Quotes by Journalists - Page 50

...I see myself at crossroads in my life, mapless, lacking bits of knowledge - then, the Moon breaks through, lights up the path before me...
John Geddes
Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
H.L. Mencken
The reason people are so moved by art and why artists tend to take it all so seriously is that if they are real and true they come to the painting with everything they know and feel and live, and all the things they don't know, and some of the things they hope, and they are honest about them all and put them on the canvas. What can be more serious?
Peter Heller
He never asked me what I thought, and I never told him what I thought, because in my view that's the way a journalist ought to behave. You ought not to be going around to people volunteering your feelings. That's daily journalism.
Janet Malcolm
Alcohol has its own well-know defects as a medication for depression but no one has ever suggested - ask any doctor - that it is not the most effective anti-anxiety agent yet known.
Joan Didion
...across the snowy field the barn light gleams - it's the loneliness of November twilight...
John Geddes
Fear always reaches a breaking point and turns into anxiety or rage, and I don't have enough storage space for more fear in my life. Namely when it involves people I've never even met.
Scaachi Koul
Nothing is harder on the nerves than hope.
Forrest Carr
It had never occurred to him until then to think that literature was the best plaything that had ever been invented to make fun of people...
Gabriel García Márquez
There comes a time in a man's life, if he is unlucky and leads a full life, when he has a secret so dirty that he knows he never will get rid of it. (Shakespeare knew this and tried to say it, but he said it just as badly as anyone ever said it. 'All the perfumes of Arabia' makes you think of all the perfumes of Arabia and nothing more. It is the trouble with all metaphors where human behavior is concerned. People are not ships, chess men, flowers, race horses, oil paintings, bottles of champagne, excrement, musical instruments or anything else but people. Metaphors are all right to give you an idea.)
John O'Hara
We recognised that the youth demographic needed to be pursued, preferably with dogs.
Marcus Berkmann
Great revelations of nature, of course, never fail to impress in one way or another, and I was no stranger to moods of the kind. Mountains overawe and oceans terrify, while the mystery of great forests exercises a spell peculiarly its own. But all these, at one point or another, somewhere link on intimately with human life and human experience. They stir comprehensible, even if alarming, emotions. They tend on the whole to exalt.
Algernon Blackwood
Into every sunny life a little rain must fall.
Elizabeth Wurtzel
Here lies the challenge in finding good salespeople. You need excellent empathizers who aren't so empathetic they can't close a sale. And you need people with strong ego needs who can still take a moment to figure out what another person wants. They must be aggressive enough to close, but not so aggressive they put people off. Too much empathy and you'll be a nice guy finishing last. Too much ego drive and you'll be scorching earth everywhere you go. Not enough of either and you shouldn't be in sales at all. It's a miracle anyone can do this job.
Philip Delves Broughton
If you run, you better be faster than my gun. -Weasel to illegal aliens
Ray Palla
A friend once told me that the real message Bram Stoker sought to convey in 'Dracula' is that a human being needs to live hundreds and hundreds of years to get all his reading done; that Count Dracula, basically nothing more than a misunderstood bookworm, was draining blood from the necks of 10,000 hapless virgins not because he was the apotheosis of pure evil but because it was the only way he could live long enough to polish off his extensive reading list. But I have no way of knowing if this is true, as I have not yet found time to read 'Dracula.
Joe Queenan
After all, hope is a form of planning.
Gloria Steinem
I'm annoyed by those who love mankind but are discourteous to people.
John Howard Griffin
Part of living in a free society is accepting that no idea is beyond being challenged or ridiculed, and that nothing is more stifling to free expression than being afraid to upset or offend.
Jamie Bartlett
...freedom of conscience does not mean being uncontrolled - we have to control ourselves and at times submit to others...
John Geddes
No one can claim their particular vision of the divine as correct, if there are thousands of other 'visions' with which to compare it. And anyone who does try to claim the spotlight? Even a few decades ago, they could have started a cult. These days, they'll just get trolled online, then ignored.
Steven Kotler
Steve's sales pitch on the NeXT operating system was dazzling," according to Amelio. " He praised the virtues and strengths as though he were describing a performance of Oliver as Macbeth.
Walter Isaacson
The owner of the Agut d'Avignon had the air of a 1920s dandy who had ruined himself with one mad night of gambling at baccarat and had only been saved by this restaurant, which he seemed to cherish as if it were his wife or a good fountain pen.
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
You are educated. Yourcertification is in yourdegree. You may think ofit as the ticket to the goodlife. Let me ask you to think of analternative. Think of it as yourticket to change the world.
