American Journalist Quotes

Popular journalists resort to the name Nixon to galvanize feelings that remain at rest even when the name Stalin is mentioned.

Commercials on television are similar to sex and taxes; the more talk there is about them, the less likely they are to be curbed.

The dearest days in one's life are those that seem very far and very near at once.

George W. Bush will surely deserve that woolliest of all peace prizes, the Nobel.

Many of the Huichols and North American peyotists claim that when one eats peyote, one is "tasting oneself: if the user is pure, this cactus is "sweet." Barbara Myerhoff, accompanying the Huichols during their 1965 and 1966 hunts, recorded that they urge new participants to "Chew it well. It is sweet, like tortillas.

The country of the aged is a land few people think very hard and seriously about before the time of life when they sense that they're arriving there. Somehow, throughout much of life, being old seems to be something that happens to other people.

If you want to get people to believe something really, really stupid, just stick a number on it.

One of the problems with NPR is that there is so much political correctness that if you've got a name that looks like it was made up by Rudyard Kipling, you've got a better chance of getting hired. I'm a white guy named Tony Snow, for heaven's sake. That's as white as it goes.

Enron was becoming a virtual cult of creativity, often placing swagger over substance. New ideas were celebrated for their newness, for their potential; tried and true businesses like the pipelines were almost derided.

Kurt Eichenwald

They were talking about a certain hangout and Johnny said, "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

John McNulty (journalist)

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.

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.

All you ever want to do is remind me that I am black. But goddamn it, I also am.

John A. Williams

Despite the array of groups and organizations working on global warming, we are still missing a key element: the movement. Along with the hard work of not-for-profit lobbyists, environmental lawyers, green economists, sustainability-minded engineers, and forward-thinking entrepreneurs, it's going to take the inspired political involvement of millions of Americans to get our country on track to solving this problem.

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

In religious matters it is now fashionable to define tolerance as the absence of criticism of any standard religion. All too often, this absence of criticism degenerates into a conspicuous absence of thought.

Sometimes I watch myself fly. For in the history of human flight it is not yet so very late; and a man may still wonder once in a while and ask: how is it that I, poor earth-habitituated animal, can fly?

Wolfgang Langewiesche

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.

I do not know how Vladimir Putin will be esteemed by the future history, but I have no doubt that among his successes and advantages for Russia historians shall absolutely note the fact of his not altering the constitution, for he created a precedent. And afterwards, no matter who might become president, it shall be extremely difficult to alter the constitution exactly on that point. Extremely difficult.

Vladimir Posner

If your subject is an actor, he or she will also be shorter in person than they appear onscreen. This, also, you must keep to yourself. Even if you think you are giving their lack of height a positive spin, you aren't. 'You always seem larger than life in photos, but it's nice to see that in person you're just like us' might seem like a compliment, but what a star hears is 'You're stumpy, and you will lose jobs to taller people.

In the mud of the Cambrian main Did our earliest ancestor dive: From a shapeless albuminous grain We mortals our being derive. He could split himself up into five, Or roll himself round like a ball; For the fittest will always survive, While the weakliest go to the wall.

Everything in the world starts small and then becomes bigger—except bad things. They start big, and then get smaller.

Warren St. John

Retrospective analysis is not a useful guide to current problems.

The Kingdom of God is plainly that state of temporal affairs which, by a proper distribution of labor, enables the entire human family to cultivate their best faculties. The Kingdom of God commences in this world, will progress in the next, and in all other worlds.

They ain't no feelin' in the world like takin' on somebody wilted and near bout gone, and you do what you can, and then all a-sudden the pore thang starts to put out new growth and git well.

Olive Ann Burns