Journalist Quotes

The Devil himself had probably redesigned Hell in the light of information he had gained from observing airport layouts.

I long ago came to the conclusion that all life is 6 to 5 against.

It has long been a source of wonder to me why the leading criminological writers--men like Edmund Lester Pearson, H. B. Irving, Filson Young, Canon Brookes, William Bolitho, and Harold Eaton--have not devoted more space to the Greene tragedy; for here, surely, is one of the outstanding murder mysteries of modern times--a case practically unique in the annals of latter-day crime.

The young physician is not aware how soon his elementary knowledge — much of which is historical and descriptive, rather than philosophical — will fade from his mind, when he ceases to study. That which he possesses can only be retained by new additions.

It is costing much money here, a thing I regret. But you will get your money's worth. My legs curse you. But my heart says 'Thank you'.

Maynard Owen Williams

I gave my life for freedom—This I know:
For those who bade me fight had told me so.

William Norman Ewer

The truth is that history constantly presents new problems in the guise of old.

We've always had great letter writers, readers, great storytellers in our family. I've listened all my life to articulate people. They were all great storytellers, and every story had shape and meaning and point.

Katherine Anne Porter

If you find yourself despairing about the state of our great country, just think about how unlikely it would have seemed, back in the malaise days of 1979, that Jimmy Carter would one day return to Washington via Reagan Airport.

My four Southern food groups are bourbon, salt, bacon and pie.

Take assertiveness training, get paid what you're worth, join a consciousness raising group.

Even when Muslims do something intolerable, Europeans have to tolerate it in atonement of past colonial and imperialist misdeeds. Victimhood is an inexhaustible capital that Muslims in Europe could dig into for generations. The fact that the killers of Charlie Hebdo staff had never even visited Algeria did not deprive them of their ancestral capital of victimhood because of French colonial presence there decades before the two killers were born in Paris. Even acts that are clearly not worthy of respect, such as female genital mutilation, must be respected in the name of cultural otherness.

[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.

According to accepted newspaper clichés, we all go down fighting. The other day I even read that an 18-month-old baby had died after a long battle with cancer. That has become the mandatory phrase for all who expire, disease-ridden. They battled valiantly; they lost. When I finally depart I hope somebody will write, instead, that I died after a long battle with life.

Charles Haughey was undoubtedly a great statesman... By far the most gifted politician of his generation,
he squandered his opportunities for greatness on luxuriant rhetoric and luxurious living.

These are my words; this is their world, a world in which we can wear our gender on our sleeves, unabashedly, as we go about the business of thinking out loud.

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

At this point, is the average person boarding a plane more fearful of Al Qaeda or TSA?

Freedom of the press in Britain means freedom to print such of the proprietor's prejudices as the advertisers don't object to.

It's not a woman's task—to hate and to kill. Not for us … We had to persuade ourselves. To talk ourselves into it.

Svetlana Alexievich

Perhaps the greatest good that will emerge from this Far Eastern crisis is an awareness that freedom-loving men of all races and all nations will have proved that they can and must work and fight together if their freedom is to survive.

Being unready and ill-equipped is what you have to expect in life. It is the universal predicament. It is your lot as a human being to lack what it takes. Circumstances are seldom right. You never have the capacities, the strength, the wisdom, the virtue you ought to have. You must always do with less than you need in a situation vastly different from what you would have chosen as appropriate for your special endowments.

Charlton Ogburn

What makes the goal of accuracy so vexing for chatbots is that they operate probabilistically when choosing the next word in a sentence; they aren't trying to find the light of truth in a murky world.

One is always seeking the touchstone that will dissolve one's deficiencies as a person and as a craftsman. And one is always bumping up against the fact that there is none except hard work, concentration, and continued application.

The truth is, the notion that gay marriage is harmful to marriage, is sort of mind-boggling, because these are people trying to get married. But it seems to me, if you want to defend marriage against something, defend it against divorce.