Tom Brokaw
Your children are going through life with their eyes closed, so YOU'RE the one who has to steer.
Jennifer Senior
She wasted and grew so thin that she no longer was a little girl, but the shadow of a little girl. The flame of her life flickered so faintly that it appeared sufficient to blow at it to extinguish it. Stas understood that death did not have to wait for a third attack to take her and he expected it any day or any hour.
Henryk Sienkiewicz
The final portrait is often furthest from the truth.
Dave Cullen
The human being must always be central, not the products and objects of his skill and energy.
Bernard Wolfe
Every civilization depends on the quality of the individuals it produces. If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness-- they cannot work and their civilization collapses
Frank Herbert
Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.
Albert Camus
Don’t tell Mom, but I think my little emergency last night was a sign. And I was thinking of you when it happened. So, I’m worried that this is a prediction about you. Do you have something big planned? Something dangerous that you’re going to do?”tMike looked away. He didn’t want to lie to her but he also couldn’t tell her his plan. t“Well, whatever it is, don’t do it, okay? You’re going to get the feeling soon too. I know it,” she yawned, “It feels like it’s a long way off, but I’ve never had this strong a reaction before. And now that I’m stuck in bed, I can’t help you…or stop you. So please, whatever you’re doing, let it go, okay? Especially if it’s about the shop. Just let me handle it.”t“I’ll be careful,” he said. t“Huh?” she yawned again. tHe didn’t answer. Her eyelids grew heavy until they closed all the way. Mike lifted the sheet that was turned down from the bed and draped it over her. Then, he left the room, closing the door behind him. - Saving Hascal's Horrors
Laura Smith
The problem with battling yourself is that even if you win, you lose.
Caitlin Moran
I'm done doing this!' Obama said, finally erupting. 'We've all agreed on a plan. And we're all going to stick to that plan. I haven't agreed to anything beyond that.'The 30,000 was a 'hard cap,' he said forcefully. 'I don't want enablers to be used as wiggle room. The easy thing for me to do - politically - would actually be to say no' to the 30,000. Then he gestured out the Oval Office windows, across the Potomac, in the direction of the Pentagon. Referring to Gates and the uniformed military, he said. 'They think it's the opposite. I'd be perfectly happy -' He stopped mid-sentence. 'Nothing would make Rahm happier than if I said no to the 30,000.'There was some subdued laughter.'Rahm would tell me it'd be much easier to do what I want to do by saying no,' the president said. He could then focus on the domestic agenda that he wanted to be the heart of his presidency. The military did not understand. 'Politically, what these guys don't get is it'd be a lot easier for me to go out and give a speech saying, 'You know what? The American people are sick of this war, and we're going to get out of there.
Bob Woodward
Most of the tools from medieval times were extensions of the physical self. Tools are now extensions of the mental self.
Lotoya Peterson
Are there any two words in all of the English language more closely twinned than courage and cowardice? I do not think there is a man alive who will not yearn to possess the former and dread to be accused of the latter. One is held to be the apogee of man's character, the other its nadir. An yet, to me the two sit side by side on the circle of life, removed from each other by the merest degree of arc. (MARCH - Chapter 11 - page 168)
Geraldine Brooks
We are all living history, and it’s hard to say now what will be important in the future. One thing’s certain, though: if we throw it away, it’s gone.
Marilyn Johnson
re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.[From the preface to Leaves Grass]
Walt Whitman
Join the mob or go for what you want. Give yourself plenty of quiet time alone in order to get in touch with who you are...Focus power of thought. Remind yourself that the world is yours for the asking. The non-risker does not grow, you just get older. When you have decided which ideas, beliefs, relationships, and situations no longer work for you, it is time to release them. Let go of negative thoughts - view them as a flight of birds crossing your path. See them fly into view and continue on their way.' - from Joan Root's diary
Mark Seal
A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain while witty sayings are as easily lost as the pearls slipping from a broken string.
George Prentice
Golf: A plague invented by the Calvinistic Scots as a punishment for man's sins.
James Barrett Reston
Do you think the occasional witch burning helps to weld society together?
Charlie Jane Anders
Brooke was always my summer. She’ll always be my summer. And I had already made my choice a long time ago. Loving Brooke was what I was made to do.
Laura Miller
Hallucinations are bad enough. But after awhile you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing. But nobody can handle that other trip-the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs.
