American Journalist Quotes

We tend to tell strangers what we think will make us sound good. I myself, to my utter amazement, informed a telephone pollster that I exercised regularly, a bare-faced lie.

It is so good to have friends who understand how there is a time for crying and a time for laughing, and that sometimes the two are very close together.

Man is messy, but any creature that can create space vehicles can probably cope.

[On Senator Jesse Helms] I think he ought to be worried about what's going on in the Good Lord's mind, because if there is retributive justice, he'll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will.

Prejudice, the floating wreckage of chattel slavery, rises ever to the surface of the turbulent waters of a Nation's life, obstructing each best attempt toward a safe course to its highest citizenship.

Olivia Ward Bush-Banks

Resilience is a precious skill. People who have it tend to also have three underlying advantages: a believe that they can influence life events; a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life's turmoil; and a conviction that they can learn from both positive and negative experiences.

And it's California, where everything is powerfully strange. Everyone wants it to be home. Everyone left where he or she was from with dreams of transformation. Everyone runs away to California at least once, or at least all the lonely, hungry people do.

Marya Hornbacher

Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.

David S. Broder

Human urine is both nutrient-rich and an effective tooth whitener

Christopher McDougall

And have the courage to accept that you're not perfect, nothing is, and no one is — and that's OK.

Homicide is the major leagues, the center ring, the show. It always has been... It goes beyond academic degrees, specialized training or book learning, because all the theory in the world means nothing if you can't read the street.

Don't correct me, you don't have any rights over me." "What kind of life is this? So I sit at home, entirely dependent on this man, and then it turns out his heart was never with me. How is it possible to force someone to love me?

Here we have drug that is not like opium. Opium has all of the good of Dr. Jekyll and all the evil of Mr. Hyde. This drug is entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effect of which cannot be measured. Some people will fly into a delirious rage, and they are temporarily irresponsible and may commit violent crimes. Other people will laugh uncontrollably. It is impossible to say what the effect will be on any individual. Those research men who have tried it have always been under control. They have always insisted upon that. … It is dangerous to the mind and body, and particularly dangerous to the criminal type, because it releases all of the inhibitions.

Harry J. Anslinger

The ideal citizen of a tyrannical state is the man or woman who bows in silent obedience in exchange for the status of a well-cared-for herd animal. Thinking people become the tyrants worst enemies.

Besides, I'd heard too many Karen Carpenter tales at Gladstone PTA meetings, and they often took the form of boasts. The prestigious diagnosis of anorexia seemed much coveted not only by the students but by their mothers, who would compete over whose daughter ate less. No wonder the poor girls were a mess.

Being in business is not about making money. It is a way to become who you are.

The White House and the media need one another in order to be successful in their jobs. The White House depends on the media to make its case to the public; the media need the White House to fill their airtime and news columns.

One's visual language is not something that manifests overnight. It develops organically over a life-time. The shifts can be so subtle as to be virtually imperceptible and, at times, will come to fruition so rapidly, and with such force, that the profundity is all-consuming. That is life's work.

The old ploy of the powerful: never refuse when you can confuse. Distraction and delay are always better than obstruction.

Maidens! why should you worry in choosing whom you shall marry? Choose whom you may, you will find you have got somebody else.

The emergence of intelligence, I am convinced, tends to unbalance the ecology. In other words intelligence is the great polluter. It is not until a creature begins to manage its environment that nature is thrown into disorder.

Clifford D. Simak

You cannot define talent. All you can do is build the greenhouse and see if it grows.

William P. Steven

And though I have done many shameful things, I am not ashamed of who I am. I am not ashamed of who I am because I know who I am. I have tried to rip myself open and expose everything inside - accepting my weaknesses and strengths - not trying to be anyone else. 'Cause that never works, does it?So my challenge is to be authentic. An I believe I am today. I believe I am.

For the ordinary man, whose mind is a checkerboard of criss-crossing reflections, opinions, and prejudices, bare attention is virtually impossible.

A wise woman once said to me that there are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these she said is roots, the other, wings.