiculed, and misunderstood by the media, and, in particular, criticized for their avarice. They have agreed to do this interview without "cabbage" (payment), but generally charge ten to twenty thousand dollars for the privilege. Even so, why should they be castigated for exploiting a medium that has exploited them? They see the situation simply enough: quid pro quo, and hold the mustard.
Antonella Gambotto-Burke
You know what I'm sick of? Using my brain. All day long it's people and words and stress and meetings and books that you don't remember you're not really into until you open them on the train home and compromise and sometimes I just want to look at a picture of a dress. Followed by a picture of some cupcakes. And then a kitten.
Robyn Wilder
Happiness to a dog is what lies on the other side of the door.
Charlton Ogburn
I think it takes some terrible or great event to fuse two people together without inhibition. Without heat or shock, it can't be done. I believe that's why sexual love, which needn't be, is so intensely intertwined with sin.
Mark Helprin
I don't understand, then, why, in the midst of all this, pregnant women - women trying to make rational decisions about their futures and, usually, that of their families, too - should be subject to more pressure about preserving life than, say, Vladimir Putin, the World Bank, or the Catholic Church.
Caitlin Moran
I am a Saturn who dreams of being a Mercury, and everything I write reflects these two impulses.
Italo Calvino
Those of us who write and study history are accustomed to its approximations and ambiguities. This is why we do not take literally the tenth-hand reports of frightened and illiterate peasants who claim to have seen miracles or to have had encounters with messiahs and prophets and redeemers who were, like them, mere humans. And this is also why we will never submit to dictation from those who display a fanatical belief in certainty and revelation.
Christopher Hitchens
The government cannot love you, and any politics that works on a different assumption is destined for no good.
Jonah Goldberg
But the culture-vultures and the intellectual snobs, and the self-appointed guardians of the Muses, often frighten off the average person from the free development of this appetite.
Sydney J. Harris
...you can use words if you wish, but I'm warning you - I've learned how to read your heart ...
John Geddes
Christianity . . . sees the necessity for man to have spiritual values and it shows him how to get at those through physical sacraments.
Malcolm Muggeridge
There is no experience like having children.’ That’s all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children.
Mitch Albom
These kids are already hard. They don't need to be made harder. The issue is softening them up. They need to learn how to care about life again. They've lost that. That's what we need to give back to them.
Edward Humes
She was finally beginning to understand that her fixation on being a size ten had been another excuse to spend her life in preparation, instead of living it and taking risks and maybe getting hurt in the process.
Sarra Manning
Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood. With such a book the impact isn't necessarily obvious at first...but the more you read it and re-read it, and live with it, and travel with it, the more it speaks to you, and the more you realize that you cannot live without that book. It's then that the wisdom hidden inside, the seed, is passed on.
Tahir Shah
When you etch your moral code in stone, you have no room for editing. You leave open the possibility that, as our ethical views evolve, your code becomes less relevant. You could find yourself with four of ten divine moral laws describing how to treat God and zero that prohibit rape or slavery.
David G. McAfee
So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes to increase luxury and make sharper the contest between the House of Have and the House of Want progress is not real and cannot be permanent.
Henry George
There is no small irony here: An administration which flaunted its intellectual superiority and its superior academic credentials made the most critical of decisions with virtually no input from anyone who had any expertise on the recent history of that part of the world, and it in no way factored in the entire experience of the French Indochina War. Part of the reason for this were the upheavals of the McCarthy period, but in part it was also the arrogance of men of the Atlantic; it was as if these men did not need to know about such a distant and somewhat less worthy part of the world. Lesser parts of the world attracted lesser men; years later I came upon a story which illustrated this theory perfectly. Jack Langguth, a writer and college classmate of mine, mentioned to a member of that Administration that he was thinking of going on to study Latin American history. The man had turned to him, his contempt barely concealed, and said, “Second-rate parts of the world for second-rate minds.
David Halberstam
I tried to do it all myself: be mommy and camp counselor and art teacher and prereading specialist (and somehow, in my off-hours, to do my own work). I tried my absolute best. And like so many of the moms around me, I started to go a little crazy.
Judith Warner
Maybe all you needed in life was the belief you could change things. Somehow. Some way.
Holly Bourne
I had come to Yugoslavia to see what history meant in flesh and blood.
Rebecca West
People who have nothing much in mind for next week speak instead about the next century or millennium.
George F. Will
If you understand what makes him tick-what is magic for him- then you can understand anyone
Rene Denfeld
...as he discovered in the course of his uncountable years that a lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting than truth...
Gabriel García Márquez
...avacados, prickly pears and papayas used to be gulped down whole, seeds and all, by fridge-sized armadillos called glyptodonts.
Adam Leith Gollner