Hunter S. Thompson
…the universe…sets out little signposts for us along the way, to confirm that we’re on the right path.” (p.XV)
Michelle Maisto
The MistakeWith the mistake your life goes in reverse.Now you can see exactly what you didWrong yesterday and wrong the day beforeAnd each mistake leads back to something worseAnd every nuance of your hypocrisyTowards yourself, and every excuseStands solidly on the perspective linesAnd there is perfect visibility.What an enlightenment. The colonnadeRolls past on either side. You needn't move.The statues of your errors brush your sleeve.You watch the tale turn back — and you're dismayed.And this dismay at this, this big mistakeIs made worse by the sight of all those whoKnew all along where these mistakes would lead — Those frozen friends who watched the crisis
James Fenton
Hitler was calling upon Almighty God to give him courage and strength to save the German people and right the wrongs of Versailles...and then to settle down and govern the county in the interest of those millions of oppressed "little people" for whom he spoke so eloquently.
Upton Sinclair
We have such a brief opportunity to pass on to our children our love for this Earth, and to tell our stories. These are the moments when the world is made whole. In my children's memories, the adventures we've had together in nature will always exist.
Richard Louv
We'll never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth.
Gloria Steinem
The most fearsome monsters of all may inhabit the dark corners of our mind waiting for us to release them through our believes and gullibility. the phenomenon feeds on fear and believe. Sometimes it destroys us altogether other times it leads us upwards into the labyrinth of electromagnetic frequencies that form a curtain in the area we call windows and stalk us to drink our blood and create all kinds of mischievous beliefs and misconceptions in our feeble little terrestrial minds.
John A. Keel
In a world where you are constantly asked to be 'committed,' it is liberating to give yourself the license to be a dilettante. Commit to nothing. Try everything.
Tom Hodgkinson
The gene contains a single 'word', repeated over and over again: CAG, CAG, CAG, CAG ... The repetition continues sometimes just six times, sometimes thirty, sometimes more than a hundred times. Your destiny, your sanity and your life hang by the thread of this repetition. If the 'word' is repeated thirty-five times or fewer, you will be fine.Most of us have about ten to fifteen repeats. If the 'word' is repeated thirty-nine times or more, you will in mid-life slowly start to lose your balance, grow steadily more incapable of looking after yourself and die prematurely.
Matt Ridley
Wherever there is a human being I see God-given rights inherent in that being whatever may be the sex or complexion.
William Lloyd Garrison
In all these assaults on the senses there is a great wisdom — not only about the addictiveness of pleasures but about their ephemerality. The essence of addiction, after all, is that pleasure tends to desperate and leave the mind agitated, hungry for more. The idea that just one more dollar, one more dalliance, one more rung on the ladder will leave us feeling sated reflects a misunderstanding about human nature — a misunderstanding, moreover, that is built into human nature; we are designed to feel that the next great goal will bring bliss, and the bliss is designed to evaporate shortly after we get there. Natural selection has a malicious sense of humor; it leads us along with a series of promises and then keeps saying ‘Just kidding.’ As the Bible puts it, ‘All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.’ Remarkably, we go our whole lives without ever really catching on.The advice of the sages — that we refuse to play this game — is nothing less than an incitement to mutiny, to rebel against our creator. Sensual pleasures are the whip natural selection uses to control us to keep us in the thrall of its warped value system. To cultivate some indifference to them is one plausible route to liberation. While few of us can claim to have traveled far on this route, the proliferation of this scriptural advice suggests it has been followed some distance with some success.
Robert Wright
Darwin called such a process artificial, as opposed to natural, selection, but from the flower’s point of view, this is a distinction without a difference: individual plants in which a trait desired by either bees or Turks occurred wound up with more offspring.
Michael Pollan
Human intellectual progress, such as it has been, results from our long struggle to see things 'as they are,' or in the most universally comprehensible way, and not as projections of our own emotions. Thunder is not a tantrum in the sky, disease is not a divine punishment, and not every death or accident results from witchcraft. What we call the Enlightenment and hold on to only tenuously, by our fingernails, is the slow-dawning understanding that the world is unfolding according to its own inner algorithms of cause and effect, probability and chance, without any regard for human feelings.
Barbara Ehrenreich
Death always leaves one singer to mourn.
Katherine Anne Porter
What a writer has to do is write what hasn't been written before or beat dead men at what they have done.
Ernest Hemingway
Take a bunch of teenage boys from the whitest, safest suburb in America and plunk them down in a place where their friends are murdered and they are constantly attacked and threatened, "writes Leovy in Ghettoside. "Signal that no one cares, and fail to solve murders. Limit their options for escape. Then see what happens.
Gary Younge
America is so rich and fat, because it has eaten the tragedy of millions of immigrants.
Michael Gold
You know very well that I no longer think. I am far too intelligent for that.
Albert Camus